The darker side of the internal market ideal: EU Migrant Workers Living in a Coastal Town

The free movement of people is one of the cornerstones of the internal market, allowing any EU citizen to live and work in another Member State (MS). Much research has been done on intra-Member State migration to metropolitan cities, research which highlights the benefits of free movement. What is less understood is the impact of free movement on small, regional locations which previously experienced little to no inward migration. Our research aims to start filling that gap. It examines the experiences of EU migrant workers who moved to the UK (pre-Brexit) exercising their EU freedom of movement rights. In particular, it looks at EU migrant workers working in low-wage, low-skilled employment in the coastal town of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, in the East of England. We look specifically at the problems EU migrant workers experience in and around housing, an issue which had already been identified by the Member States in the 1950s as a potential flashpoint. Housing has always been a sensitive issue for receiving states, as well as for locals and for migrants. We wish to argue that the requirement of equal treatment, the key right under EU law, means little in practice for the day-to-dayexperience of migrant workers yet it creates tensions within the local community.