Im mystified by utopian thinkers who reckon it’s a good idea, as it doesn’t bear up to even thirty seconds thought.
Let’s say we go for it, and in the next six months 500,000 people rock up.
You’d have to change the NHS to a different system, probably insurance based, as no country could afford free at the point of use healthcare for that number of incomers who’ve made little to no contribution. You’d have a large number of people who wouldn’t qualify for any state support as you’d have to restrict welfare payments. A large number of those people would not have the skills or qualifications to do anything except the most low paid jobs, if they could even get them as the competition would be fierce, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. There is not enough housing, let alone affordable housing, for that number of people.
What you’d very quickly develop is a deeply impoverished, even destitute, underclass living precariously in and around major cities. Bristol, for instance, already has a problem with people living on the street in dilapidated caravans, a recent eviction of which showed that many were undocumented migrants working in the black economy or in incredibly low paid work such as food delivery.
Then there’s the benefits unrestricted movement would bring to organised crime- people trafficking would be incredibly easy, as would modern slavery, and evading the law by simply moving countries.
You can’t make the claim that they’d work and pay tax as a great many would be in such low paid work that the tax intake from them wouldn’t cover costs, if enough work even existed, and the bureaucracy needed to deal with it would be enormous.
We’d quickly have levels of human misery unseen in the UK since the 19th century.
Open borders is pie in the sky thinking for cranks with no concept of unintended consequences.