The UK's decision to leave the EU has necessitated a wholesale rethink of UK immigration policy with the ending of free movement of workers. The motivations for this work then were to examine the immigration/worker protection boundary from a number of perspectives, with particular emphasis on the legal dimension. While understanding the developing EU and domestic (macro) perspective our aims at a micro level were to understand the legal problems EU citizens in low paid work in the UK were facing and how they resolve those problems. These legal problems were at times exacerbated by Brexit, particularly with the advent of the new digital EUSS (EU Settlement Scheme)- our research followed this in real time and recorded issues. One of our key findings and covered by the book published as a result of the dataset here is that of Pragmatic Law and the role of everyday community advice in the wider legal advice eco-system. This is an element of legal advice which to date had been little researched. Another key outcome was the contribution to literature on both EU free movement and citizenship studies, particularly in the context of vulnerable EU citizens.Our aim was to chart the experience and perceptions of EU migrants in the UK before, during and after Brexit to enable us to analyse the experience of EU migrants in seeking access to the social welfare system in the UK, the issues they have with immigration law and employment law, specifically the relationship between race and nationality discrimination and the Brexit process. We will seek to collect robust empirical evidence to establish whether the fact of Brexit, together with the policy changes, media pronouncements and political rhetoric, have an impact on both the experience of, and perceptions surrounding, the experience of EU migrants.

This data collection consists of qualitative data, specifically interviews and focus groups. The data is place based: in a small town in the East of England called Great Yarmouth. Interviews were undertaken with EU citizens who had moved to the UK to work in low paid work- particularly in poultry factories. Interviews were semi structured to allow for conversations to flow organically. The data includes qualitative interviews with people (professionals) working in Great Yarmouth- particularly those providing frontline services such as health, debt advice, housing advice etc. It includes a mixture of transcripts or notes recorded. The accompanying excel file notes the date and the location where the interview/ focus group took place. Every effort has been made to anonymise the data. A snowball technique was used to recruit participants to interview, as well as in some instances a targeted approach to approaching relevant service providers we wanted to include e.g. health, housing etc. The data also includes focus groups undertaken with EU citizens living in the UK. Again every effort has been made to anonymise the data. Some focus groups were occupation based- for example only those working in poultry factories and some were nationality based for example Portuguese citizens only. All participants for focus groups were recruited by an advice agency working in Great Yarmouth which we were working with on this research. The data includes interviews with residents and the landlord of an HMO (house of multiple occupation) in Great Yarmouth. Again, every effort has been made to anonymise the participants and the location of the house. Participants were chosen based on their residency in the house. This was to help us understand housing conditions/ the private rent sector for migrant workers in the town.