June 23, 2023 - 10:00am
Exactly seven years ago today, time stopped: when the Brexit vote came in, heartbroken British liberals and exultant Brexiteers both preserved for their warring purposes an image of the European Union forever frozen in time on an eternal 23rd June 2016. But history moves on, and eventually even the British comment class notices. As a perceptive recent Telegraph piece noted, the political polarities attached to Britain’s relationship with the EU are almost certain to shift, as European leaders become increasingly receptive to their voters’ demands to radically limit immigration, and British liberals become more deeply enmeshed in the utopian dreams of American liberalism.
We can already see the first stirrings of the new politics in the Guardian’s burgeoning critique of British complicity in the border management regimes of EU member states. Eventually the rest of the British media, still emotionally attached to a mental image of Britain as a harsh immigration outlier and an EU welcoming the benighted of the world to its accommodating Merkelian bosom, will follow suit. A recent Politico piece observes that, when it comes to migration, Europe’s mainstream is drifting Rightward, as Meloni’s “far-right partners in her European Conservatives and Reformists group are gaining power as Europe tilts right more broadly”.
Making this case, Politico observes that “just days after the migration pact was struck, Meloni was in Tunisia — where Italy seeks to send rejected asylum-seekers even if they are not from there — alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a Merkel protégé, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a stalwart of Europe’s center and its Renew Europe group.” All the while, “a growing number of centrist and center-right parties are showing a willingness to work with — and even form governments with — far-right parties”.
But other conclusions could be drawn. There are few governments more insistently assertive of their centre-Right nature than that of Meloni’s FdI and her junior partner Salvini’s Lega. Rather than Europe’s centre-right mainstream being drawn into the orbit of Central European national populist governments, whose attitudes to external migration in fact often diverge sharply from their rhetoric, it is perhaps more accurate to say that centrist governments are more effectively enacting policies previously limited to Right-wing populists.
It is the “zero asylum seekers” policies of Denmark’s socialist government, after all, which French Right-wing populists aspire to emulate, while under Meloni, Italy has seen three times the number of migrant arrivals by boat than under the technocratic centrist government which preceded her. The much-discussed rise of Vox in Spain is also less a case of the centre-right ceding ground to the fringes as the radical Right seeking to subsume itself within Europe’s new centre-right order.
Rather than Europe’s centre swinging to the far-Right, it would be more accurate to say that a hardened attitude to migration is becoming increasingly depoliticised in the EU. Centrist governments are pursuing increasingly restrictive policies and Right-wing challengers are now aspiring to join, rather than overturn the newly-recalibrated centre. In this new world, sensible centrism is the new populism, and quietly reshaping EU policy replaces noisily raving against Brussels. Perhaps it took the self-ejection by Brexit of Europe’s most inherently liberal state for this new equilibrium to be reached. Yet in Europe, if not yet Britain, 2016 is already ancient history.
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SubscribeWhen the various post-war international human rights treaties were being drawn up and ratified, none of those involved would have conceived how they would be exploited and their intentions perverted as they have been in our modern times.
Referring back to the discussions at the time of the proposed human rights obligations, the concerns were with how European nations had failed the Jewish people and the necessity of providing shelter for individual political dissidents. It was an entirely Eurocentric discussion by European nations about the human rights of the people of Europe.
The idea that the rights established would be extended worldwide, and that the people of any nation afflicted by war, natural disasters, or more recently, any country that isn’t quite as nice as where the “refugees” are heading to, would have been looked upon with horror by those framing the original legislation,
Genuine refugees should be obliged to seek the nearest source of sustainable refuge. Those departing those rufuges are by definition engaged in refuge shopping. This is an entirely understadable and natural human instinct.
However, the honeypot that Europe presents to billions of people around the world should have long ago excluded any refugees from outside of Europe who have numerous other places they can find refuge.
Our human rights obligations should only apply to those seeking refuge from war, natural disaster and tyrany in other European nations. Such refugees should be obliged to seek their nearest place of refuge or accept the voluntary offers of refuge by European countries
Exactly.
In any normal country you would have discussion in MSM as why Muslims are allowed into Europe when there are dozens of Muslim countries with population of 2 billion.
They should go there.
Given your culture/religious preference how do you feel about having swopped EU, largely Westernised/Christendom, free movement for an even higher increase in non EU, non Western/non-Christendom migration as delivered to you by the Tories post 2016? Good swap? Brexit dividend?
I just see it as the contempt all political classes have for the people they are supposed to represent
As usual with you, a mere debating point. Because Brexit has been botched by a biased deep state and a spineless Tory party does not mean it was wrong in the first place. So much for that aspect of your “argument”. Second, thanks to persons of your persuasion, EU Europe is scarcely European, let alone “Christendom” – a word you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole unless it were to try and irritate someone with a po-faced, disingenuous “objection”.
I do admire the contortions you will pull to blame someone other than it’s protagonists and supporters of which you have to accept you are one as it’s leaders needed the baying, ignorant crowd behind them ready to fall for the con-job.
I also appreciate that when one begins to grasp the magnitude of how much one has been conned the first reaction is denial and deflection then anger. Self reflection on one’s role comes much later if at all.
No you don’t admire – another lie. And unlike you, I shall speak plainly: I fully despise your disingenuous evasions, which – since they are so frequent – must speak to your character. For the sake, then, of anyone fresh to this exchange, Brexit was a good, it was betrayed and botched by a spineless Tory party in hock to an increasingly hard left establishment, which is now poised to take full control via its cat’s paw, the Labour party. As for self reflection, I doubt that someone as rooted in narcissism and mendacity as you has a “self” to reflect upon. You are nothing but a succession of postures, validated by the reactions they provoke.
No you don’t admire – another lie. And unlike you, I shall speak plainly: I fully despise your disingenuous evasions, which – since they are so frequent – must speak to your character. For the sake, then, of anyone fresh to this exchange, Brexit was a good, it was betrayed and botched by a spineless Tory party in hock to an increasingly hard left establishment, which is now poised to take full control via its cat’s paw, the Labour party. As for self reflection, I doubt that someone as rooted in narcissism and mendacity as you has a “self” to reflect upon. You are nothing but a succession of postures, validated by the reactions they provoke.
I do admire the contortions you will pull to blame someone other than it’s protagonists and supporters of which you have to accept you are one as it’s leaders needed the baying, ignorant crowd behind them ready to fall for the con-job.
I also appreciate that when one begins to grasp the magnitude of how much one has been conned the first reaction is denial and deflection then anger. Self reflection on one’s role comes much later if at all.
I just see it as the contempt all political classes have for the people they are supposed to represent
As usual with you, a mere debating point. Because Brexit has been botched by a biased deep state and a spineless Tory party does not mean it was wrong in the first place. So much for that aspect of your “argument”. Second, thanks to persons of your persuasion, EU Europe is scarcely European, let alone “Christendom” – a word you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole unless it were to try and irritate someone with a po-faced, disingenuous “objection”.
Given your culture/religious preference how do you feel about having swopped EU, largely Westernised/Christendom, free movement for an even higher increase in non EU, non Western/non-Christendom migration as delivered to you by the Tories post 2016? Good swap? Brexit dividend?
Exactly.
In any normal country you would have discussion in MSM as why Muslims are allowed into Europe when there are dozens of Muslim countries with population of 2 billion.
They should go there.
When the various post-war international human rights treaties were being drawn up and ratified, none of those involved would have conceived how they would be exploited and their intentions perverted as they have been in our modern times.
Referring back to the discussions at the time of the proposed human rights obligations, the concerns were with how European nations had failed the Jewish people and the necessity of providing shelter for individual political dissidents. It was an entirely Eurocentric discussion by European nations about the human rights of the people of Europe.
The idea that the rights established would be extended worldwide, and that the people of any nation afflicted by war, natural disasters, or more recently, any country that isn’t quite as nice as where the “refugees” are heading to, would have been looked upon with horror by those framing the original legislation,
Genuine refugees should be obliged to seek the nearest source of sustainable refuge. Those departing those rufuges are by definition engaged in refuge shopping. This is an entirely understadable and natural human instinct.
However, the honeypot that Europe presents to billions of people around the world should have long ago excluded any refugees from outside of Europe who have numerous other places they can find refuge.
Our human rights obligations should only apply to those seeking refuge from war, natural disaster and tyrany in other European nations. Such refugees should be obliged to seek their nearest place of refuge or accept the voluntary offers of refuge by European countries
As I’ve noted in other comments, France is actively repatriating small boat illegal immigrants from the Comoros Islands who reach Mayotte (an Indian Ocean island which is part of metropolitan France). Mayotte, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane (yes, that’s basically an entire country in South America) are actually part of the EU.
Curious how France has been getting a “free pass” about this, n’est-ce pas ? And how they feel able to repatriate small boats back whence they came, but would not allow us to do the same.
Good for the French! Why on Earth should they welcome asylum seekers any more than the UK does?
Please, let’s stop the displacement activity of blaming the French for the incompetence and weakness of British governments on this issue! It is truly pathetic.
Nice try. But the fact that the UK government isn’t up to the job doesn’t absolve the French of their responsibilities here.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall the French asking us to send the illegal small boat migrants back to France (a safe country). Yet that is what they are asking the Comoros Islands to do. In fact, the evidence is that they’re doing quite a lot to dump their responsibilities for these people onto us.
Nice try. But the fact that the UK government isn’t up to the job doesn’t absolve the French of their responsibilities here.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall the French asking us to send the illegal small boat migrants back to France (a safe country). Yet that is what they are asking the Comoros Islands to do. In fact, the evidence is that they’re doing quite a lot to dump their responsibilities for these people onto us.
How are the French stopping us doing what we want to do now on repat’ing illegal migrants?
Is this yet another Brexit blame deflection?
Small boat migrants should be sent back to France. No ifs, no buts. France is a safe country.
Somehow, I get the impression that France are not helping us here.
If you can’t see the double standard in France’s behaviour here (one rule for them in Mayotte, another in the Channel), I don’t know what to say.
It’s not that he can’t; he won’t. Like so many of his pink-tinged kind, he is helplessly dishonest.
Quite so, it’s just semantics and rhetorical gymnastics, don’t rise to it Peter & Simon.
Quite so, it’s just semantics and rhetorical gymnastics, don’t rise to it Peter & Simon.
It’s not that he can’t; he won’t. Like so many of his pink-tinged kind, he is helplessly dishonest.
Small boat migrants should be sent back to France. No ifs, no buts. France is a safe country.
Somehow, I get the impression that France are not helping us here.
If you can’t see the double standard in France’s behaviour here (one rule for them in Mayotte, another in the Channel), I don’t know what to say.
Good for the French! Why on Earth should they welcome asylum seekers any more than the UK does?
Please, let’s stop the displacement activity of blaming the French for the incompetence and weakness of British governments on this issue! It is truly pathetic.
How are the French stopping us doing what we want to do now on repat’ing illegal migrants?
Is this yet another Brexit blame deflection?
As I’ve noted in other comments, France is actively repatriating small boat illegal immigrants from the Comoros Islands who reach Mayotte (an Indian Ocean island which is part of metropolitan France). Mayotte, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane (yes, that’s basically an entire country in South America) are actually part of the EU.
Curious how France has been getting a “free pass” about this, n’est-ce pas ? And how they feel able to repatriate small boats back whence they came, but would not allow us to do the same.
Debates about policies, laws and their implementation are always political, of course, but what is happening is that a desire to curb the virtually uncontrolled immigration levels of the past few years has become detached from other traditionally “right wing” concerns like low taxation, law and order, and even pride in distinctive national culture.
Trade unions are expressing concerns as to the effects of immigration on their lower-paid workers. People are increasingly pointing out that ostensibly conservative governments are benefiting from cheap labour and clearly have no interest in stemming the tide of migrants. I have only once engaged my sitting MP – Education Secretary Gillian Keegan – in a discussion about how well her administration was doing. She said that she heard my concerns about the boat people and high levels of legal migration, and that Rishi was working on it and we would soon see results. This from a party in power for 13 years with a very large majority!
Even more importantly, seeing the damage caused by high levels of immigration is just a matter of plain common sense. We are overcrowded in the UK, particularly in the south. We see massive problems with infrastructure, including health and education. We have fuel poverty, and have been warned that there will be serious self-imposed restrictions on the ways we can keep warm and keep moving in the next few years. In fact, unless as yet uninvented energy storage systems are rapidly developed, it’s difficult to see how we can avoid catastrophe. And yet the likes of the Guardian will, we know, complain that only right-wingers want to restrict immigration. If my concerns are right-wing, then order me a nice cap from Hugo Boss, and I’ll happily wear it.
No I think you’ll find many in the Centre and on Left want immigration better controlled. Certainly Unions have always pushed for less cheap labour. I think we’d all welcome a bit of basic competency wouldn’t we.
I think you conflate ‘well off enough to potentially benefit from stream of cheap labour’ with Left thinking. In fact this has always been much more a Right Wing elite strategy. They just liked to use the immigration card too, until the contradiction ran into itself.
Total rubbish. It was the left which massively expanded immigration in the first place. It was the left which hampered us with rafts of oppressive law – “Human rights” “Equality” “Protected characteristics” etc – which prevent all efforts to throw illegals out – and does so in miserable charades of “justice”. And it is the left – with its usual mix of arrogance and brass neck – which now pretends to be completely innocent.
Deflection, deflection. Gig economy exploded under the Right/Tories.
And if the laws you refer to were put in place by the last left-ish Govt what you been doing last 13 years?
Strangely in last year of Lab Govt there were more Asylum returns than there have been in last 3yrs of this Govt, and the backlog of course was a fraction it is now and net migration lower.
You keep blaming folks who haven’t been in power because it’s too painful to blame your own and recognise it’s Right Wing thinking on cheap labour that has driven this
Evasion. With your trade mark intellectual dishonesty you avoid the point that we have a spineless wet Tory party in hock to the left which has been pushing left agendas – albeit a tad more slowly than Labour – since 2010. Are you worth bothering with, therefore? No.
Evasion. With your trade mark intellectual dishonesty you avoid the point that we have a spineless wet Tory party in hock to the left which has been pushing left agendas – albeit a tad more slowly than Labour – since 2010. Are you worth bothering with, therefore? No.
Deflection, deflection. Gig economy exploded under the Right/Tories.
And if the laws you refer to were put in place by the last left-ish Govt what you been doing last 13 years?
Strangely in last year of Lab Govt there were more Asylum returns than there have been in last 3yrs of this Govt, and the backlog of course was a fraction it is now and net migration lower.
You keep blaming folks who haven’t been in power because it’s too painful to blame your own and recognise it’s Right Wing thinking on cheap labour that has driven this
“No I think you’ll find many in the Centre and on Left want immigration better controlled”.
The Left keeping on saying this but will never explain(just like Sunak) what that actually means.
They are both completely dishonest.
Total rubbish. It was the left which massively expanded immigration in the first place. It was the left which hampered us with rafts of oppressive law – “Human rights” “Equality” “Protected characteristics” etc – which prevent all efforts to throw illegals out – and does so in miserable charades of “justice”. And it is the left – with its usual mix of arrogance and brass neck – which now pretends to be completely innocent.
“No I think you’ll find many in the Centre and on Left want immigration better controlled”.
The Left keeping on saying this but will never explain(just like Sunak) what that actually means.
They are both completely dishonest.
No I think you’ll find many in the Centre and on Left want immigration better controlled. Certainly Unions have always pushed for less cheap labour. I think we’d all welcome a bit of basic competency wouldn’t we.
I think you conflate ‘well off enough to potentially benefit from stream of cheap labour’ with Left thinking. In fact this has always been much more a Right Wing elite strategy. They just liked to use the immigration card too, until the contradiction ran into itself.
Debates about policies, laws and their implementation are always political, of course, but what is happening is that a desire to curb the virtually uncontrolled immigration levels of the past few years has become detached from other traditionally “right wing” concerns like low taxation, law and order, and even pride in distinctive national culture.
Trade unions are expressing concerns as to the effects of immigration on their lower-paid workers. People are increasingly pointing out that ostensibly conservative governments are benefiting from cheap labour and clearly have no interest in stemming the tide of migrants. I have only once engaged my sitting MP – Education Secretary Gillian Keegan – in a discussion about how well her administration was doing. She said that she heard my concerns about the boat people and high levels of legal migration, and that Rishi was working on it and we would soon see results. This from a party in power for 13 years with a very large majority!
Even more importantly, seeing the damage caused by high levels of immigration is just a matter of plain common sense. We are overcrowded in the UK, particularly in the south. We see massive problems with infrastructure, including health and education. We have fuel poverty, and have been warned that there will be serious self-imposed restrictions on the ways we can keep warm and keep moving in the next few years. In fact, unless as yet uninvented energy storage systems are rapidly developed, it’s difficult to see how we can avoid catastrophe. And yet the likes of the Guardian will, we know, complain that only right-wingers want to restrict immigration. If my concerns are right-wing, then order me a nice cap from Hugo Boss, and I’ll happily wear it.
For some time, the situation has been very similar in most North- and West-European countries: the elite (political and business) can only see advantages in mass immigration, but antipathy towards mass immigration grows as you descend the social scale.
The extent to which the leaders of a country’s mainstream parties are willing to take note of the concerns of the “lower orders” depends on how the political arithmetic stacks up. E.g., the Danish social democrats were feeling the electoral pinch when they had a Eureka moment, realising that the only reason they were supporting mass immigration was because that was what was expected of social democrats. They quickly jettisoned the electoral millstone and they haven’t looked back since. By contrast, those in the UK working class who voted Conservative in the vain hope of controlling immigration can safely be ignored because everyone knows that the elites controlling the other main parties are just as enthusiastic about mass immmigration as are the elite in the Conservative Party.
For some time, the situation has been very similar in most North- and West-European countries: the elite (political and business) can only see advantages in mass immigration, but antipathy towards mass immigration grows as you descend the social scale.
The extent to which the leaders of a country’s mainstream parties are willing to take note of the concerns of the “lower orders” depends on how the political arithmetic stacks up. E.g., the Danish social democrats were feeling the electoral pinch when they had a Eureka moment, realising that the only reason they were supporting mass immigration was because that was what was expected of social democrats. They quickly jettisoned the electoral millstone and they haven’t looked back since. By contrast, those in the UK working class who voted Conservative in the vain hope of controlling immigration can safely be ignored because everyone knows that the elites controlling the other main parties are just as enthusiastic about mass immmigration as are the elite in the Conservative Party.
I remember asking remainers in 2016 how they would propose dealing with a situation where the EU becomes dominated by far-right parties, which it surely will before too long, and they’ve given up any means to resile from its increasingly extreme policies. Unfortunately, all were so imbued with a whiggish view of history that the idea seemed ridiculous to them. We’ll see.
I remember asking remainers in 2016 how they would propose dealing with a situation where the EU becomes dominated by far-right parties, which it surely will before too long, and they’ve given up any means to resile from its increasingly extreme policies. Unfortunately, all were so imbued with a whiggish view of history that the idea seemed ridiculous to them. We’ll see.
Of course in 2016 we didn’t have Boat arrivals, although we did have fears about Syrian refugees and cobblers about 75m Turks joining the EU used extensively in the Leave campaign. Ironic wasn’t it the country with the least problem with visible illegal migration at the time left, only to have a growing illegal problem and dramatically increase it’s own legal net migration too. Tremendously well done.
Of course the rebalancing in the EU on attitudes towards this subject is where UK membership would have given enhanced leadership opportunity across so much of how EU conducts business. Alas we stropped off before the alliances it presented manifested themselves and now need to beg to be invited to discussions.
We didn’t have the boat arrivals, but we did have endemic container and HGV arrivals, overstaying of visas, “language school” scams, a rate of legal migration that was far too high for most people that weren’t insulated from the consequences, and the obligation to accept anyone from the EU regardless of skills, capital, health status, and criminality.
In fact, a quarter century after Blair opened the flood gates, we still don’t have enough doctors, nurses, dentists, or even builders.
So yeah, we never had it so good, but we just didn’t appreciate it.
You fell for the ‘con-job’ too I see.
There was never a completely open ended obligation to accept anyone from EU. We just chose not to apply all the rules on Free Movement that existed when we were in the EU. For example the Charter articles allowed countries to insist jobs advertised locally first, minimum capital requirements for migrants (c£30k), any benefits paid in first few years at the same value of a benefit in their home country, no employment and must return etc. Plus we don’t have ID cards so people can much more easily come here and find illegal work. And of course there was/is nothing to stop our own Govt creating tax and business incentives to not import cheap labour but rather to invest and train locally. As it is of course Poles and some others are increasingly going to find no richer a country than their own so some flows would rebalance anyway.
Now I do agree it was a Business/Tory/Right Wing hidden strategy to not deploy these options in order to maintain cheap labour benefits to companies as well as neutralise organised labour in the UK. Trouble as another part of the Right Wing wanted to con everyone that there were no form of controls either. It worked…at least for a while.
Yes, I know of a sizeable group of Romanians who specialised in breaking into cash machines, and met many black “Scandinavians”, so there were obviously strict controls in place.
Read more slowly and absorb. You rush too much. The points made was we had the option to impose more controls yet didn’t.
By the way do you think such criminals would be stopped at the UK Border now if indicating here for a Holiday? And do you think they could find some paid work given no ID card system now too?
The criminals will still be here SM. The nurses and plumbers and teachers, and those we perhaps could have done with won’t be. Your indignation stops you thinking rationally.
“The points made was we had the option to impose more controls yet didn’t”.
So why didn’t we?
Allowing such unrestricted movement, has certainly benefited criminal gangs: people trafficking, modern day slavery, money laundering.
But we got more nurses and plumbers (that we could have trained here instead).
A large reason why is the Right welcomed cheap labour to undercut organised labour and to avoid the costs associated with training and developing our own. They also fully understand vast majority of immigrants had a positive tax impact on economy putting more in than taking out, although they weren’t adverse to using stories about a small number of benefit claimants when it suited.
It’s the massive contradiction that’s been at the heart of Right wing thinking for years. Love the benefits of immigration but demonise them for electoral advantage. You fell for it.
I haven’t fallen for anything
You keep on saying it has an overall positive tax impact, would that be from the billionaires from the Middle East and Russia and not from low skill employment? Immigrants have their own cost on the tax payers or have you fallen the nonsense Jonathan Portes writes year in year out.
You clearly enjoy employing a bait and switch in place of reasoned debate.
https://medium.com/@thdhmo/making-sensibles-swivel-eyed-immigrationism-as-ideology-18a25148eed
Hey it’s not me signing off the visa’s. It’s the Home Office pressed by the Treasury and other Govt depts and Ministers needing the economic benefits. Why do you think it keeps happening? Because they are scared at the economic consequences and don’t want to get straight with you about the trade-off.
It’s just a fact staring us in the face because they have to make an explicit decision, and you hardly think Patel/Braverman supporting all those Visa’s they’ve approved just to be benevolent do you?
My post further up the column in reply to one of yours. “I just see it as the contempt all political classes have for the people they are supposed to represent”.
I think we’ve seen the economic consequences of mass immigration, that’s it’s been one of the most foolish decisions undertaken by a British government. Any wealth has gone straight upwards.
Are you feeling stupid for falling for such a dumb ideology.
Have you read that article in the link, it describes you perfectly 🙂
My post further up the column in reply to one of yours. “I just see it as the contempt all political classes have for the people they are supposed to represent”.
I think we’ve seen the economic consequences of mass immigration, that’s it’s been one of the most foolish decisions undertaken by a British government. Any wealth has gone straight upwards.
Are you feeling stupid for falling for such a dumb ideology.
Have you read that article in the link, it describes you perfectly 🙂
Hey it’s not me signing off the visa’s. It’s the Home Office pressed by the Treasury and other Govt depts and Ministers needing the economic benefits. Why do you think it keeps happening? Because they are scared at the economic consequences and don’t want to get straight with you about the trade-off.
It’s just a fact staring us in the face because they have to make an explicit decision, and you hardly think Patel/Braverman supporting all those Visa’s they’ve approved just to be benevolent do you?
I haven’t fallen for anything
You keep on saying it has an overall positive tax impact, would that be from the billionaires from the Middle East and Russia and not from low skill employment? Immigrants have their own cost on the tax payers or have you fallen the nonsense Jonathan Portes writes year in year out.
You clearly enjoy employing a bait and switch in place of reasoned debate.
https://medium.com/@thdhmo/making-sensibles-swivel-eyed-immigrationism-as-ideology-18a25148eed
A large reason why is the Right welcomed cheap labour to undercut organised labour and to avoid the costs associated with training and developing our own. They also fully understand vast majority of immigrants had a positive tax impact on economy putting more in than taking out, although they weren’t adverse to using stories about a small number of benefit claimants when it suited.
It’s the massive contradiction that’s been at the heart of Right wing thinking for years. Love the benefits of immigration but demonise them for electoral advantage. You fell for it.
If I’m rushing, it’s because our country and culture are being threatened. Those controls are not being imposed, and need to be.
Yes, if the government wanted to stop criminals entering the country, either illegally or as holidaymakers, or alternatively found that bogus holidaymakers were engaging in systematic criminal activity, it could stop them if it wanted to. I’ll give you a full list of methods if you like.
If we lack plumbers and teachers from overseas, then I guess we would have to train our own population in useful skills instead. It’s amazing how we used to manage…
I ‘get’ the frustration. Suspect we both want similar level of honesty and competency.
But there are consequences to much more holiday visa checks and to training our own (the latter – costs and it’ll take time so need to be honest about what we do in interim – forgo services we need or allow some migration).
We used to manage better of course. We did more training. We also had a younger demographic so simply more availability. But we never had zero skills and workforce importation in our entire history.
Things change and leaders need to be honest about the choices. With Brexit they weren’t. On immigration they’re not. The former had mendacity and political gain behind it. The latter they are scared to tell the truth.
I agree with most of that. There would be no problems with allowing people here on holiday. But if they are found to be abusing that with organised crime, then they go on the personae non gratae list, and are permanently refused entry after serving their sentence.
Of course, we have always required some immigration, and I don’t know anyone who would completely close off the taps. Even Farage wanted numbers down around the 30k per year. We could train many more of our own young people with the skills we need. Managing that process was my job before retirement. It just needs the will and it would pay for itself.
What we have now is whole areas of towns (Wisbech sticks in my memory, and also Portsmouth) where very large numbers of young men from overseas just gather to smoke and listen to music on their phones, and gaze into the middle distance. I don’t see the benefit to us. We have simply lost control of our borders, and the Conservatives are clueless or complicit, and Labour would be a good deal worse, I think.
I agree with most of that. There would be no problems with allowing people here on holiday. But if they are found to be abusing that with organised crime, then they go on the personae non gratae list, and are permanently refused entry after serving their sentence.
Of course, we have always required some immigration, and I don’t know anyone who would completely close off the taps. Even Farage wanted numbers down around the 30k per year. We could train many more of our own young people with the skills we need. Managing that process was my job before retirement. It just needs the will and it would pay for itself.
What we have now is whole areas of towns (Wisbech sticks in my memory, and also Portsmouth) where very large numbers of young men from overseas just gather to smoke and listen to music on their phones, and gaze into the middle distance. I don’t see the benefit to us. We have simply lost control of our borders, and the Conservatives are clueless or complicit, and Labour would be a good deal worse, I think.
I ‘get’ the frustration. Suspect we both want similar level of honesty and competency.
But there are consequences to much more holiday visa checks and to training our own (the latter – costs and it’ll take time so need to be honest about what we do in interim – forgo services we need or allow some migration).
We used to manage better of course. We did more training. We also had a younger demographic so simply more availability. But we never had zero skills and workforce importation in our entire history.
Things change and leaders need to be honest about the choices. With Brexit they weren’t. On immigration they’re not. The former had mendacity and political gain behind it. The latter they are scared to tell the truth.
“The points made was we had the option to impose more controls yet didn’t”.
So why didn’t we?
Allowing such unrestricted movement, has certainly benefited criminal gangs: people trafficking, modern day slavery, money laundering.
But we got more nurses and plumbers (that we could have trained here instead).
If I’m rushing, it’s because our country and culture are being threatened. Those controls are not being imposed, and need to be.
Yes, if the government wanted to stop criminals entering the country, either illegally or as holidaymakers, or alternatively found that bogus holidaymakers were engaging in systematic criminal activity, it could stop them if it wanted to. I’ll give you a full list of methods if you like.
If we lack plumbers and teachers from overseas, then I guess we would have to train our own population in useful skills instead. It’s amazing how we used to manage…
Read more slowly and absorb. You rush too much. The points made was we had the option to impose more controls yet didn’t.
By the way do you think such criminals would be stopped at the UK Border now if indicating here for a Holiday? And do you think they could find some paid work given no ID card system now too?
The criminals will still be here SM. The nurses and plumbers and teachers, and those we perhaps could have done with won’t be. Your indignation stops you thinking rationally.
Some of this I agree with, but your implications that Britain should casually ditch its old liberal tradition that we do not need to carry ID cards to ‘get round’ the freedom of movement rules in some way is yet another problem with the “one size fits all” EU model. All those methods impose an additional large and unnecessary administrative burden.
There should be freedom to seek work, only after the jobs have been advertised to Britons and most certainly no benefits in any circumstances for migrants, nor the legal right to bring in their families. The idea that the high levels of migration owed nothing at all to the EU is unjustified, unless your view is that there should be a pick and mix as to what rules are followed.
We’re not a million miles apart.
ID cards – given they have the biometrics of my eyeballs centrally stored now are we really that fussed about having an ID card when we think what it could help with? I agree there is a trade-off here though and scope for a national discussion.
The Free Movement articles allowed Govts to insist jobs advertised locally first. Just wasn’t applied in UK, despite some Unions pushing for this.
We’d negotiated benefits only paid at the value of a benefit from the claimants home country. But Brexit happened before public became more aware of that reality.
Free movement was always part of the Single Market. We should have taken up the right to limit EU migration for years after Lisbon. That was a mistake. Suspect now we’d have rallied sufficient alliances within EU to get that ‘cap’ embedded.
We’re not a million miles apart.
ID cards – given they have the biometrics of my eyeballs centrally stored now are we really that fussed about having an ID card when we think what it could help with? I agree there is a trade-off here though and scope for a national discussion.
The Free Movement articles allowed Govts to insist jobs advertised locally first. Just wasn’t applied in UK, despite some Unions pushing for this.
We’d negotiated benefits only paid at the value of a benefit from the claimants home country. But Brexit happened before public became more aware of that reality.
Free movement was always part of the Single Market. We should have taken up the right to limit EU migration for years after Lisbon. That was a mistake. Suspect now we’d have rallied sufficient alliances within EU to get that ‘cap’ embedded.
Yes, I know of a sizeable group of Romanians who specialised in breaking into cash machines, and met many black “Scandinavians”, so there were obviously strict controls in place.
Some of this I agree with, but your implications that Britain should casually ditch its old liberal tradition that we do not need to carry ID cards to ‘get round’ the freedom of movement rules in some way is yet another problem with the “one size fits all” EU model. All those methods impose an additional large and unnecessary administrative burden.
There should be freedom to seek work, only after the jobs have been advertised to Britons and most certainly no benefits in any circumstances for migrants, nor the legal right to bring in their families. The idea that the high levels of migration owed nothing at all to the EU is unjustified, unless your view is that there should be a pick and mix as to what rules are followed.
You fell for the ‘con-job’ too I see.
There was never a completely open ended obligation to accept anyone from EU. We just chose not to apply all the rules on Free Movement that existed when we were in the EU. For example the Charter articles allowed countries to insist jobs advertised locally first, minimum capital requirements for migrants (c£30k), any benefits paid in first few years at the same value of a benefit in their home country, no employment and must return etc. Plus we don’t have ID cards so people can much more easily come here and find illegal work. And of course there was/is nothing to stop our own Govt creating tax and business incentives to not import cheap labour but rather to invest and train locally. As it is of course Poles and some others are increasingly going to find no richer a country than their own so some flows would rebalance anyway.
Now I do agree it was a Business/Tory/Right Wing hidden strategy to not deploy these options in order to maintain cheap labour benefits to companies as well as neutralise organised labour in the UK. Trouble as another part of the Right Wing wanted to con everyone that there were no form of controls either. It worked…at least for a while.
The main obstacle to stopping the UK cutting down the numbers of illegal migration into the UK is the political will to do so, and nothing to do with having left the EU.
Let’s think; how do tens of thousands of people from nations thousands of miles from Europe turn up on the shores of France ready to be transported to Britain?
The answer is that the EU has completely failed to protect its borders and has let these fake asylum seekers travel across numerous safe European countries to mass in France and pay thousands to criminal gangs to asylum shop in Britain, with our pathetically lax asylum system.
The EU’s failure to protect its borders is what has created this mess and it’s costing British taxpayers tens of billions of pounds.
Why should the EU lift a finger to protect our borders now though? After all the bad faith we’ve shown.
So the EU responsible for protecting UK borders even though we’ve taken back control?
That’s certainly a new one in the blame avoidance campaign currently being waged by embarrassed Brexiteers. Dear oh dear.
They could have done a fair better job of securing their own borders over the past 30 years… so why didn’t they?
Stopping boats and the multi-million trafficking trade isn’t easy for sure, as we’ve found even with a much rough stretch of water.
Not sure about 30yrs though that you refer to. More an issue since 2011 and Arab spring convulsions. coupled with what happened in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Stopping boats and the multi-million trafficking trade isn’t easy for sure, as we’ve found even with a much rough stretch of water.
Not sure about 30yrs though that you refer to. More an issue since 2011 and Arab spring convulsions. coupled with what happened in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
They could have done a fair better job of securing their own borders over the past 30 years… so why didn’t they?
Why should the EU lift a finger to protect our borders now though? After all the bad faith we’ve shown.
So the EU responsible for protecting UK borders even though we’ve taken back control?
That’s certainly a new one in the blame avoidance campaign currently being waged by embarrassed Brexiteers. Dear oh dear.
No-one in the British governing class has any ideas about ‘how to conduct business’ that are at all different from those of the European governing classes. I think you’ve fundamentally misunderstood why we voted to leave the EU. It wasn’t a revolt against Brussels so much as against the uselessness and incompetence of our own rulers and the corporatist ideology they refuse to abandon despite its failure being clearly evident to everyone..
Actually that’s how I interpreted the Leave Vote too. Just we took it out on the wrong thing, but was always the potential
Agreed – hopefully we will replace our lawmakers with more capable individuals – but it will take a few election cycles to make significant progress.
Actually that’s how I interpreted the Leave Vote too. Just we took it out on the wrong thing, but was always the potential
Agreed – hopefully we will replace our lawmakers with more capable individuals – but it will take a few election cycles to make significant progress.
We didn’t have the boat arrivals, but we did have endemic container and HGV arrivals, overstaying of visas, “language school” scams, a rate of legal migration that was far too high for most people that weren’t insulated from the consequences, and the obligation to accept anyone from the EU regardless of skills, capital, health status, and criminality.
In fact, a quarter century after Blair opened the flood gates, we still don’t have enough doctors, nurses, dentists, or even builders.
So yeah, we never had it so good, but we just didn’t appreciate it.
The main obstacle to stopping the UK cutting down the numbers of illegal migration into the UK is the political will to do so, and nothing to do with having left the EU.
Let’s think; how do tens of thousands of people from nations thousands of miles from Europe turn up on the shores of France ready to be transported to Britain?
The answer is that the EU has completely failed to protect its borders and has let these fake asylum seekers travel across numerous safe European countries to mass in France and pay thousands to criminal gangs to asylum shop in Britain, with our pathetically lax asylum system.
The EU’s failure to protect its borders is what has created this mess and it’s costing British taxpayers tens of billions of pounds.
No-one in the British governing class has any ideas about ‘how to conduct business’ that are at all different from those of the European governing classes. I think you’ve fundamentally misunderstood why we voted to leave the EU. It wasn’t a revolt against Brussels so much as against the uselessness and incompetence of our own rulers and the corporatist ideology they refuse to abandon despite its failure being clearly evident to everyone..
Of course in 2016 we didn’t have Boat arrivals, although we did have fears about Syrian refugees and cobblers about 75m Turks joining the EU used extensively in the Leave campaign. Ironic wasn’t it the country with the least problem with visible illegal migration at the time left, only to have a growing illegal problem and dramatically increase it’s own legal net migration too. Tremendously well done.
Of course the rebalancing in the EU on attitudes towards this subject is where UK membership would have given enhanced leadership opportunity across so much of how EU conducts business. Alas we stropped off before the alliances it presented manifested themselves and now need to beg to be invited to discussions.