Not too well, it turns out that we're still in some international human rights agreements that seemilgly twart every attempt to control immigration and/or people trafficers. For example people trafficers coaching customers to exploit modern slavery legislation or various other safeguards to avoid deportation on arrival.
Pulling out of these agreements is still policically unthinkable, although the whole of europe is struggling with the same issues at present. Something has to give.
This is a red herring, they could easily control the economic migration, which has very little to do with intl human rights, they just choose to ignore it because business always pushes the "labour shortages" because they want to lower labour costs as much as possible.
It amazes me that the "labour shortage" argument is still in play. You'd think after years of importing tens of millions of people someone might have asked, "have we fixed the labour shortage yet?".
Number of economic migrants? They're not really recorded that way afaik. But let me know what you're looking for, and I'll see if I can find it somehow.
The government talks about reducing migration to win votes, but in reality, they prefer to keep wages down by continuing to increase the supply of labour.
No, 'they' voted for Brexit so the UK's borders and immigration policies could be controlled by politicians accountable to the people of the UK. But they didn't predict that a Conservative Party promising reduced immigration would, in fact, increase it to the highest levels in history. One reason they're heading for catastrophic electoral defeat in the near future.
I think consecutive Governments have used immigration to shore up GDP and blamed someone else for the problems it causes, whether that's the EU, the civil service, human rights lawyers, or whomever.
Well if people are dissatisfied about how the Conservatives are handling immigration then surely Labour is the last party they would vote for for a tougher stance on the issue, right?
Or we might see a surprising good performance of "Reform UK" but the end result will still likely be Labour in government.
That's why the PVV wins in the Netherlands, and similar parties grow everywhere: both left and right traditional parties have refused to tackle immigration.
Well there's the pickle we're in. The Conservatives talk center-right but are essentially Blairite in their actions—they seem to be doubling down on that approach with the return of Cameron to government.
There's a massive gap to the right of the Tories, and someone's going to fill it. Hopefully, it'll be moderate right-wingers, but there's a danger the right will split into factions and we'll have a resurgent far right making trouble for everyone plus a center-left party perpetually in Government and unwilling to address any issues around immigration (in spite of what they might say when they're trying to win elections).
What's your point here out of interest? Maybe I'm miss-reading, but the "how's that going?" seems like it might be a little passive aggressive?
Politicians promised that Brexit would allow us to take control of our borders, yet I see a variant of the following argument a lot – "those who voted for Brexit are dumb because they actually believed politicians would keep their promises". Presumably the implication here is that the smart thing to do have done was to be so cynical of the democratic process that you just vote remain even if you want to reduce migration because you should know the promises of Brexit would be broken anyway.
I guess I never really understood that argument. Let's say I vote for labour in the next GE because they promise to invest in the NHS but then when they're in power they actually reduce spending, is that then my fault as a voter? Would I be a dumb voter who should have just voted Tory because I wasn't smart enough to know that Labour would break their promise?
But I'll be honest, I voted Brexit and I explicitly told people at the time voting Brexit would not reduce migration. Politicians have made it quite clear in recent decades that mass migration is not something we as the public have any choice over. We simply must accept it and preferably if we don't like it shut up about it.
So yeah, while we probably should assume they will break any migration related promises, I don't really know what else people are suppose to do but to just vote and hope maybe one day they'll listen? What would you suggest the smart move here is?
The UK was the EU country that saw the highest number of immigrants from Eastern Europe after those countries joined the EU.
Ironically that is in big part because the UK (along with Ireland) was the only EU country not to restrict it although there was a special provision that allowed it temporarily.
It is that influx of migrants that really changed the country's mood on free movement, which indeed the government could do nothing about.
Then, Merkel's "open door" policy in the year just before the referendum scared people as well.
>The UK was the EU country that saw the highest number of immigrants from Eastern Europe after those countries joined the EU.
Ah yes, those evil eastern European coming to take the poor jobs nobody wants and pay taxes, while the unemployed Brits sleep in late in council houses living on benefits. Check out the series 'Benefits Street' on YouTube.
>Ironically that is in big part because the UK (along with Ireland) was the only EU country not to restrict it although there was a special provision that allowed it temporarily.
That's some major bullshit. The UK had the maximum possible 7 year restriction in place on Romanians and Bulgarians. They joined in 2007 but we're only allowed to work in the UK all the way 2014. I remember the British media made a huge scaremongering about that back then waiting in the airports in January 2014 for the "invasion" that failed to materialize.
>It is that influx of migrants that really changed the country's mood on free movement, which indeed the government could do nothing about
And now they have a lot more immigrants except not from the EU, while loosing all the EU membership privileges.
It's massively hypocritical of brexiters to bitch about the EU free movement when they themselves massively made use of it for work, travel and study.
So what did they gain with this anti-Eastern European movement? They now have even more migration but without the EU benefits.
That's a snark that does not bring anything to the discussion.
People were dissatisfied with the fact the country could not control immigration from the EU. That's how it was and trying to understand those concerns rather than mocking them might have avoided Brexit in the same way as that might prevent hard-line parties from winning across Europe.
> That's some major bullshit
No...
They implemented the allowed restrictions on the second batch of Eastern European countries because they had not put any restrictions on the first batch (Poland, etc) in 2004 and got a massive number of immigrants from those countries.
>That's a snark that does not bring anything to the discussion.
Where's the snark? I was being dead serious.
>People were dissatisfied with the fact the country could not control immigration from the EU.
What for? The UK's major problems were all self inflicted by it's own crooked political class not by the Eastern Europeans coming to work and pay taxes. They were just the scapegoats in a xenophobic driven witch-hunt because blaming some powerless foreigners who can't vote is always the easy way out.
Also, if the UK didn't want any Eastern Europeans all they had to do was veto their EU membership when those countries applied to join. Simple no?
And now, how did Brexit fix the migration issue? Now you have even more migrants than before except they're not eastern European. Is that better now?
How was it all not low-key xenophobia.
> Ah yes, those evil eastern European coming to take the poor jobs nobody wants and pay taxes, while the unemployed Brits sleep in late in council houses living on benefits. Check out the series 'Benefits Street' on YouTube.
No one wants them because mass migration suppresses wages. For example in the UK we systematically suppress NHS wages to the point no Brit would want to work in the NHS anymore. We achieve this by importing hundreds of thousands of workers from parts of the world with lower per-capita income.
And I'm not being critical here. I'm highly in favour of this because it reduce healthcare costs in the UK. But on the flip side it's then absurd to argue that Brits don't want those jobs since we're actively suppressing wages. Like in the past Brits would work in the NHS if we allowed for labour competition. If the NHS was forced to pay more to attract labour then Brits would obviously want to work for the NHS again.
>No one wants them because mass migration suppresses wages.
But then why did the UK allow them in the EU in the first place? The UK could have vetoed this then.
>For example in the UK we systematically suppress NHS wages to the point no Brit would want to work in the NHS anymore.
Sorry, but to me that reads as 100% as a problem of the UK NHS for underpaying it's workers in the first place. EU workers taking those lower paying jobs is only the effect but not the cause.
So why blame eastern European workers for a problem created by UK institutions? To me it read as targeted xenofobia in disguise.
Answer me this: Now that eastern Europeans don't come work in the NHS anymore, did NHS wages rise? Or are they now importing cheaper labor from outside the EU by rubber-stamping work visas like crazy, meaning UK workers are now also wagedumped and also without EU membership benefits? How do those apples taste? Xenofobia has its price you know.
Also it's easy to wish for bigger wages for local workers, we all want that, but are British citizens willing to put their money where their mouth is, as in pay the higher taxes and prices to afford those higher salaries for those workers? There's no free lunch here. Higher wages for workers means cost increases up the chain and from what I saw Brits love their cheap prices and services and any small increase in prices leads to a dramatic increase in people living below the poverty line in the UK.
You can't have your cake and eat it too as brexiters wanted. Do you want cheap immigrants, or do you want cheap food and services?
> Sorry, but to me that reads as 100% as a problem of the UK NHS for underpaying it's workers in the first place. EU workers taking those lower paying jobs is only the effect but not the cause.
> So why blame eastern European workers for a problem created by UK institutions? To me it read as targeted xenofobia in disguise.
I think you misread what I said? Low wages in the NHS are a good thing. We're exploiting foreign workers for our own gain – I'm not a nurse so why would I dislike this? I celebrate the suppression of NHS wages. I don't blame the eastern European workers we're exploiting in the slightest.
> Answer me this: Now that eastern Europeans don't come work in the NHS anymore, did NHS wages rise? Or are they now importing cheaper labor from outside the EU by rubber-stamping work visas like crazy, meaning UK workers are now also wagedumped and also without EU membership benefits? How do those apples taste? Xenofobia has its price you know.
Yeah kinda. We can't find enough workers willing to work for the crappy wages we pay so unfortunately we're now upping their wages to prevent them striking.
> Or are they now importing cheaper labor from outside the EU by rubber-stamping work visas like crazy, meaning UK workers are now also wagedumped and also without EU membership benefits?
Not sure what you're point is here? Low skilled UK workers have always had wages suppressed and never had the luxury of moving to the EU. Middle-class people who might want to live/work abroad are impacted though, yes.
> Higher wages for workers means cost increases up the chain and from what I saw Brits love their cheap prices and services and any small increase in prices leads to a dramatic increase in people living below the poverty line in the UK.
I agree. This is why I'm pro mass migration and pro wage suppression. Like I said, suppressing wages in the NHS makes a ton of sense because it results in lower healthcare costs for British tax payers. Same is true for the cheap foreign agricultural labour we import – it provides us with cheaper produce.
I feel like you've completely misread what I've said because I think we actually 100% agree here?
Like you, I also want low wages and cheap immigrants. This is why I'm in favour of mass-migration... I didn't vote Brexit so we could reduce migration I voted Brexit so we could reduce regulation and bureaucracy.
I think where we might differ is that I understand why people disagree with me on this. If I were less privileged and competing against migrant workers it would probably annoy me much more – and it's those people I'm arguing for here despite that not being my position – I can understand why people voted to reduce the influx of cheap labour.
I guess to clarify:
> Do you want cheap immigrants
Yes, I do, but do you see how this might upset those who must compete with the "cheap immigrants"?
Issues with mass immigration are not only economic. They are social and cultural especially when immigrants are from vastly different cultures and religions.
People want to maintain their own cultures and identities.
> They are social and cultural especially when immigrants are from vastly different cultures and religions.
Which is why the UK decided to get rid of Eastern Europeans and instead import people outside of the EU? Sounds like a bad plan for succesful integration.
Wasn't the agreement that anyone from the EU could stay and settle without job / visa? During that period, borders were effectively non-existent between UK and the rest of EU.
> You mean the EU was in control of your borders before?
To some extent yes. EU citizens did have the right to live and work in the UK prior to Brexit. Would you disagree with this?
> I think you don't know how the EU works and what it can and can't do with your borders.
To be clear, I didn't vote for Brexit for immigration reasons. I hold no opinion on immigration. I'm a hard-core libertarian so in my ideal world borders wouldn't even exist. But even if I did vote for brexit to reduce migration my point is that if politicians promised us that post-Brexit net-migration would be reduced (something which they would indisputably have the power to do), then again, why would it wrong to vote for that? Is it simply that it's naive to think that politicians will do what they say, or do you believe UK politicians cannot control UK borders so could not have made that promise?
It seems you're making a different point – that the UK could have controlled their borders without leaving the EU – which even if true would be a different argument.
>To some extent yes. EU citizens did have the right to live and work in the UK prior to Brexit. Would you disagree with this?
That was the free movement agrement within the EU which the UK agreed to when it joined the EU and when it voted to allow all other new members in.
The EU didn't have direct control of your borders. The UK still had sovereignty to kick out all illegal people which had no right to enter the UK. I'm still baffled by the lack of understanding of Brits over their own borders.
> That was the free movement agrement within the EU which the UK agreed to when it joined the EU
> The UK still had sovereignty to kick out all illegal people which had no right to enter the UK
I promise I'm not trying to misrepresent you here so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is your argument is as follows:
The UK agreed to join the EU which as a requirement of it's membership means all EU citizens the right to live and work in the UK – we agree on this.
But next I start to lose you. I think what you're saying is because we choose to join the EU and accept free move, we could therefore always choose to leave. So really we always had power to control our borders because we could always choose to leave the EU and not allow free movement?
But the issue I'm having is that you also think it's silly to vote to leave the EU to control our borders?
Additionally you added:
> The UK still had sovereignty to kick out all illegal people which had no right to enter the UK.
But what's your point here? EU citizens had the legal right to enter the UK as you noted above?
I'm not really sure, but it looks like the number of illegal immigrants (through the Channel) soared this year, and that's not really possible to do anything to stop them or send them back for some reason.
Illegal immigration numbers are about 50k for the period, whilst legal immigration netted out (minus emigration) at about 500k for the period, and "natural growth" (i.e. births minus deaths) are about 45k.
The story here is that we're letting in a lot more legal, non-EU immigrants than we have been previously, most of whom are coming here on work visas, or as dependents / carers.
Whether you think this is a good thing or not is worth debating, but the media narrative that we're being "overrun by illegal immigrants" simply isn't a fair representation of the facts. Immigration increases are primarily driven by policy.
Yes, a policy many in the Tory party like, because on net those immigrants are economically beneficial. But they can’t tell that to their base so they bang on about a small subset.
Can't send them back because that would mean processing asylum claims, and that can't be done without acknowledging that the majority of them are valid. Better to keep people in a legal limbo in ever-worsening conditions so voters can lie to themselves that "deterrence" is somehow valid, and that all we need to do is punch down harder.
Imagine being so naive that you think you can vote your way out of a genocide.
And to pre-empt the responses: Imagine being so naive that you see what is happening in Europe, North America, and Oceania, yet refuse to accept that what is being imposed upon your people amounts to genocide.
Meanwhile, infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating rather than being expanded at a similar rate.
Even housing, the most profitable thing to build, can't keep up with rising demand. Although there do seem to be a lot of houses being built - but no sign of the additional roads, railways, schools, hospitals etc needed to support growing towns and cities.
The big city where I live has an annual average growth rate of 1.4%, which is the fastest large city in the US. The growth rate is accelerating as the population grows, so a decade from now that average annual growth rate should be a much larger number. The city is already, by far, the fastest growing city in the US in terms of adding new residents per year.
My city is in tight competition with Austin, San Jose, and Jacksonville to be the 12th or 13th largest city in the US. At its current growth rate it will be the first of those to achieve (rebound in the case of San Jose) 1 million residents. Discounting growth acceleration by 2045 it may surpass Dallas to become the 8th largest city in the US provided that Phoenix does not continue to grow at its current rate. Accounting for a consistent growth acceleration trend it could happen as early as 2030, but that is unlikely.
> The increase was driven mostly by international migration, rather than natural change – unlike the baby boom which fuelled the growth in the early 1960s.
Didn't they vote for Brexit precisely to stop migration? How's that going?