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?
You mean the EU was in control of your borders before?
I think you don't know how the EU works and what it can and can't do with your borders.