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Politics, politics, politics

I thought it was more the pledge on the Referendum ( to win the UKIP voters as he thought the election would be closer than it was) - the key part of that was regarding renegotiating immigration with the EU if I remember correctly.
 
Parklaner81 said:
We can split hairs about wording as much as you like. My real problem with this is that if there was truly realistic scope to curb EU immigration, and the tories were ignoring it despite their manifesto "ambition", their opponents would have been all over them it for it. Remain would've hammered it home, and the referendum would've been in the bag. But those things didn't happen. Why?
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I thought you were talking about before the vote, during the referendum there was a lot of discussion on how we do not take advantage of current EU rules focusing on both the 3 month rule and also the NHS, along with Camerons "Wins" were being talked about throughout. Possibly more being made out about Cameron "wins" as don't forget the Tories front bench were pretty much the remain team.
 
r-u-s-x said:
Sorry still a little unclear if this is a general point or specifically against my rebuttal that the Tories did have options open to them that may have reduced migration - i.e the three month rule & ensuring they had health insurance? Regardless of your feelings on the rights earned once you have been in employment I would think this is a control that would have had some impact.
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It's more a point that immigration is not fully under our control whilst in the EU, regardless of what the best option is. That's what I took from the Conservative position at that point, and assumed most others did too.

r-u-s-x said:
the unspecified period of time is found at http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-rights/jobseekers/index_en.htm and after a year employment it appears that it is very hard to remove people with the way our benefits work but I do not think this supersedes the three month rule having any impact.
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That sounds like an incredibly easy system to game.

Work for one year in a country and then spend the rest of your life "seeking employment". That must sound pretty tempting to someone who doesn't want to work living in Bulgaria (a country Wiki tells me has an average wage 1/5 of that in the UK).

r-u-s-x said:
on the second point that is not what it is saying - its saying you can have the means to be self sufficient and still claim any benefit that is open to a non migrant. We have universal benefits by claiming those (as everyone is entitled) does not automatically make you non-self sufficient. I think that's pretty sensible otherwise a member state can easily game the system to effectively be detrimental to migrants (against FOM rules) i.e everyone must pay £100 p/d to be in the country but everyone entitled can claim £100 p/d.

The starting point with the EU FOM is you can not give an advantage to your citizens over another countries this is just enforcing that rule. Lots of people didnt agree with this hence Brexit but you can hardly fault the EU for having rules in place to ensure this outcome.
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I get that, I'm saying it's wrong in principle. I get that we have to give some support to our own nationals, something, something social contract apparently. I don't believe that we should owe any kind of benefit to foreign nationals, no matter how open our borders are to workers or what customs union we're a part of.
 
Parklaner81 said:
We can split hairs about wording as much as you like. My real problem with this is that if there was truly realistic scope to curb EU immigration, and the tories were ignoring it despite their manifesto "ambition", their opponents would have been all over them it for it. Remain would've hammered it home, and the referendum would've been in the bag. But those things didn't happen. Why?
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that’s the point, there wasn’t a realistic scope to reduce immigration in the short term without hurting the economy, it was an appeasement policy to strengthen cameron’s position, the equivalent of the current ambition to remove the budget deficit at some point in the next 50 years, he left himself a razors edge to tread on the subject of europe

remain did hammer the facts home regarding immigration, they were all over their website for anyone who cared to look
 
In that case yes I agree immigration was never fully under our control while in the EU but we left tools on the table that would have helped to reduce it. With that in mind I do believe that we were very inflexible and not very strategic to working with the rules we signed up to. We have always been guilty of trying to alter the framework rather than work within it. The NHS being the most obvious case, we get ill in another country they have the ability to bill back the NHS for the cost, we had the right to do the same but not the ability.

There is a conversation to be had regarding our benefits system that would have also made it more difficult for foreign nationals to play the system. but not between me and you as we are polar opposites and its too late now any way.

In general we as a country always think we have the best ideas when in reality we should have been looking at all member states to see who had the best system and selling that to the electorate. In hindsight the ID cards could have really helped with a lot of these things but unfortunately our government (both flavours) are intrusive kittens who cannot be trusted so that was a no go for most.
 
Parklaner81 said:
We can split hairs about wording as much as you like. My real problem with this is that if there was truly realistic scope to curb EU immigration, and the tories were ignoring it despite their manifesto "ambition", their opponents would have been all over them for it. Remain would've hammered it home, and the referendum would've been in the bag. But those things didn't happen. Why?
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You presume Remain were ontop of things and everyone knew what they were doing. The Leave campaign were also making it up as they went along making promises that they didn’t truly understand, for example UKIP saying the Norway trade model was the one the UK would follow if we left - completely absurd now as no one would be happy with such an arrangement. Remain knew that making the vote about immigration wasn’t their strong card. The economy was.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
scaramanga said:
If the demand for non-chlorinated whateverthefudges is high enough, then it will be worth selling non-chlorinated whateverthefudges on every street corner.

Even if we take your presumptions as given (and I don't, because markets) we can just pass our own laws on what can and cannot be sold in this country, just like every single other country that's not in the EU does. Even if we disagree on whether we should be spoonfed by the state and have them wipe our arses, kiss our bruises better, etc. there are still plenty of mechanisms in place to allow the state to dip its grubby mitts into our lives without resorting to a superstate.
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If you use say polluting factories producing something rather than chicken, you have to admit, the market can’t regulate pollution as the end goods have no link to pollution. How would the consumer know of pollutant levels when buying?

So what you’re suggesting is passing a law to stop say excess pollution? For example for coal stations producing energy. Isn’t that exactly what the EU does? Moreover, air is not bound by nation states. The UK can’t legislate for France or Ireland to ensure we don’t get their pollution in the UK. Finally, if the UK drops the EU requirements for burning coal to produce dirty profitable energy, do you think they will let us sell them surplus energy? This is one example that could be applied to any commodity. We may want freedom to make trade rules but don’t expect the EU to buy our goods if it’s not on their trade terms.

Isn’t a balanced debate to see what is feasible and what is not. Ignoring these fundamentals is like Hannan and his (now removed) misty eyed view of post Brexit Britain.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
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scaramanga said:
If the demand for non-chlorinated whateverthefudges is high enough, then it will be worth selling non-chlorinated whateverthefudges on every street corner.

Even if we take your presumptions as given (and I don't, because markets) we can just pass our own laws on what can and cannot be sold in this country, just like every single other country that's not in the EU does. Even if we disagree on whether we should be spoonfed by the state and have them wipe our arses, kiss our bruises better, etc. there are still plenty of mechanisms in place to allow the state to dip its grubby mitts into our lives without resorting to a superstate.
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Obviously a state can make it' own laws.... It's just a superstate has more strength to stand up to the biggest multinationals then a weakened Brexit uk will. And more importantly inforce favorable trade terms with other super states.... USA China etcl
 
r-u-s-x said:
I thought you were talking about before the vote, during the referendum there was a lot of discussion on how we do not take advantage of current EU rules focusing on both the 3 month rule and also the NHS, along with Camerons "Wins" were being talked about throughout. Possibly more being made out about Cameron "wins" as don't forget the Tories front bench were pretty much the remain team.
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Actually I was talking about it in two ways; during the referendum campaign, which @SpurMeUp has also provided a reasonable response to (not that I'm entirely convinced still!), but also going back pre-referendum. The tory pledge on significant immigration reduction goes back to 2010. Labour have moved a long way on immigration over that period, yet I still can't recall them ever making a big deal about this. Again, why not?

I don't claim to have the fullest grasp of the relevant laws, but my suspicion is that any reduction that might have been achievable would've been negligible and/or extremely complicated and costly to pursue in terms of process, and that's the real reason why no one jumped on it.
 
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Parklaner81 said:
Actually I was talking about in it two ways; during the referendum campaign, which @SpurMeUp has also provided a reasonable response to (not that I'm entirely convinced still!), but also going back pre-referendum. The tory pledge on significant immigration reduction goes back to 2010. Labour have moved a long way on immigration over that period, yet I still can't recall them ever making a big deal about this. Again, why not?

I don't claim to have the fullest grasp of the relevant laws, but my suspicion is that any reduction that might have been achievable would've been negligible and/or extremely complicated and costly to pursue in terms of process, and that's the real reason why no one jumped on it.
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Yes ultimately its a game. Politicians have to be seen to be tough on immigration, while understanding the research that shows its beneficial - no vital - to the UK economy. Only UKIP had the balls to blow away that charade, like them or loathe them.
 
Parklaner81 said:
Actually I was talking about it in two ways; during the referendum campaign, which @SpurMeUp has also provided a reasonable response to (not that I'm entirely convinced still!), but also going back pre-referendum. The tory pledge on significant immigration reduction goes back to 2010. Labour have moved a long way on immigration over that period, yet I still can't recall them ever making a big deal about this. Again, why not?

I don't claim to have the fullest grasp of the relevant laws, but my suspicion is that any reduction that might have been achievable would've been negligible and/or extremely complicated and costly to pursue in terms of process, and that's the real reason why no one jumped on it.
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Think you have given a better answer to your own question there, pre 2010 talking about reducing migration in the mainstream labour party was pretty much taboo, it led to calls of racism.

The inability to have a conversation on the topic was probably a big reason all the pent up feelings on the topic were so strong on the left.
 
milo said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/935784955443105792
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Regarding no planning, people didn't technically vote to leave the Single Market so not sure anyone could plan for an EU fronteer that we now require.

What's been interesting and emphasised through this process is how humans are rubbish at doing things we haven't done before. We're amazing 'early adopters' and with a little practice we pick things up rapidly. But vision to see how something new will unfold like Brexit is actually quite hard for us. Doing something we have not done before we find difficult. That applies to everyone from Leave campaigners like UKIP who thought we'd take up the Norway model and stay in the single market (laughable now), Remain campaigners who didn't know how to formulate strong arguments because they didn't really grasp the most powerful issues themselves (absurd to say but true, they were clutching at straws testing the water) and voters who couldn't possibly have had an deep understanding given the lack of knowledge available. But, humans learn fast, and if we had to do it again, we're all now experts on Free Trade Agreements, Sovereignty, Customs rules, EU legislation on immigration etc :eek:
 
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SpurMeUp said:
That applies to everyone from Leave campaigners like UKIP who thought we'd take up the Norway model and stay in the single market (laughable now),
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You are more charitable than me. I think that during the campaign they tried to be all things to all people and told voters they could have things that were mutually exclusive. After the referendum they switched position and claimed that anything but the most extreme Brexit (that was never put to the people) would be to ignore the "will of the people". Our weak Prime Minister, in an attempt to appease a handful of lunatic backbenchers, adopted this position and boxed herself and the country into a corner.
 
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