E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

I'm sorry, but you are treating EU immigration like non-EU immigration. 50% of all immigration is non-EU. If the government can't cap that, what makes you think it can cap EU immigration when it has the same status as non-EU immigration after a Brexit?

The fact is that governments can't cap immigration; they can only mostly direct the flow. The dirty little secret is that what makes people immigrate is dictated by forces outside of the government's direct control and has much more to do with the economic and foreign policies it pursues. Not just my view by the way, but those of the Flexcit report written by a Vote Leave camp.

It seems to me that Vote Leave has no immigration policy. It has some vague aspiration to "cap immigration to 50.000 per year" (Farage) without a single thought on whether that is economically possible, while at the same time promising to open the doors even wider to immigration from the Commonwealth and the Indian continent. I hardly see that as an improvement. I hardly see such contradictory statements as any kind of policy.

In fact, India has made free movement of its people in the EU a condition of a bilateral trade agreement it is negotiating with the EU. The EU has flat out refused (but then, as the largest economic block in the world it can afford to). Vote Leave however seems happy to accept.

On the other hand Vote Leave wants to impose visas on all the 34 million tourists that visit the UK every year and contribute nearly 10% to its GDP.

 

Simply:

50 % of all immigration comes from an area with about 456 million people without the UK but with norway and switzerland, world population being estimated at 7.4 billion, so call it 6.8 billion without the UK and EU.

That is 50% of our immigration coming from an area containing about 6.3% of the worlds population. So outside EU migration under UK migration controls only matches EU migration with no controls despite the rest of the world containing 14.91x the population of the EU seems like pretty good going even without considering the greater economic, social and military push factors that exist in much of the world compared to even former 2nd world states like Poland, bulgaria and romania.


I'll put a more complex detail of my opinions on immigration in relation to the EU and post EU model, which in the short term (5-10 years) will become the same for EU citizens as rest of the world citizens post brexit, later when I have more time.

BTW the india isn't an issue for us any more than the EU. New trade agreements improve efficiency and therefore growth potential, not having them only costs you money you've not seen yet, it doesn't affect current GDP. India doesn't demand free movement for all their trade agreements, the reason they would have for the EU is they see it as a cartel like much of the developing world does.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/why-cruz-is-worse-than-trump/

 

It's not a matter of can't (IMO) it's a matter of looking for the quick cheep fix to a problem, that problem being a skills gap that needs to be filled, instead of planning for what skills are going to be needed a decade from now and investing in education and training of the local populaces to meet that need it's quicker and cheaper to make up for that lack of planning by relying on immigration.

I've got nothing against people emigrating to the UK but let's not kid ourselves if previous governments had invested in financial and engineering roles we wouldn't need to be taking them from abroad.

 

That also presents an issue ill comment on later that I don't have enough time to detail now about the opportunity cost of EU migrants. Rougly given we can't take much larger flows of migrants in short periods therefore we restrict rest of world migration more to cope with the increase from the EU.

So we get unskilled migrants from europe at the expense of high skilled migrants from everywhere which has implications for more things than just the productivity of our economy.

 

I've not looked into it anymore than the wiki but it says as it stands now, around 12% of the world's people live in Europe so unless the UK holds 5.7% your figures seem a little off, not that it effects the point you made about Europe containing far less of a percentage of the world population but still making up 50% of immigration.

EDIT: Since when has Russia been a part of Europe, ahh well never mind that wiki entry i linked to earlier is the wrong one and ICBA to look up the exact percentage.

 

1. Most immigrants move to countries closest to home. The fact that a smaller proportion of the rest of the world migrates to the UK relative to EU nationals is about geographical distance, not controls.

2. Net non-EU migration since 2000 has been 2.5 times nets EU migration. So by far the largest chunk of immigration has always been totally under UK control.

3. According to the 2014 EU Citizenship directive free movement is not an unqualified right; the UK has a right to limit access if it thinks too many people are coming in (like all member states do). But all these people find work here. At a time when UK unemployment (UKIP's assertion notwithstanding) is at a 10-year low. Your economy counts on them. The very fact that Vote Leave is advocating casting its immigration net even wider would support that. As Corky42 says: blame your government for a lack of investment in its own workforce.

Again, all these people are finding work here. It's not like the UK is experiencing a mass surplus of lower skilled labour. And EU immigrants tend to be the ones that contribute more to the GDP balance than the non-EU ones.

But all this ignores the elephant in the room and that is that Vote Leave has no coherent immigration policy. Because the bottom line is that the UK economy relies on a large inflow of immigrants. If that puts a strain on housing, the NHS and education that is because they have been severely underinvested in since the last decade or even longer.

I agree that immigration is an issue that needs addressing but there is no compelling argument whatsoever that a Brexit would address it.

 

The eu area population is 508 million, Norway and Switzerland included is something like 12million on top of that minus UK at 64 million and you get my figure. Should have written my sources in my post but I'm on my phone the figures are all more than accurate enough for the purpose of that analysis. Divide 456 by 7300 get percentage

Remember Europe is different from the eu and depending on the countries included from memory about 300 million more live in Europe as a continent. Non eu countries in the balkans, Russia and likely turkey make up that figure.

I'll probably reply to nexxo tomorrow doesn't look like I'll be at a desktop till then.

 

Maybe if he informed himself with some facts and a bit of history he would have some answers to that extremely biased opinion the he can't help himself from repeating.

 

I'm sorry, but that EDIT: the video that Tynecider has since removed is biased, distorted pro-Leave crap thinly disguised as pretend balanced rational argument. It sucks so much balls that I can't even believe I bother to unpick this:

"1. We're an island, so we don't think about the rest of the world. When we eventually overcame that and belatedly joned the EU, we found that other EU countries already had made the rules to suit themselves!". Well, duh! But since then the UK has had plenty of opportunity to change that, and has. In fact the UK has been on the winning side of votes in the EU 95% of the time, and has a large range of opt-outs: out of the Euro, out of Schengen, out of Eurozone, out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a flexible opt-out from legislation adopted in the area of freedom, security and justice and opt-out of 'Ever Closer Union'.

"2. Big business and financial services and the South do better in the EU than small business, manufacturing and the North." (Oh, and apparently the North also doesn't do as well because it is further away from the EU --cue Father Ted joke). No, that is not the fault of the EU, that is the fault of your own government that sells its soul to global business and financial services in the South while neglecting manufacturing, small independent business and in fact everybody outside the M25.

"3. If you're wealthy middle class you are more likely to enjoy all that French wine and Italian ham, and send your kids to Universities abroad". I mean, really?!? This is a class thing now? And let's forget that it is the UK government that has made university education unaffordable for poorer people by introduction of £9000,-- university fees.

"4. It undermines a sense of community which enables things like social services... people feel they don't control it anymore". Yup, the UK electorate was totally in control when the government introduced savage budget cuts in health and social care, disability benefits, the NHS (which now operates on nearly half the budget of that of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain).

"5. We have no control over our own country anymore". Again, blame yourself, not the EU. This electorate keeps voting for people who do not act in their interests. It is not the EU but the UK government that let Port Talbot go to seed (the EU wanted to impose tariffs on cheap Chinese steel; the UK vetoed it. The EU wanted to insert a clause in TTIP explicitly exempting public services like the NHS; the UK government vetoed it). Only 42.5% of you voted in the 2014 European parliamentary elections, and the majority voted for UKIP --a party that wants to disengage from the EU. A third of you could not even be bothered to vote in the general election.

"6. We have no control over our borders". If that is so, why are 6000 refugees living in **** in Calais? You're not in Schengen. The 2014 EU Citizenship directive states that free movement is not an unqualified right. The UK has stopped 6000 EU immigrants from entering the UK in the last 5 years. But 50% of your 300.000 immigrants are non-EU nationals, and I don't see the UK government do anything to stop them either.

"It's a decision for your gut every bit as much as for your head". Yes, let's endorse risking the economic future of your country on a feel-good vote. You don't need to learn all them difficult facts! You don't need to think all them hard thoughts! Just vote with your gut, you proud British patriot you! You'll feel what's right.

How about a rational analysis of pros and cons? How about a vision of a Britain in the EU and a Britain outside of it? How about a few links to fullfact.org or OpenEurope.org.uk and other impartial, fact-based sites where people can find the information they need?

Come on. This is shameless propaganda for the Vote Leave campaign.

 

no its badly distorted pro remain crap posted as such

 

Well we'd be arguing with ourselves then because we're the only one leaving....

It's more like:




Using the same analogy:

Remaining would be like being in a s*** club since 9o'clock, it's now 12, I'm fed up with the stench of the toilets, the 20 fights that have already kicked off, the intimidating bouncers policing you for nothing (while letting a local gangster threaten his way in), the sweaty drug fuelled people you're in the midst of, the eardrum piercing **** music and half your mates are broke and asking you for money you haven't got.

So I say to my mates " I'm gonna get going in about half an hour"
So after about half an hour of guilt and being told how **** my night will be if I go home I decide to stay and think: oh well it can get any worse.

By 5am some of my mates got into a fight after a thug punched one of them, one of my mates has gone walkabouts, another drank too much and is in A&E, one of them has lost their wallet and keys so I have to pay for his taxi and let him kip on the couch.

After staggering into the taxi I wake up at 2pm realising I probably left all my stuff in the taxi or the maccies, stuck with some horrendous hangover, cleaning my mates vomit off the couch still semi p*****, realising I need to get a new jacket, cancel my card and order a new passport.

I realise I have spent 10 times what i'd have spent if I just gone to the local pub. But god knows I'll be going to that **** club on Saturday again because I don't want to miss out on having a good time with all my mates and I don't have any solid plans otherwise......

Don't stay in a s*** club just because you are told you'll have a s*** time if you go home because that is probably one of the better ways that night will end up.

 

Well yes.

The first is a geographical location - in this case also continent - the second is a political construct. Europe consists of 55 countries, out of those 55 countries 28 are members of the European Union.

Another pet peeve of mine is when people rant about some abstract European people, there is no European people, there's only the peoples of Europe, with distinctive ethnicities, cultures, languages etc. Oh, and whilst I'm on a roll here, there is no British people either, only the peoples of Britain, same thing applies here; different ethnicities, different cultures, even languages, though the Scots and the Welsh also speak English as a result of English dominance in the region. Having said that I'm happy to discover that an increasing number of Scots and Welsh are starting to speak their own respective native tongues again. This is a good thing, because a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots, and language plays a major role here, in fact it is paramount. Last part was a quote from Marcus Garvey.

 

If you want to keep your welfare state there needs to be more money going into the system than is going out of the system. If you want your pensions and your healthcare then you have to limit the number of economically destructive 3rd world migrants who come into your country, you seem to have recognized this.

Lets be honest here, what has the western world gained from mass immigration apart from higher taxes, higher crime rates, less readily available infrastructure etc.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, you can't have a 1st world country with a 3rd world demographic.

The solution is not mass immigration because immigrants gets old too and for it to work it would mean no end to mass immigration, the result of that over time, would be that the indigenous peoples would be replaced with immigrants because of the low birth rates among the Anglo-Saxon population. Not that you should mention this issue of course - and it is an issue - because if you do you're most likely going to be branded racist - for what ever bizarre reason - but I'll take my chances.

Good question, they appear to be in the self destruct mode, not holding up their end of the bargain, they are to look after the best interest of the nation, they are not doing so, thus they are in breach of trust and abuse of office.

 

I was referring to a video that Tynecider posted in response but has since been removed. That'll teach me not to quote...

 

I think there's a stat that shows Rich folk make more money when there's high amounts of low skilled people coming to the country... go figure.

 

I'm glad someone said that as i thought i was having an outer body experience, either that or being really stupid and interpreting things differently (whose Iain Black anyhow?).

How else do you expect government to pay for things when they've mismanaged the fiances?

If i promise that after a lifetime of paying me some of your wages I'll pay some of that money back when you're no longer working and later find out i don't have the money to do that what other option do i have? Tell you I've mismanaged that money you gave me so i can't pay what i promised or get more people to invest in my scheme so i can use their money to make up the difference.

 

What it has gained is cheap, menial labour. But it is large business that benefits from that, not the electorate.

Basically the government has spent the last decade cutting public services and letting laissez faire free market economics use the UK as its playground. As a result there has been a societal race to the bottom with lower wages, fewer workers' rights, a crumbling of health and social care, housing and education, and a polarisation between rich and poor. To fuel this economy with the huge base of disposable cheap labour it needs, the government has just let immigrants pour in.

And now the electorate is slowly waking up to the fact that the infrastructure and public services of their country are crumbling, and they blame it on them immigrants because they are a concrete, easy to grasp proxy for all the crap that is wrong with this society. So they want OUT of the EU because opportunistic demagogues like UKIP's Farage say that this will make Britain great again. And Cameron et al are now trying to say that well, actually it's not the EU immigrants that are to blame, which is kind of tricky without having to admit at the same time that in fact it was the government with its free market economics/austerity policy that was at fault all along.

No surprise the electorate has a bit of a tough time swallowing that. But the real reason it can't accept that lies deeper: because if it isn't the immigrants, then it is the government, and by logical extension it is the British electorate itself that has let the government break down this country and kept voting for it because it was too stupid to realise it was being screwed over.


The long term solution as I see it is that the UK needs to rethink its economy drastically.

The UK is stuck in a Victorian model of industrial revolution. You can see this in how its education system is still an essentially two-tiered system that turns out industry fodder in the lower tier (children indoctrinated to have standardised basic rote skills and knowledge, to sit still and be obedient to authority and work hard but not think) and professionals and administrators in the upper tier (children prepped for a university career path to become highly skilled professionals, lawyers, bankers, corporate leaders etc. who run the country) with nothing in between. It tries to compete with places like China and Singapore forgetting that it is not the days of Empire anymore, and that frankly it is impossible to compete with countries that have up to a billion people's worth of cheap labour that is prepared to work longer and harder for less, without such encumbrances as workers' rights, health and safety, environmental protection etc.

A 21st century Western economy needs to focus on highly skilled creative problem solving. It needs to be Apple, not Foxconn; the people who invent, create, design the science and technology that other countries manufacture; the visionary stuff that is needed now to successfully carry humanity into the next centuries and beyond. Stuff that improves quality of life for the whole of humanity, preserves the environment, taps new clean energy sources and new materials. For this the UK needs a more egalitarian workforce of people who are taught to think critically, ask questions, solve problems, explore and discover; not kids who have rote skills and knowledge but the ability to learn and develop autonomously.

This requires a vision that goes beyond egocentric materialistic self-interest on both the part of the electorate and the politicians and that won't happen, because people are --partly because of the education that produced them-- dumb, selfish and easily led and vote for charming sociopaths who themselves are dumb and selfish and educated to be charming sociopaths.

Politicians always talk about vision, but the truth is: politicians have no vision --they are not taught to have. if they had, they'd be scientists or engineers, artists or architects. They don't want to create; they don't even know how. just want power because that is what they have been taught to aspire to. That is why they are politicians.

 

Sorry, I was not referring to Iain Black's post but the video that Tynecider posted in response but has since removed. Hence the confusion.

 

Nexxo, did you ever consider a career in politics? Psychology and politics are kind-of the same thing anyhow - playing mind games.

I've been following this thread quietly and the main thing on my mind is what will actually happen when the time comes to count the votes. With the Scottish indy ref, there was a strong inkling that it wouldn't happen; this time round and with Brexit it's a lot more ambiguous. The latest poll by BMG shows 44% stay and 45% leave. ICM's survey yesterday revealed 45% for both leave and stay, but offline polls are quite different favouring the remain side of the campaign (Ashcroft's survey was pretty much 65% to 35%, quite a stark contrast to the online polls).

What do people predict at this moment in time?