Yesterday the Guardian reported that:
Theresa May has agreed with her cabinet that restricting immigration will be a red line in any negotiations with the EU.
and:
David Davis says there will not be armed checkpoints on border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.
Now reconcile the irreconcilable. Especially if we have a land border with Scotland in due course.
The reality is you either have strict border controls or uncontrolled migration. Why haven't the government realised that?
Or is the talk just that?
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She didn’t really get to grips with the none EU immigration after six years when it was fully in her remit.
It wasn’t in her remit.
There are two ways to control immigration. The first is actual immigration policy (like quotas and so forth), and the second is aligning incentives such that only certain people are attracted to immigrate.
She had little control over either. All she could to was try to stretch the definition of ‘an immediate threat to national security’ to turn people away. The EU had most immigration policy in its remit, and the economic incentives part is firmly within DWP and PM’s office.
The ‘natural party of Government’ is used to getting what it wants. With the UK electorate and a pliable media, it finds that easy in a domestic context. And it’s sufficiently arrogant to think it can bully our European allies in the same way. Amazingly they really do seem to subscribe to the view that Europe needs England (and it is mainly an English view) more thsn vice versa. I think they’re in for a very rude awakening this time.
Brexit hasn’t been thought through properly? What?!
May’s record at the Home Office raises disturbing questions about her attitudes and her competence.
The racist ‘Go Home’ vans, the raids, the street sweeps in London, tens of thousands of students illegitimately deported refugees sent to their deaths, the disturbing accounts from inside Yarl’s Wood…
Either Theresa May really is that xenophobic, with a real streak of cruelty and no thought whatsoever for injustice, economic damage and the opinions of others; or she let the dogs off the leash in a calculated appeal to racist voters.
Some dogs, and some people, must never be let off the leash: and the most charitable interpretation is that May lost control of her department, and the worst people in England are running riot.
It’s something to think about when you hear the term ‘Authoritarian’: leaders and rulers who take up that particular mantle are never fully in control of their supporters’ actions – or they have no control at all – and they have no understanding whatsoever of the consequences.
You could also say that you can’t have tourism and control immigration. 36 million tourists came to the UK last year.
Not true at all: we can have border controls for tourists and the last time I went through we did
The only way you can really control who you let into this country is to re-introduce visas for everyone but that is a reciprocal arrangement really. In the early 1980s I once took 120 Polish passports into our consulate in Warsaw ( that was a once off to jump the lengthy queue at the gate!) Around 1985 The John Major government agreed with the Polish gov to do away with visa requirements. That was long before Poland entered the E.U. The current inspection of passports at our airports does not really inspect well who is entering the country.
I once had dinner with J-RM MP, and pushed him on this very issue. His viewpoint was that you keep the common travel area in Ireland and potentially do boarder checks on planes and ferries to Britian from Ireland (and indeed anywhere else). This seems to be something that both parts of Ireland and the British would agree too.
In fact he may have been even more relaxed and said that you could keep the common travel area with the whole of the UK and Ireland and said that you just had to accept that some people will come. I think it is a fair assumption to make that the need to make such a round trip would serve as a strong disincentive. Control is not want social conservatives want: it’s a reduction in the numbers coming. Even without any policy change I think the hate crime will achieve this of their goals.
Desperate people will do what it takes
So in the age of low-cost airlines a stopover in Ireland is going to act as a deterrent to EU migration into the UK post Brexit!? Get serious. Without a solid border between the Republic and the North or between Northern Ireland and the UK mainland all that would be necessary for an Eastern European migrant coming to the UK is a Ryanair flight to Dublin (cost minimal), breeze through Irish immigration as there are no grounds to stop them, train or bus from Dublin to Belfast across non-existent border (cost minimal), ferry or plane from Belfast to the UK mainland (cost minimal) going through no border checks.
The financial deterrent would be the difference between a direct flight to the UK from your homeland and the cost of a flight to Dublin, plus a bus or train fare plus a second flight or ferry trip. I’d be surprised if the financial deterrent was over €50. In time the deterrent would be half a day to a day at most. As Richard has noted you cannot have control of your borders whilst having no border with the Irish Republic.
Richard, I see these nonsensical, talking tough, non-committal comments as part of a wider delay strategy. Under the current EU the UK (rightly) seems to have no chance of getting any serious concessions on freedom of movement. However the EU stance on freedom of movement could have radically shifted this time next year. 2017 sees general elections in most importantly France and Germany but also though less crucial in determining broad EU policy the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. The current leaders of France, Germany and the Netherlands (no idea about the Czechs) are all strong supporters of free movement however all three face an election where free movement is going to be hugely challenged and difficult to defend. Le Pen in France as already dragged the debate around migration hugely to the right. Geert Wilders in the Netherlands looks likely to be the leader of the biggest party in the Dutch parliament after the election though probably not part of any new government. Merkel in Germany will be fighting to defend her position on refugees and wider free movement against not only the AfD but also a growing wing of her own party.
There is a possibility that this time next year the UK could find the EU to be more willing to reform free movement in a way that allows the UK negotiation to get a better mix of border control and single market access than the EU is now prepared to allow.
Though my overarching thoughts and that this is probably wishful thinking from the UK and as commented yesterday they will ultimately end of in the worst case scenario of a hard Brexit.
What’s irreconcilable are the expressed wishes of the various nations of the UK with respect to Brexit. Davis is taking seriously TM’s stated implacable opposition to the breakup of the UK. This obliges him to explore the possibility that the Four Freedoms (not just freedom of movement) would continue to apply in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but not in England and Wales. There is a precedent for the EU treating self-governing territories differently from their sovereign state (Denmark/Greenland since the 1985 Greenland Treaty). Of course, some Brexit dogmatics might be apoplectic about such an arrangement, but pragmatists will accept that internal differences within the UK would be less appalling than an international border between England and Scotland. I think Davis is softening the ground for this kind of compromise.