Tory MPs are rather triumphantly tweeting this image this morning:
I have to admit, I think that is pretty sad. I use the term literally, and not as one of abuse.
It is sad that we have lost some of our human rights to travel. Because that is what this means.
It is sad that for many the option of living in Europe has now gone.
It is sad that a racist agenda has been promoted.
It is sad that the UK will no longer have access to some amazing people who wanted to live here, because it's always the most innovative and risk-taking people who want to migrate, but those qualities are not (and this will be shocking to many Tories) correlated with wealth.
It is sad that we have sent out a message that we are closed-minded.
And even closed.
Whilst for the hundreds of thousands, and maybe more, who will be separated this is a disaster. The Tories have not learned.
It is sad that prejudice has prevailed.
It is also economically completely bizarre that we should want to do this. It will cost us significantly.
With an ageing population and low birth rate we need migration.
And recent migrants are extraordinarily hard-working - from wherever they come. That's a character trait and nothing whatsoever to do with race.
The evidence is overwhelming that significant parts of the UK economy are dependent on migrants. And that migrants contribute significantly.
But all that is now to be prevented from happening.
Worse, if capital can move freely and labour can't then wages will be suppressed.
Worse still, millions of people in this country feel more vulnerable as a result, at enormous cost to their well-being. This triumphalism for some will look very much like persecution for others.
And why? To reinforce the idea of British exceptionalism, which is without foundation, unless prejudice counts for this purpose. That's why.
Is that sad? I think so.
And it makes me very angry, to be honest, that we are ruled by a political party capable of such inhumane celebration of abusing others. That's beyond sad. I think it's disgusting.
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Of course under EU rules, there never was ‘free movement’ there were restrictions, but successive UK Governments chose not to apply them.
I suggest that not doing so made possible to some of the ‘abusive practices’ in the Labour Market that in turn led to Brexit.
Agreed – we had plenty of opportunity to use EU regulations to manage issues – time and time again we did not.
“With an ageing population and low birth rate we need migration”
Can you explain that in more detail. What policies would be needed if we had a high birth rate and a young population, and how does this statement compare with the immigration views promoted in Progressive Protectionism
How are we going to look after the elderly without young people?
The question is as simple as that
And much as I agree with Colin on much we do not agree on progressive Protectionism, although I understand his desire that people get the change of a good life where they want to be – which is usually near their family
“How are we going to look after the elderly without young people?”
Well there are lots of ways of looking after the elderly, and it can be done in lots of different places. Getting rid of stamp duty would make it easier for the elderly to downsize to be near their relatives. Radical to promote responsibility I suppose.
But free movement of labour of absolutely all types, with a set of countries who also have ageing populations ( in case you hadn’t noticed – there aren’t any countries in the EU that are getting younger ), isn’t going to answer your question.
This is the first time I have ever heard that cutting SDLT can provide care
The suggestion is so bizarre you prove yourself to be off any reasonable commentator scale
I wonder how many Brexit voting Brits realise that they also voted to end their own freedom of movement. The difference being that they have lost the right to travel freely to 26 other countries whilst the immigrants they so despise have lost the same rights to only one. I think this still hasn’t registered with a lot of people.
You couldn’t but help laugh at the number of Brits living in e.g. Spain who supported Brexit…
It’s not a happy laugh though.
@David Webb:
Clearly what hasn’t registered with you is that Brexit isn’t about despising immigrants. 4+ years on, you really should have moved on beyond this.
@Cathy Edmondson
I’m afraid that the success of the Brexit vote was very much down to anti-immigrant sentiment stoked up by dog whistles from the likes of Farage and our dear prime minister. To suggest otherwise is simply naive. A lot of anti-immigrant Brexit voters also liked to hide behind the mantra of “taking back control of our money, borders and laws” or whatever other guff that was being dished up, and repeated ad nauseam, by shady right wing think tanks. I’m not saying that all Brexit voters are racist but I suspect that not many racists voted to remain.
@Cathy Edmondson – can you tell me what Brexit is about and what is the tangible good that will come from it?
“It is sad that a racist agenda has been promoted.”
Well, is Bermuda racist? Australia? Barbados? Finland? These are just 4 of many many countries where there are restrictions on who can live there. Just like the UK. That does not make us racist, it’s more you exaggerating to stir it up.
You miss the point entirely
We have flourished without these regulations
And millions from the UK have benefitted from them
So the racist agenda is implicit in them being taken away
That is the point
I wonder if you think Australia, Bermuda, Barbados and Finland are oases of interracial harmony, but let’s see what the evidence suggests:
(Given the treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia, and of people fleeing from Asia, I hardly need to link it, but…) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Australia “international organisations such as Amnesty International have condemned Australia’s [asylum] policies, with one describing them as ‘an appeal to fear and racism’.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Finland “A 2011 poll shows that 66% of Finnish respondents considered Finland to be a racist country but only 14% admitted to being racists themselves”
http://www.royalgazette.com/opinion/article/20200611/systemic-discrimination-andracial-inequality-in-bermuda “Since the first African slaves were forcibly taken from their homelands and brought to Bermuda in the early 1600s, racial injustice has been a wound that has festered near the heart of this country.”
https://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/letters_to_editor/65204/racism-alive “The reality is that racism still exists in Barbados. It is alive and well. We hardly mix, except on the job. How many mixed marriages are there? Do we see them at social gatherings?”
I could go on.
Thank you
Appreciated
(Your 800th comment)
Well Finland, Australia, Barbados, Bermuda join the UK in being “racist”. I suppose because Germany, France, Poland etc are not racist because they remain in the EU? Is that how it works?
And yes well done Andrew a great example what google and cut n paste can achieve.
Politely Sarah, your deep seated nastiness is unwelcome here
Please do not call again
I don’t need to use Google to know that many (perhaps most) countries have their own issues of racism of one sort or another. That is hardly surprising when you know anything about history of the places you have mentioned. As you well know, racism is an issue in Germany, France, Poland too. The question is, what do you do about it. Need I ask if entrenching institutional racism through discriminatory immigration policies is going to move things in the right direction?
This is just nonsense.
Many other countries already impose restrictions on migration. In fact most do. So there is no ‘human right’ to migrate freely around the world. Can you unilaterally decide you want to go and work in the USA, Japan or Australia, for example? No. So it is not a ‘human right’ to migrate.
I have always been uneasy that we import labour in some sectors as if that labour is not needed in the countries from which those workers come. There is a need for care workers and health workers in the countries from which those workers come. It is very selfish of the UK to drain human resources from other countries which need them just as much as we do. There is an aging population in eastern Europe. Depopulation of young people in eastern Europe is acknowledged as their biggest problem. I’m surprised that you support an “I’m alright Jack” attitude here. Are you saying the British elderly should be looked after by migrants while the elderly in the countries from which those migrants come don’t matter?
As for ‘racist’. That’s a strawman argument. Race is not mentioned. Indeed given that there are limits to how many migrants it makes sense to allow in each year so that they can be welcomed with adequate facilities, it must be obvious that there is now more chance of an Indian or African coming to this country since they are now on an equal footing to someone from Europe.
“if capital can move freely and labour can’t then wages will be suppressed.” What? You don’t think free movement of labour from Europe has had any effect on wages?
You miss the point entirely
We have flourished without these regulations
And millions from the UK have benefitted from them
So the racist agenda is implicit in them being taken away
That is the point
Mr Mc Govern,
What makes you think anything is going to change; save that immigration will switch much more from EU, to non-EU? The British Conservative policy is rich in calculated political hypocrisy. The British state has no intention of giving up immigration. Not only is there currently just a major ‘switch’ underway from the EU source of labour, to non-EU labour, but the resources of Customs simply do not exist to apply the supposed controls on the necessary scale, even if they existed. This is deliberate. It is the classic British deception, dressed in a fudge. We have been using this technique for centuries – because it works on the British public.
Pass the legislation, wave the flag, provide a fake PR story about “action” (there may even be a few raids on illegal immigrants, with the press well informed just to sweeten the story), but no implementation of immigration controls will ever happen, no organisational investment to equip customs actually to do the job (that would be a disaster); and things can go back to a faintly adjusted new normal; the white vans whizzing round the country taking who-knows-whom, who-knows-where to do who-knows-what; and who-knows-who will give-a-fig?
Look at the ONS migration statistics to 2019, if you really are interested. It uses careful estimates, but look at the graph:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/february2020#main-points
Table 5. EU and non-EU migration over time. Sharp fall estimated for EU migration, from over 200,000 around 2015, to around 50,000, 2019. Non-EU up sharply up from 150,00 around 2015, to 250,000 in 2019. The trends are actually accelerating.
Good luck with your remarkably naive interpretation of what this government is actually doing.
Of course “race is not mentioned”. Hardly anyone would put out publicity trumpeting “Racist bill just passed”. They are not complete idiots. But tighter restrictions on immigration, wrapped up in a nice package with the Union Jack, is a dog whistle to jingoistic “English jobs for English people” “hostile environment” “why don’t you go home if you don’t like it here” racism.
Although the new restrictions don’t apply to 3m people from Hong Kong it seems.
And only rich Hong Kongers need apply: they can stay for five years but they won’t be entitled to social benefits during that time
The usual maliciousness
The fundamental problem of the UK is that it is not, and never has been, a democracy. In my view this problem underlies many of the issues discussed on this site. The UK is only a part-democracy, as the head of state is unelected, and the whole of one parliamentary house is unelected. We should all stop using the term “democracy”, and instead use “part-democracy”.
A prime example of the UK not being a democracy is that in 1963 Lord Home became Prime Minister while he was a member of the House of Lords. Harold Macmillan had announced he would resign as Prime Minister (for health reasons) as soon as a successor was appointed. Macmillan advised the Queen that Lord Home was the right choice, and she sent for Home to see if he could form a government. He was able to do so, “kissed hands” with the Queen, and became Prime Minister on 19 October 1963. On 23 October 1963 Lord Home disclaimed his earldom, and became known as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. At this point he was neither a member of the House of Lords nor of the House of Commons. He won the Kinross and West Perthshire by-election on 7 November 1963, and became a member of the Commons.
Lord Home was “elected” Prime Minister by an “electorate” of 1, or 2, person(s). A state where this was possible cannot be a democracy.
Well I don’t buy it.
For ‘skills’ read ‘money’ and ‘inward investment’ – tax shelter UK here we come. More dodgy Russians anyone?
At least we now know what needs to be done. This needs to be overthrown and stopped dead.
We are on a very slippery slope now. If Trump gets in again, it could be even worse.
‘Inward investment’ now usually means flogging off British companies on the cheap – and post BREXIt and COVID they will be cheap. Their skills, intellectual property and profits are then to be syphoned off. With financial games such as loading them with debt so that interest charges (invariably to tax havens) can be used to syphon off yet more
There have been exceptions, notably Nissan, Toyota and Honda who really have invested in people, plant and infrastructure to rebuild a British motor industry. All now to be undermined by BREXIT
One other obvious question might be ‘Why does the UK attract so many migrants?’
I suggest that we have had a ‘bosses’ migration policy that has meant that they haven’t had to train workers – the NHS being a prime example and there has been a plentiful supply of cheap compliant labour working in poor conditions. I suggest for example that without unrestricted EU migration, the widely reported ways of working at the Sports Direct Depot at Shirebrook would not have been possible.
For the avoidance of doubt I am simply making observations and no comment as to migration in general
It is interesting to note that some here don’t seem to be registering the impact on those of us who were born and live in the UK who wish to work in the EU.
This is going to be made harder – dare I say impossible. This Governments is saying that if you move to the EU, we are effectively cutting you off – even if you have paid into the social security system most of your life. All because people like the ERG can’t be arsed to send money to their own citizens through the EU. It’s almost a form of captivity.
And OUR young and talented people will no doubt made to stay here with crap wages, prospects or be unemployed just to keep down the cost of labour, lest they leave with no option but stay away forever.
I mean, the only states that have behaved like that previously we used to say were behind the iron curtain!!
Honestly, you could not make it up. Welcome to the age of Tory totalitarianism.
Incredible.
Agreed
Instead of skills read bank account balance. Most immigrants to the uk dont come from the EU. That wont change. Looks like the UK gov prefers rich immigrants from low wage countries rather than from countries much like themselves.
Yes – as well as criminals who will launder their money whilst over here too.
As part of the 37% that voted leave I never thought my vote would be abused this way.
Foolish me thought, there would be a mature debate about how to proceed.
Instead we have picked a path, put the blinkers on and are wilfully ignoring the warnings signs and perils ahead. This doesn’t end well.
If it was such a good idea why is the £ still suffering against the €?
And why did the Bank of England use QE to settle the markets after the vote?
Do I have any regrets? Damn right.
Was I wrong to vote leave? Completely.
Our country has got smaller.
There are potentially 3 million Hong Kongese being invited – regardless of skill sets.
There will be millions of Indians coming as part of any quick and dirty trade deal.
The BrexShitters know that the country only survives because if immigration (as most advanced nations do).
The immigration dog whistle was to get the Leave referendum – nothing to do with any real benefit for the majority of the UK and infact against their interest.
What a ‘lovely’ surprise for the suckers as they find that as wages & conditions drop a large number of ‘non europeans’ will arrive to take up ALL these jobs.
Australians will demand improved access too
Plus New Zealanders and then…….
r a few more years will anybody want improved access?
I confess I am not sure what you mean
I suspect he means the UK will be so far down the pan no one would want to come here!!
I sincerely hope that public opinion will cause a serious rethink about brexit and that the sad (and I agree with the use of that word) reality of it will engender a reconsideration and even a change of mind and heart. I want to be together in a big group of ny European neighbours, working and living together for mutual benefit. I can’t believe that anyone would think that that is not better than this isolationist alternative.