Would you vote to re-join the EU in another referendum?

[GorgeousSpringtime]

Simple question. If there is another referendum to re-join the EU, will you be voting to re-join?

This isn't to have a go at anyone who supported Brexit, or who supported Remain, it's just a quick straw poll. Thank you.

If anyone is wondering, (or cares!) I think I will vote to re-join. (I won't say at this point what I voted for last time...)

@EEexpat ,

‘I guess the 6% figure comes from the NBER report. This was referenced on another thread I remember. It's a flawed model due to
60% of the model was based on US performance over a 10-year period. A country which has been the largest economy since the late 1800s, never has been and never will be an EU member.’

The 6% number is an average of several models, the NBER (which isn’t actually a ‘doppelganger’ model by the way), the Bloomberg model, the Cambridge econometric model and the Goldman Sachs model.

The outcomes vary from 2% to 8% per capita, with the majority centring on 6%.

Firstly, we didn’t really reduce low skill immigration when we left the EU, we just substituted it with immigration from different parts of the world.

This was a political decision though. This wasn't done because we had no choice as being part of the EU. It was done because the government decided to do it. No hiding place there.

Secondly, freedom of movement is economically a net benefit because it means the right skill sets can be found for the right jobs.

No. Immigration only results in the right skill sets for the right jobs if it properly controlled. You import the people you need. Not the people you don't. A good immigration policy doesn't stop people whose skills are in demand coming here. And it doesn't allow a lot of people whose skills are not in demand to come in and undercut the local labour force either.

And here lies the problem with FOM. It's great if you are say a middle class business executive if you are getting the benefits of cheap coffees. And less great if you are a manual worker whose wages and standard of living are decimated by cheap imported labour. The issue is though that both of those people have an equal vote, and neither really deserves to have their earning power decimated by poor government policy.

Surely we’d see the drop comparatively. We’re not. Perhaps they didn’t factor in AI regulation and the U.K. getting ahead on that.

They wouldn’t have factored it in at the time of the referendum.

@EasternStandard ,

‘Surely we’d see the drop comparatively. We’re not. Perhaps they didn’t factor in AI regulation and the U.K. getting ahead on that.’

I don’t really understand your point. We aren’t Germany. We aren’t the U.S either, but we have characteristics of both. There is no reason that our GDP growth couldn’t have been 0.5% to 1% higher had we not remained in the EU, even on a per capita basis. We might well have outgrown Germany by quite a bit.

AI is comparatively recent as an economic driver, and I am not sure we have sufficiently different regulations to Europe to change our GDP trajectory.

I mean, it is possible that 95% of professional economists are wrong and your idea that we should track Germany is right, but what are the odds? You are questioning, without really understanding how the models are put together, a lot of PhDs known and respected in their field.

We do but we will more probably as things develop faster. In fact it’d be interesting to look at AI and tech as growth over labour.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) explicitly upgraded the UK’s 2026 economic growth forecast to 1.3%, specifically citing the UK as one of the primary winners of the global tech boom due to surging AI-related investment and exports. about:blank 1]
Concrete Benefits and Market Advantages

• Avoided Regulatory Compliance Burdens: Because the UK uses a decentralized, principles-based approach delegated to existing bodies (like the FCA and ICO), it does not enforce the rigid, cross-sector bans or heavy conformity assessments mandated by the EU AI Act. Industry data shows this shields UK companies from the compliance bottlenecks hitting continental counterparts, where nearly 60% of EU developers report launch delays and a third are forced to strip features to comply with EU rules

You really don’t have to keep adding the PhDs stuff in your posts, it’s a female dominated site and your addition sounds a bit patronising.

@EasternStandard ,

I do think that we have an excellent base in our top unis for high tech, especially around Cambridge uni.

‘You really don’t have to keep adding the PhDs stuff in your posts, it’s a female dominated site and your addition sounds a bit patronising.’

Only if you believe that PhDs are male?! It is a suggestion that we should all respect expert opinion and that, if we ignore it, we are in trouble.

Of course not. I’m on a female-dominated site by choice, there’s plenty of women on here with PhDs.

They too can adjust to new regulation and figures, such as the EU AI regulation slowing growth and ours surpassing it. We should continue on that trajectory. It should widen too.

There’s no point in not adjusting for new information eg new regulation.

That’s grand and how it should be.

I would like to be part of a European Union though.

@SevenYellowHammers

I would like to be part of a European Union though.

That's okay as everyone is entitled to an opinion. Ever thought about moving to the EU?

@SevenYellowHammers ,

Do you literally mean a union, or the halfway house the EU is now?

Full blown!

I have links to Spain and Portugal but my parents are very elderly and one of my horses is very elderly so I can’t move at present but I might one day. Although I like some things about UK: countryside, London, theatre, music but I don’t like the mean spiritedness that emerged from Brexit. Although there does seem to be a little bit of easing on this. That man stabbing the dinghy and the nastiness to RNLI seems to have knocked a few people to their senses a bit.

@SevenYellowHammers

That man stabbing the dinghy and the nastiness to RNLI seems to have knocked a few people to their senses a bit.

Fron the footage I saw, the dinghy the man was stabbing was empty? However, he was jailed.

I also remember seeing footage of French slashing dinghies whilst people were still in them to prevent them from leaving Calais. Shallow water. So, not much risk of anyone drowning

RNLI is voluntary. So, they should not be interfered with.

I have Bulgarian residence, but will spend more time in the UK in future as my parents are now elderly.

@SevenYellowHammers ,

‘Full blown!’

At least that is a reasonable and consistent view.

I kind of think it might have worked with the original Northern European members, but I think it is way too big and diverse now.

@Newbutoldfather Ask the truck drivers, delivery drivers, builders, bricklayers, warehouse workers etc what happened to their wages while FoM was in place.

Maybe she can't?
It's harder for people to do that because we left. Due to freedom of movement (and ending freedom of movement) working both ways. I know a couple of people who took advantage of this to do "trade" type jobs. One who was a carpenter and worked installing office blocks in Frankfurt and met his partner there (also from the UK) and another who worked as a plumber in the Netherlands. Both decent well paid jobs in those places, and that's not counting the jobs like welding etc that you would find British workers in the EU doing. Those opportunities have been cut of to younger people now, or at least they are much harder to get. It's often portrayed as only the "chattering classes on their gap year" who miss d out but thats absolutely not the case. In fact the better of/more well connected you are the more likely you can arrange an EU passport for your kids. Like Nigel Farages own children.

Telling people to "just move to the EU" is a bit shitty in that context.

A new article on that topic here;

Conceding to a revised offer for European students to have cheaper university tuition fees would hit cash-strapped UK universities with a £280m bill, new modelling suggests.

The offer from the EU, a compromise designed to unlock the UK’s Brexit reset deal, would see fees cut by less than was first demanded, but universities have warned the cost impact would still ultimately result in the loss of staff, courses and places for British students.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-universities-brexit-eu-student-fees-4821919

This was Blair’s mistake and not the EU’s. It was recognised that people from countries like Poland and Romania, with a GDP/capita of 1/3 or less than the northern members of the EU would want to work and earn in far richer countries. The EU thus had a 7 year transition period without full freedom of movement from these countries. Blair, in his wisdom, decided to ignore the transition period.

Just to point out that Blair did impose transitional controls on Romania and Bulgaria when they joined the EU in 2007 (Poland joined in 2004 with no constraints) - which expired at the end of 2013. Ultimately it made no difference since well over one million Romanian nationals have applied to the EU Settlement Scheme. The seven-year transitional constraints deferred rather than prevented a massive shift in migration.

As for Bulgaria, the 'UK's biggest-ever benefit fraud' was carried out by a Bulgarian gang, with possibly several thousand Bulgarian citizens complicit in defrauding our benefits system. The fraud, conducted 2016 - 2021, was eventually spotted by a Bulgarian detective - after noticing his city was 'awash with cash'.

May 2024
Tom Little KC, prosecuting...
told the court false claims were made for UC using real people who were “nearly always Bulgarian” and who “were complicit and also gained financially”.
The claims were supported by an array of forged documents and lies, including "fictitious tenancy agreements, counterfeit payslips and forged letters from landlords, employers, schools and GPs."
most of the claimants “lived in Bulgaria and made claims in which they falsely claimed that they lived and worked here when they did not”.
“Many travelled here for a short period of time to support the claim before returning to Bulgaria with the claim remaining ongoing. Some never even travelled here.”
Mr Little said that the gang also arranged “hundreds of cheap flights” for the fraudulent claimants so they could travel to the UK and attend interviews, or take pictures “proving” they were in the country and entitled to benefits if required...
“Our investigation found that a few thousand people were customers of this scheme and it is likely that many are still receiving money through similar schemes.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/28/bulgarian-town-boomed-from-uks-biggest-benefits-fraud/
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/britain-benefit-fraud-gang-cash-video-b2526210.html

I know a couple of people who took advantage of this to do "trade" type jobs

When was this though - 1980s/1990s?

that's not counting the jobs like welding etc that you would find British workers in the EU doing

I thought we had a severe shortage of skilled welders in the UK.

2008 and 2012. I am sure young people also enjoyed the benefits of the EU in the 1980s/1990s.

Maybe we do/did. There is a shortage of welders in lots of places but equally it's a good job to have if you want to travel the world and probably still is. Many young people, with and without degrees benefitted from the ability to travel and work in the EU and now that's harder. The work travel wasn't all one way. And it's quite selfish to on the one hand blame immigrants for coming and working in jobs with a labour shortage AND imply that it's a problem for the UK if British young people in jobs with a labour shortage got to experience work elsewhere

I don't think freedom of movement/labour is trouble free. But it would be better to campaign to raise the minimum wage rather than try to trap young people in their own country so they have to work low wage jobs.

Thanks! 😜. I thought there was a touch of “If you don’t like it you know what you can do.” Thing is, I do quite like UK there’s brilliant things and not so, like anywhere else I guess. I have family ties here so can’t go elsewhere. But I am eligible for another country’s citizenship and therefore EU passport. But given that I’m having to stay in UK for now, it would be nice if it was in EU because it was better then because people weren’t so polemical and mean. But the tide is turning I think😀

Being in the EU doesn’t get rid of tensions. Look at France, Spain and Belgium. Germany looks quite divided. You probably see the same issues crop up.

There's a whole world outside the EU/EEA/EFTA to move to you know?

@Persephonia1966

Telling people to "just move to the EU" is a bit shitty in that context.

It was not an instruction, but a question which was answered.

Maybe. No where is perfect. Some UK citizens do seem fixated on feeling separated from Europe, possibly because of the channel. There seems to be an enduring myth about the EU inflicting lots of laws on the UK which isn’t true. Has our legal or judicial system changed significantly since leaving EU? No because our laws are and were our laws. To be fair to the average British leave voter, there was a huge amount of disinformation about straight bananas, Cornish pasties and extra large Italian condoms (Boris Johnson made that one up) for decades. It all seemed to feed off the British inclination to be suspicious of foreigners. I don’t discern that so widely on the continent.