Should the UK return to EU free movement?

[EEexpat]

Advantages and disadvantages?

No.

@channelislander

There is a travel to Europe app which allows non-EU passport holders to upload their biometric data before they travel. However, for some reason, only two EU countries have adopted the app, Portugal and Sweden.

Considering that tourism is about 10% of EU GDP, I would have thought all EU countries would have adopted the app. Particularly those on the Mediterranean Sea?

What's actually wrong with the idea that if we need care workers the government actually saying, we need care workers, so let's issue 1000 visas to allow people to come in to do care work. The visa will only allow them to do this work and will be for a specified time, they will get right to remain after say 10 years ?

Or is it a better solution to just abandon immigration controls to paper over the cracks in society ?

@GasPanic

ii) Make it so that care work actually pays a decent wage and has decent prospects, so people are willing to go into those jobs ?

I would go down this route. My late father was in three different care homes. The staff received minimum wage and had no formal training. Considering the fees charged, staff should receive formal training and a good wage.

My mother is being charged £24/hour for a carer to visit each morning Monday to Friday. Does the carer receive £24? No they don’t. They receive minimum wage! So, the companies who provide the carers are making a fortune.

My children have European passports so have kept freedom of movement. I wish for the same for all young people in the UK so yes.

No, obviously not.

Obvious because it is not what people want and immigration is causing disintegration all across Europe. And in general when people believe the government doesn’t have control over something, they will try to take control themselves.

It's not an option, so why bother with the question?

It has come up recently.

The care system in this country is completely dysfunctional.

If people believe that abandoning immigration controls is a solution to problems like that, well good luck.

I wish Brexit had required a majority in each of the 4 nations. Those canny Scots.😀

Pubs and restaurants in the Lake Dustruct, and doubtless other places too, relied heavily on European students working there, either on a tears out or over the summer months. Many have closed their doors (opening less or closing completely) due to lack of staff. Also summer farm labour is non existent.

Yes I’m well aware of the "indivisibility of the four freedoms" (goods, persons, services, and capital) but it’s a central tenet of the EU that they cannot operate in isolation of one another because goods don’t move, design, or manufacture themselves across borders without human labour, and if nations could trade goods without allowing the movement of people, member states could selectively protect domestic jobs while exploiting open export markets.

Even though it can be painful for individual nations it’s good for the prosperity and security of the EU as a whole that the playing fields between countries are levelling up, eg that Poland is now becoming prosperous, as that is exactly what Putin doesn’t want!

But leaving all of that aside, it’s a bit demoralising that posters are so fixated on the question of the freedom of movement of people without acknowledging the harm it has done to British business and economic growth.

Error sorry …

… without acknowledging the harm that Brexit has done to British business and economic growth and how we can claw back what we have lost?

There's a fair margin between making a fair living and high charges because tradespeople are few and far between. The UK is critically short of tradespeople.

We have an epidemic of youth unemployment. Sounds like we should be training them in the Uk then rather than importing them. Win win

Couldn't agree with you more.

Importantly we need to find a way to keep young people in training. About 40% of craft/trade trainees drop out before completing their course. Bricklaying trainees drop out at a rate of 70%.

In the short term we desperately need more skilled tradespeople.

Have you seen the state of the EU ? The big 3 on the bones of their arses. Within the next year or so both Germany and France will have far right Governments, Italy are already there. So why on earth OP do you think we should rejoin?

But we don’t need free movement for that. We just can give short term working visas.

And yet it's not actually an option

So again, what is the proper solution ?

i) The government should make sure adequate numbers of people are trained to do particular jobs. I would argue that part of the governments responsibility is to ensure the education system produces the people we need ?

ii) Open the gates and hope a load of the people we need come in ?

The problems are always relate back to bad governance. Tony Blair decided everyone had to have a degree. So everyone went for degrees. We now have graduates with useless degrees, massive debts and a massive shortage of tradespeople.

Is the solution more bad management with a paper over the cracks approach. Or is it a matter of actually training our young people in trades as a matter of urgency, or maybe the greater point to make sure our education system is fit for purpose ?

I don't think this or any government deserves a free pass on screwing up like they have been doing and allowing "solutions" that lead to massive social pressures with uncontrollable consequencs to be used in response.

They should do their job properly.

It is if there’s a GE, or do you mean not ever?

Plus I think a youth movement scheme is being discussed.

Plenty of pubs and restaurants here in SW Scotland are on 4 day weeks and they never relied on EU students to staff them. The places are closing because they can't afford the fuel and the stock.

During Tony Blair's government total apprenticeship numbers increased from around 75,000 in 1997 to roughly 250,000 by 2007.

The Tory apprenticehip levy was the start of a real decline in people starting and completing apprenticeships.

ii) Open the gates and hope a load of the people we need come in ?

They did last time and EU workers were net contributors to our economy.

Before freedom of movement ended on December 31, 2020, the UK construction industry relied on overseas workers for roughly 30% of its workforce, with the vast majority coming from EU nations.

@RaggedRocks

I wish Brexit had required a majority in each of the 4 nations.

Not related to the question, but pops up often. The question on the ballot paper was:

Should the UK remain in the European Union

That the UK is a union of four different countries is irrelevant as from the EU view, UK was a single member.

@mybiggreenfrog

UK has a student population of about 2 million. They have 16 weeks break in the summer. What prevents them from working on farms?