To ask how Brexit would affect immigration?

[Bearbehind]

It scares me that, as a nation, we have to vote in the EU referendum as there doesn't seem to be any impartial informative advice on which to base a decision.

I think I've made my mind up based on a number of factors but, as far as I can see, the question of immigration will be make or break for many people.

I'm not sure leaving the EU will result in us being able to control immigration much better than we do now but I'm the first to admit I know very little about it.

Will it really change much?

For a start- 65 million includes children who can't vote or contribute to the economy.

The absolute bollocks spouted in defence of valid questions is the reason I will probably vote in.

I don't think that Brexit would actually affect immigration.

We already had a referendum on the common market. We have "four freedoms" - freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and workers. You can't have the first three without the last.

Realistically, commercial interests mean that there is no way we are going to withdraw from the four freedoms (and if you look at Norway and Switzerland, they haven't - Norway doesn't want to and Switzerland can't get out of it).

So if immigration is your primary concern, you are likely to be very let down by a Brexit, because EU immigration is likely to continue unabated, whether we're in or out.

"According to the last immigration figures that got Brexiteers so worked up, more than half of the immigrants came from outside the EU. So after Brexit they will continue - if we can't control them now, we can't control them then."

A lot of the non EU immigrants are high quality people who are capable of earning a high salary and paying lots of tax. They expand the UK ecomony and create jobs. The sort of person prepared to work for sports direct drives down wages and allow employers to get away with appauling work practices.

If we leave the EU then we can be more selective about who we allow to settle in the UK. Maybe we could even have freedom of movement deals with certain countries. (Ie. we could say we allow so many 1000s of immigrants from Australia, USA if they allow our people to live and work there) We could have more compassionate rules to prevent this sort of thing happening.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-35979897

"For a start- 65 million includes children who can't vote or contribute to the economy."

Every EU country has children, pensioners, disabled people or other economically inactive people. As a nation our average income is still higher than most EU countries. Even the economically inactive people buy products or have produts bought for them.

If the UK is so awful then why do all these people want to live here. Very few immigrants are refugees. Its not as if Poland or Romania is a war zone.

Yes but really, you have answered the question on how we would actually become selective in who entered the Uk.

I'm dying to know the answer as it seems so critical in some people's vote.

Bugger- haven't not have

"Yes but really, you have answered the question on how we would actually become selective in who entered the Uk."

That is a matter for parliment to decide. Prehaps a royal commission should look at the issue of immigration law. How can be right that mother who has lived in this country for several years is sent home because she has lost her (highly skilled) job, but any EU citizen can come an live in the UK, even if they have no job and no skills?

Several MPs have proposed that we have a points system like Australia. Voters have to decide whether they want Westminster or Brussels to decide how immigration is managed.

Scotland calls another referendum, votes for independence then rejoins the EU
We then have a land border with Europe

Scotland would really struggle to rejoin the EU and it would take years. Other countries which have separatist movements are vehemently opposed and would veto - including Spain and Belgium. It would take a long time if ever.

The average person on benefits has a better standard of living than someone in Romania. Why else do you think that all these immigrants want to come here? Compared with Poland the streets are paved with gold in the UK. Why else do you think that EU migrants are prepared to come and work for shitty employers like Sports Direct?

Not necessarily true. When you look at the cost of housing and living here often the standard of living is worse. Young people in Eastern Europe can still expect affordable housing and a home suitable to bring a family up in.

And they don't necessarily come here expecting or wanting a better standard of living. A lot of them come here actively planning the exact opposite.

A young Romanian can come here for four years and work in a low paid job but live in conditions which are absolutely appalling and only sustainable short term to keep their costs down. 8 to a room, mattresses used in shifts, 6 guys in a caravan, squatting, sleeping in tents and cars, shanty towns around London. But that enables them to save up a significant amount of money to return to their home countries often set up for life with a down payment on a house and enough to set up a business.

But if a young British person who isn't leaving did the same, they'd barely have enough to buy a car, let alone put down a deposit on a house. So they end up in the low wages but somewhere slightly better like a bedsit. They're never going to leave or be able to break free, but they're going to be stuck in dead end low paid jobs with no chance of saving their way out or being able to afford a family or a decent home.

It's really quite grim out there for WC young people.

If the UK is so awful then why do all these people want to live here.

Just to expand on my point above, it's because the money they can earn here is worth so much more in their own countries as cost of living is so much lower. Same reason we had so many Aussies in the 90s.

Wages are higher here, but so is the cost of living. But if you can stay here for a while and save up just a relatively modest sum (for the UK) then you can return home and there it's a significant sum of money.

It's very sad really when you look at individual cases.

Once elected they would then implement that policy

They could implement policies on how we interact with the rest of the world, they wouldn't have any input at all on how the rest of the world interacts with us.

And as for the "they need our trade" argument that is absolute bollocks. The population of the EU is about 500 million. What makes the UK so special that they would somehow need to do some sort of trade deal with us.

On its own the UK is tiny, and will have to accept what it is offered, it has no clout on its own at all.

It may do the UK good to become more green and self sufficient. To reduce our inport global carbon footprint when it comes to food would be good.

"A young Romanian can come here for four years and work in a low paid job but live in conditions which are absolutely appalling and only sustainable short term to keep their costs down. 8 to a room, mattresses used in shifts, 6 guys in a caravan, squatting, sleeping in tents and cars, shanty towns around London. But that enables them to save up a significant amount of money to return to their home countries often set up for life with a down payment on a house and enough to set up a business."

People who are prepared to put up with such living conditions make life harder for WC people who want to live in the UK long term. In the 1990s it was possible to get an unskilled job that could pay the rent and financially support the young person with recourse to benefits.

We have a huge unemployment problem with under 25s. We have young graduates who want to work, but cannot get employment becuase they don't have experience. Uncontrolled EU immigration allows employers to have a greater pick of candidiates. It also locks out aspirational working class graduates who cannot afford to unpaid internships.

A salutary look at some solid facts and figures here - fullfact.org/europe/immigration-eu-referendum/

It is not so much who arrives here, but who is allowed to be employed/claim benefits. EU citizens will almost certainly be allowed to travel to the UK and stay as long as they like, but the would no longer be eligible for an NI number, so unable to work, claim benefits, use the NHS or schools, unless they were specifically allowed by a visa.

Good blog post here about recruitment from outside of EU and the NHS. Being in the EU makes it more difficult for the NHS to recruit the people it needs.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-hamdy/uk-government-turned-away-2700-nurses_b_10275224.html

Brexit would allow us to have a sensible strategy maybe similar to that of Australia. We wouldn't have the 170,000-strong net migration from the EU to add pressure to our infrastructure and instead we could adopt a system that works for us.

If we remain, the 170,000 figure will increase as the economy in the Eurozone worsens and youth unemployment rises.

I voted to remain in the last referendum. I have already voted to remain in this one, postal vote. All my similarly aged friends are also passionately for remain.

Please don't paint all those my age as little Englanders. We are open minded with wide life experiences that give us a true dread of the future that would face us and our children if Brexit were to win.

My opinion is that the result will have little impact on immigration.

I've thought for a while that the practical difficulties of negotiating a withdrawal agreement inside the two year timetable mean that the most likely outcome is an EEA agreement, under which free movement will not change (and the UK might have to join the Schenghen zone, as all other EEA members plus switzerland did, although this bit might be negotiable).

My suspicions that a leave vote won't actually change much were intensified last night when I read that one of the leading brexiteers - it might have been Johnson - said quite plainly that the UK will still be an EU member at the next election ie in 2020.

that enables them to save up a significant amount of money to return to their home countries often set up for life with a down payment on a house and enough to set up a business

The thing is that there is nothing - apart from lack of ambition and inability to even contemplate learning another language - that stops young British people doing the same thing.

My partner and I are of the Thatcher generation - we were young adults at the time of 3 million unemployment and Tebbit's "get on your bike". So we did. We made short term sacrifices that enabled us to save money to move abroad and set up a business.

rennie
this annoys me as well as being insulting - although less so if you really are English.
Please don't paint all those my age as little Englanders.
what about the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish - it is an insulting term to use to suggest that only the English can be xenophobic.

I am scared to vote because I don't know enough about it .. When it was the general election there was an online quiz which I did which was called something like Vote for Policies, that was really helpful.
Does anyone know if there's anything similar for EU referendum?

Pie and jelly belly you're both vile and incredibly cruel. Barbed wire used for that purpose is illegal btw.

Eh??? Where have I advocated the use of barbed wire to keep cats out??

In saying that, I think I'm voting out. I made that decision many years ago during my degree, and feel I ought to stick to it

Why? Aren't you prepared to consider anything you have learnt since you did your degree, or any changes that have happened since then? When I did my degree I was still pretty naive and immature, I certainly wouldn't consider myself in any way bound to follow for ever views and decisions I formed at that stage.

I'm guessing Jelly has got the wrong thread unless immigration applies to cats too.

It is intriguing that the general consensus is that not much will change with immigration if we did vote to leave, and no one seems to have any idea what any changes that did happen would look like.

I really don't understand the 'leap of faith' mentality with something as important as this.

I think there will be nothing we can do to change it.

If you look at the european countries currently not in the EU, such as Switzerland and Norway, they have all had to sign up to the Freedom Of Movement clause to trade with the EU so no change there if we want to continue trading with Europe.

Also any refugees are fleeing hell on earth, and our membership of the EU or lack of it will make not one jot of difference to their hardship and their desperation to escape it. If they are hiding in container lorries etc, it is because they have ran out of other options. Their distress is real and so therefore is their determination.
It concerns me that the main argument for Brexit is based on something we have no control over because it plays on people's fears.