To ask if those who want to leave the EU are happy to be personally worse off in order to do so

[Bearbehind]

Following lots of discussion on the subject, it’s clear that leaving the EU is based on something other than financial impact, however, even the government’s impact assessments make it clear that there will be a negative impact.

Would you still chose to leave if you knew it would make you personally financially worse off?

Why do people mind ID but don't mind a passport or driver's license?

Yes. I am prepared to be financially worse off to leave.

Nessie you chose to tell that you and your family are all upper class with enough money to insulate you financially if Brexit went tits up
What were you hoping to achieve with this —apart from riling the commoners—

NinjaInFluffyPJs

The meme that you posted is an example of shutting down a discussion point.

It contains various untruths and promotes the view that if your lost your job to an immigrant its you that is rubbish at your job.

The vote is still fairly evenly split 56 / 44

It did strike me that not many people have actually disagreed with me that the underlying factor is immigration (and probably not FOM on its own).

If 44% of people are happy if they are worse if because if Brexit, there has to be something pretty compelling to be worth that price.

So the man-made, imaginary land-mass that links us to a Continent

It’s not an “imaginary landmass”, it’s called Doggerland and was inhabited until around 8000 years ago when it was flooded by rising sea levels.

England didn’t separate from the French states until the 16th Century. The Glorious Revolution saw the Dutch king as our Head of State in the the 17th, and Hanoverian kings ruled throughout the 18th Century.

This idea of the UK (which didn’t exist until less than 100 years ago) as some kind of “island people” completely divorced from the rest of Europe is strange.

People are willing to take a gamble for their lives to improve

If things haven’t improved for years, if everyday life has become more of a struggle of course many people will take up the option than rather remain with what they have now as it hasn’t worked for them

It’s not rocket science

Brits don't know how to work, they don't work hard, they're useless, they can't invent things, they don't know how to make things, they're useless come about

The problem is our education system is designed to fail British children and welcome in those from overseas

Ds would love to do a trade.

He completed the college Level 2 part with an average score on all his tests of 97.5%

He is now stopped from continuing onto an apprenticeship to gain his NVQ because he doesn’t have an English Language GCSE.

Even if he managed to get someone to take him on and he passed all the further exams and be the best tradesman in the world he could not actually qualify until he has a gcse in English.

I had to employ a person qualified in this particular trade.

To communicate I had to do a lot of pointing and miming.
I can’t see how this person could possibly have an English GCSE yet for this person it is ok not to speak English.

I am able to help Ds go abroad to qualify if necessary but there are thousands of girls and boys like Ds who don’t have a parent who can give them practical and financial help.

I think we are sitting on a powder keg.

I can’t quite believe that the end scenario of this ridiculous and unfair ruling didn’t cross someone’s mind when they were discussing what a good idea it was.

Just because you cannot analyse a poem to the nth degree doesn’t mean you are too stupid to get a practical qualification

Most people I know voted Remain. But of those who voted Leave, every single one of them is very well off. Some of them have second homes. In Europe.

Sigh.

If 44% of people are happy if they are worse if because if Brexit, there has to be something pretty compelling to be worth that price.

My dad would answer that he would be happy to be worse off, but

A) he honestly doesn’t believe it
B) he believes he wouldnt be affected too badly as he is ‘comfortable’ C) if he is worse off he believes it wouldn’t be down to leaving the EU...though weirdly it would more than likely be the EUs fault
D) there is no way he is going to think that the leave campaign was wrong and that britain is going to be worse off
E) if it happens then we won’t be worse off for long

I could probably get to Z

@BoneyBackJefferson

However, the same cannot be said for many other better off leave voters, whom immigration was the issue, its disingenuous to pretend otherwise

It is also dishonest to state that immigration is an issue for all leavers

I never said it was, that is why i used the word "many" in my post .... ie not all.
Where did i state immigration was the issue for all....?

English comprehension isn't your strong point is it? though twisting posters comments is.

of the people I know who voted Leave. They are all from working class backgrounds/families. DH and myself included, although DH is educated to degree level, and earns a decent salary. A few are retired and 1 owned their own business and owns property in Turkey. Of the few people I know who voted remain they are from working class backgrounds, some who work as cleaners, some who are degree level, with a well paid, high managerial job in the NHS, 1 from a senior position in the Civil Service and owns a holiday home in the U.K. So a mixed bag.

It's more disingenuous to suggest that immigration isn't the overriding reason that leave won the vote.

The entire campaign was thinly veiled (very thinly in some cases) xenophobia.

So no, no every leave voter did so because of immigration, but the camp they voted for won based on it.

There's nothing any of us can do now anyway is there?

We're here, and have no choice in what comes next.

Let's hope all the leavers who "took a chance" were right eh?

Because otherwise it's going to be a long, hard, tedious "I told you so" for however long it takes to extricate ourselves from the absolute shitshow we're in.

Well, Scotland will likely get independence so at least that's one way out for some.

Why do people mind ID but don't mind a passport or driver's license[sic]?

It’s all about purpose. A licence is required to drive a car although it isn’t compulsory here to have it when driving. The actual document is becoming a bit spurious anyway because if you tell the police who you are if stopped they can do a quick pnc check on whether you hold a valid licence.

A passport for travel doesn’t seem excessive.

Each of these are optional and for a given purpose.

My objection to government ID is that the government doesn’t own my identity and I object to them trying to charge me to sell it back to me.
UK admin is notoriously shit and incompetent but there are worrying numbers of people who either don’t realise this or don’t care.

ID cards don’t offer me, as an ordinary law-abiding person, any advantages.

There’s more, but that’s a start.

Except we could have controlled EU immigration more than we did.

How could we have done this? I asked another poster who made this claim earlier on the thread but got no answer.

@BoneyBackJefferson it's difficult thing but that's how it is though. Ime it is more about not wanting that particular jobs.

@Oliversmumsarmy I don't get GCSEs and I think it's just bit of a useless thing. We don't have it. Agreed with you though that if there is an English requirement it should apply to anyone wanting to qualify.

@familycourtq I have an ID and advantages are that it's cheaper than passport and allows travel within EU and it's proof of identity anywhere from shops to government offices. Plus it allows me to have 2 IDs so if I travel anywhere I carry this one with me so my passport is safe and I wouldn't get stranded. However, we don't pay for it the first time and when renewing. Only time we pay is if we lost it or need a speedy process. Do you think if it was free people would more likely be for it?

@NinjaInFluffyPJs There is no such thing as “free” ID. UK tech projects are almost always vastly expensive and hopeless.
I don’t believe in having to continually produce a card for everyday transactions. If the Police (or anyone else) demands I identify myself I prefer to make my own choice about whether I wish to. If we have cards it will shift the burden to me to prove who I am all the time, often for spurious reasons. The advantages aren’t for me.

I don't get GCSEs and I think it's just bit of a useless thing. We don't have it. Agreed with you though that if there is an English requirement it should apply to anyone wanting to qualify

It isn’t about qualifying it is about qualified workmen who come to do a repair on something that you might need to explain a little bit in detail of why say your boiler has gone wrong and the person who you are faced with doesn’t speak a word of English.

Yet this person who can’t speak English is allowed to work here and an English speaker isn’t allowed to even get the certificate to say they have qualified despite passing all the exams relating to the trade and the only reason being is because they don’t hold an English language GCSE

Except we could have controlled EU immigration more than we did.

How could we have done this? I asked another poster who made this claim earlier on the thread but got no answer.

family essentially by enforcing rules that we just never bothered with

This article is a basic summary

The problems you describe with workmen are not a result of EU laws. They stem from the way those laws have been transposed into UK law by the UK authorities. This has always been our choice and our responsibility.

Germany would not be employing non German speakers in these roles.

@bearbehind You posted a link to an article that requires a subscription to read it. The article is entitled “How to bend the EU rules of freedom of movement"
Can you just explain what you mean by enforcement and how it would have worked on a practical day-to-day basis?

This claim (we could easily control movement of EU people without ending FOM) but does not appear to have any foundation in fact.

It's a pointless question. Most people, including most politicians, have no idea how the economy works. All they know is their own ideology and personal circumstances. They base their decisions on these only.

Most economists have no idea how the economy works.

This claim (we could easily control movement of EU people without ending FOM) but does not appear to have any foundation in fact.

Except in the link I provided you with plus countless of others like it 🤔

I don’t have a subscription but can still read it but here’s the text for you

THERESA MAY’S government has long insisted that free movement of people from the European Union to Britain must end after Brexit. Commentary on this week’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) report has focused on its advice that Britain should not offer EU citizens preferential terms after it leaves. Yet the report pointedly adds that “preferential access to the UK labour market would be of benefit to EU citizens”. This clearly hints that a regime favouring EU migrants could be a bargaining chip to win better access to the EU’s single market.
The principle of getting free trade in return for free movement is implicit in the single market’s rules. As a matter of economics, a single market could be built around the free movement of goods, services and capital. But the EU deliberately adds free movement of people, which most citizens outside Britain see as a benefit of the club.
Yet it also permits exceptions. Harvey Redgrave of the Tony Blair Institute, a think-tank, notes that other EU countries have long been amazed that, given Britain’s hostility to EU migration, its government has never applied the constraints allowed on free movement. It was one of only three countries not to limit the migration of nationals from central and eastern European countries for the first few years after they joined the EU in 2004. Even today it is more generous than it need be. In June Britain chose not to extend limits on free movement from Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013, for two more years.
Britain is also in a minority in having no registration system for EU migrants. Post-Brexit, it could use such a system, as Belgium does, to throw out migrants who have no job after six months. Denmark and Austria limit migrants’ ability to buy homes in some places.
Most EU countries are also tougher than Britain in insisting that welfare benefits cannot be claimed until a migrant builds up some years’ worth of contributions. Equally, the EU’s posted-workers directive is used by many to try to stop any undercutting of local labour markets. But Britain is lax in enforcing both its minimum wage and its standards for working conditions.
Non-EU countries in the European Economic Area have other options. Liechtenstein, a tiny principality, has quotas on EU migrants, despite being a full member of the single market. Article 112 of the EEA treaty allows Iceland and Norway to invoke an “emergency brake”, although they have never used it. And non-EEA Switzerland, which is in the single market for goods, not only limits property purchases but also makes most employers offer jobs to Swiss nationals first.
This particular concession was secured after the EU refused to accept a Swiss vote in 2014 to set limits on free movement. Yet a further referendum on the issue is now threatened, so Brussels may have to bend its rules yet again. All this comes as other EU countries besides Britain are looking for new ways to constrain the free movement of people.
The MAC report itself points to the irony that all this is happening as EU migration to Britain is going down fast. It notes that the country may be ending free movement just as public concern about it is falling. It is not too late for a compromise in which Britain accepts something like free movement in principle, but heavily constrains it in practice.

So we could have set up an expensive additional registration scheme for EU workers like Belgium and sent home any with no job after 3 months? That would be hugely expensive and is very minimal. How long would such people have before they could re-enter the UK?

There is nothin in that article that describes how we could have anywhere like the same level of control as we can/could with an end to FOM. I am not arguing the virtues or otherwise is FOM but it is simply factually incorrect to state our government already had means to limit EU immigration. There is no right at all to limit the numbers coming to take up work or self-employment. The benefits question is largely a red herring too. Most other EU countries can exclude foreigners from their benefit system as most of theirs depend on contributions so the exclusion applies to everyone, but natives will likely be able to claim. Our issue was that we cannot apply limits to non-means tested non-contributory benefits to EU citizens as that is against FOM/free market rules.