The only way to get the EU to take the UK seriously is to vote to leave

[SpringingIntoAction]

Cameron tells us repeatedly that he wants to remain in a reformed EU.

Many others across the political divides also acknowledge the need for the EU to reform itself.

Some say that's why we need to remain in the EU - to change it from within.

I think the EU's refusal to engage with Cameron's plea for his EU reforms and the failure of his 'special deal' to achieve anything like the changes he originally said he wanted, show the EU is unwilling/incapable of reform.

I think the only way to get the EU to start taking our demands for reform seriously is to vote to leave.

They need to start imagining what the EU would be like without one of its largest funders - the UK. We do that by voting to leave.

Winter - everyone knows that there is no chance of anyone but the Tories winning the next election.
The money (such as it is) saved by Brexit will not go to education, welfare, the NHS. Those pretending it will are those who are usually so keen to talk in favour of cutting welfare and slimming down and privatising the NHS.
The strongest and most influential member of the EU is Germany. Their state owned industry, eg rail, are strong, and in fact are taking over some of the UK's privatised industries. They have strong worker rights. The EU has done a huge amount on the workers' rights front. The Tories have already cut a lot that they are legally able to cut, and will cut a lot more if the UK leaves the EU. Their inspiration is the US, where there are very few workers' rights, and the poor are simply screwed if they become ill or have an accident or need a filling.

Right fourmummy, which is how we get back to the same discussion and disagreements we're having on this thread. And that's my point - what you call the worrying "rise of the far right" in Europe is driven by many of the same concerns and arguments as the Brexit vote. (As far as France is concerned anyway - it's a very different kettle of fish in some other countries)

what you call the worrying "rise of the far right" in Europe is driven by many of the same concerns and arguments as the Brexit vote

There are some topics which the left and right are both interested in, but they will be coming at them in different directions and for different reasons.

So explain the reasons, in a language that isn't take direct from a far right script.

What is it, specifically, about people like chalalala that makes you not want them in your country?

Chalalalala - yes, it's an 'agree to disagree' scenario. I see it as a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation (I don't mean the Far Right bit) whereas your focus is different. Different explanations for the same phenomenon. Have you seen the movie yet?

The money (such as it is) saved by Brexit will not go to education, welfare, the NHS. Those pretending it will are those who are usually so keen to talk in favour of cutting welfare and slimming down and privatising the NHS.
The strongest and most influential member of the EU is Germany. Their state owned industry, eg rail, are strong, and in fact are taking over some of the UK's privatised industries. They have strong worker rights. The EU has done a huge amount on the workers' rights front. The Tories have already cut a lot that they are legally able to cut, and will cut a lot more if the UK leaves the EU. Their inspiration is the US, where there are very few workers' rights, and the poor are simply screwed if they become ill or have an accident or need a filling.

This mirrors exactly what I think.

Winter - everyone knows that there is no chance of anyone but the Tories winning the next election.

Certainly not true. I think people voted Tory because they were the only party offering a referendum on the EU. It doesn't mean they'd normally vote for them or would do so again.

The money (such as it is) saved by Brexit will not go to education, welfare, the NHS. Those pretending it will are those who are usually so keen to talk in favour of cutting welfare and slimming down and privatising the NHS.

No, some people are keen on saving money at the same time as cutting welfare and the NHS. Most of us aren't UKippers. Brexiters come from all sides.

I think Cameron and Osborne are making themselves less electable by the day, so it will be interesting to see who the next party leaders are on both sides.

I think the politics will balance out, as the British way is moderation and tends to either centre-left or centre-right views. We're used to the party in power changing quite often. Any extremes due to a party being in power too long will be clear, and I would hope people will be uncomfortable enough to vote them out. I think this "balancing out" will happen relatively quickly even if Scotland leaves the UK.

I'm a fence sitter, who has been reading all the threads on the EU referendum, but has not posted so far. What has prompted me to post now is Mistigris' question "What is it, specifically, about people like chalalala that makes you not want them in your country?", and the suggestion that Brexit is largely a right-wing movement.

I am a middle aged, well educated professional, fairly well off, living in a naice area in the south east. Both DH and I work with people from all over the world. We both very much enjoy this aspect of our lives and our view is that the majority of people in the UK, Europe and elsewhere are decent, peace loving folk who simply want to do the best for themselves and their families.

I am sure that chalalala and I would get on perfectly well if we were to meet, and I am happy that she has found a life in the UK. Moreover, as a working class girl who moved from one part of the country to the other in order to build a better life for myself, I can only respect and admire people who move countries or continents with the same aim.

I have voted conservative only once, aged 18, when Margaret Thatcher first came to power. Since then, I have been a wishy-washy liberal.

So, in view of the above, you would think that I am a natural "remainer". It certainly seems to me that remaining in the UK is in my own financial interests and is the least frightening option.

However, I am not voting for myself, but for my children and for the younger generation generally and, in all honesty, I do have some serious concerns about remaining, one of those concerns being the sheer number of people arriving on these shores. I worry about the downwards effect on the wages of those at the very bottom of the social pile and the pressure on infrastructure. The constant accusations from the Remain camp that such concerns are founded in racism and nasty nationalism is, at the very least, unhelpful and may be damaging to the Remain cause.

Muddled where is the evidence of downward pressure on wages?

Labour markets are rarely simple, transparent markets where the price of labour is set by supply and demand. Often, wages are determined by external constraints. Let's take the example of carers, a low paid (often below minimum wage) role often occupied by migrants. You'd think that difficulties recruiting in the care sector would tend to push wages higher, but it doesn't, and there are good reasons for this, to do with the way that care is funded (usually by councils operating under severe budgetary restrictions). So shortages of qualified workers do not result in higher wages, but in lower service levels.

Ditto in low paid public sector jobs: wages are not determined by supply and demand, but are limited by government. On one of the NHS threads recently, NHS staff were bemoaning the difficulty of getting good receptionists and admin people on NHS wages. In classic economics this would force wages up; in practice, in 2016 Britain, what happens is that you simply employ fewer and less qualified people, with a resulting impact on service levels.

In agriculture, another sector to rely heavily on migrants, low wages are effectively determined by competition from overseas: if produce cannot be picked cheaply enough in the UK then it will be grown elsewhere (unless farmers can upgrade to "luxury" products - where I live there is a marker for locally grown strawberries that cost three times as much as spanish strawberries, but of course not all consumers can afford to pay three times the normal price for their fruit and veg).

That's a very insightful post MuddledMuse, it was interesting to read.

The problem isn't that migrants cause downward pressure on wages or on job opportunities for I think the LSE report and previous research has categorically proved that.

No, the problem is that it is perceived to do so. People make the lump of labour fallacy and the same goes with scenarios outlined above. It is also encouraged by a wide range of media, I mean look at the data put listed by the ons today. The mil and telegraph have jumped all over it, but failed to include the bit about the difference between NI numbers and net migration would be because it was short term, or with the weaknesses of estimating immigration this way.

They have not reported in the same way yet another finding that new immigrants contribute more than they take out in benefits but continue with the schrodingers immigrant paradox articles.

Mistigri, I wouldn't argue with what you are saying. It is certainly true from what I hear from friends and family and what I see with my own eyes that many employers are choosing to keep wages low and not employ adequate staff for the job. It seems to me that the people at the top of the social pile are taking out too much profit, and that is at the expense of everyone else, not only those at the bottom of the pile.

Lurked, I have seen your posts referring to various studies, but have not yet had the time to look at your links. On the face of it, it does appear to me to defy logic that an influx of cheap labour does not have a downwards effect on wages and on working conditions generally. There may have been zero contract hours in the past but, honestly, I cannot recall a time when they have been so prevalent before now.

I know of a large organisation with premises in London. Virtually all of their house staff - cleaners, cafe staff, etc - are recent arrivals from EU countries, and some don't speak any English at all. They are all lovely people who do a good job, but the only explanation I can see for the fact that this organisation is not employing any UK residents (by which I mean members of the indigenous population and immigrants who have been settled here for a while) is that they are getting away with paying wages which are so low no UK resident could afford to accept such a job. I really don't accept the thick, lazy Brits argument.

I watched the recent Newsnight programme on immigration, which was broadcast from Norfolk, and people spoke about immigrants working for below the minimum wage. In fact, I'm fairly sure it was someone from Eastern Europe who had been in the UK for some time who spoke about this. Whether this is based on perception or reality is a moot point. Also, I wonder whether your statistics demonstrating that new immigrants contribute more than they take out take into account the possibility that a UK resident is unemployed as a direct result of the immigrant taking the job and therefore relies on benefits.

However, until I look into the statistics in more detail, I am more than willing to accept that the perception of this occurring may well be greater than the reality.

Thank you Winterbiscuit

Well thanks for the vote of confidence Muddled

Regarding the right-wing thing, I certainly don't think that the average Brexit voter is a rabid xenophobe waving the St George flag every chance they get. It's more that the right-wing intolerant narrative of what's been going on for the past few years is so prevalent and so pervasive, it's become implicitly accepted by even perfectly mild and moderate people.

For a good few years now, many western countries have had high levels of immigration, and at the same time (but not caused by it) have suffered one of the worst economic crises in living memory. The right-wing populist response to this is to say that correlation is causation. It's politically very seductive for many reasons (not least the appearance of plausibility), but the evidence shows it's just not true.

And yes, I would say that the various movements that all trade on this false narrative and its popularity, from Trump to the FN, are all various shades and degrees of the same phenomenon. With Brexit being on the milder side of the spectrum, by quite a margin.

The leader of the REMAIN campaign, Lord Rose, has admitted wages would rise if we Brexit.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12181385/Wages-for-British-workers-will-rise-in-the-event-of-a-Brexit-head-of-in-campaign-says.html

The REMAIN argument seems to rely very heavily on EU-funded research that surprisingly? tells us how wonderful the EU is. EU

It's quite telling that the EU finds necessary to have to supply universities and policy research units with £millions and £millions of our EU fees, to enable these pro-EU academics to produce these reports. It's an expensive and elaborate form of sock-puppetting!

Unsurprisingly the EU does not fund research that tends to disprove it is a force for good.I

I find this very recent so-called 'belief' in the prophesies of economists very interststing. Economists used to be about as highly regarded as estate agents years ago. There used to be sayings like

'If you put 2 economists in a room the only thing would agree on is that each other had it wrong.'

or

'Economists exist to make astrologers look respectable.'

or

'You can prove anything with statistics.'

If economists predictions were always right they would alll be millionaires by now - unfortunately, just like racing tipsters, they are not.

It's also useful to look back on how the economists predictions actually played out.

I remember during Maastricht being told by many 'leading economists' that the UK would die if it didn't adopt the Euro.

I don't remember any of these economists predicting or taking acting to avoid the banking crisis.

The IMF and the Treasury are so closely entwined - a mutual back-scratching service. Although Osborne hasn't always been so supportive of the IF when it was rubbishing his own claims.

Lagarde is facing prosecution over 'negligence' charges over tan alleged £294m payment to a businessman. Do we really want to heed the advice of Lagarde?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35121022

Then ex-Goldman Sachs Mark Carney employee - our Governor of the Bank of England decides to work bit harder for his knighthood.

Of course the Goldman Sachs tentacles run far and deep in the EU - they are even finding the REMAIN campaign

www.betteroffout.net/fat-cats-a-tale-of-goldman-sachs-and-the-eu/

Oh they are all in this together of that you can be sure. But they are working in each other's interest - not in our interests.

Chalalala It's more that the right-wing intolerant narrative of what's been going on for the past few years is so prevalent and so pervasive, it's become implicitly accepted by even perfectly mild and moderate people.For a good few years now, many western countries have had high levels of immigration, and at the same time (but not caused by it) have suffered one of the worst economic crises in living memory. The right-wing populist response to this is to say that correlation is causation.

This is so interesting that you see things this way because from my perspective of societal discourses, the narrative surrounding the crisis and immigration are two separate things. It seems to me that some factions have worked very hard to create a right-wing narrative more generally but in actuality, it's not there. Immigration is viewed on its own terms as is the financial crisis. I haven't seen any links conflating the two. Most people hate bankers for causing the crisis. They don't hate immigrants (apart from a few hard-right supporters, as you point out).

fourmummy

Immigration is viewed on its own terms as is the financial crisis. I haven't seen any links conflating the two.

I think people do it all the time, when they see that life is getting worse (especially for working class people) and then conclude that things would get better if we had less low-skill immigration. It's exactly what the LSE report was showing the other day: yes things have been shit, but the root cause is the economic crisis, not immigration.

It seems to me that some factions have worked very hard to create a right-wing narrative more generally but in actuality, it's not there.

Well, I can absolutely believe that there is more than one right-wing narrative at play What is yours?

Need to actually put in some face time with the family now, but I appreciate the civilised chat

Muddled it's good to debate with someone who is interested in looking at some of these issues with an open mind. There probably are sectors of employment where wages might be forced up by stricter controls on migration, and hotel staff and cleaners might be among them (in the private sector, anyway). But the impacts would be rather unpredictable: some employers might cut back on employment (ie reduce head count) while expecting the same work to be done. Others might cheat, as it appears some employers are already doing with the living wage ie offering higher rates but clawing back the extra costs from other employee benefits. Others might pull out of offering a particular service (where my employer's main plant is located, it would be objectively difficult for the cleaning contractor to supply cleaners without using non-British labour: unemployment locally is very low, and the contractor might simply choose not to renew the contract). Others might look to source labour in other ways - today I saw on FB an advert by one of the major supermarkets which if not photoshopped appeared to be seeking people to do its interior design for free . It's difficult to argue that migrants depress wages when it is legal for employers to pay employees nothing at all (interns, workfare).

I wouldn't accuse anyone who made an honest effort to inform themselves of bigotry, regardless of whether we agreed or not. But there are an awful lot of people who are not prepared to have an honest conversation about migration, and whose opinions are based on prejudice not on an honest consideration of the evidence.

Mistigri asked: What is it, specifically, about people like chalalala that makes you not want them in your country?

I’m sure Chalalala is a lovely person, hard-working, law-abiding, an asset to wherever she lives. She sounds just the sort of person that the UK needs (although she does spend rather a lot of time on MN, does her employer know? ) That said, I still don’t want everyone from the EU to be able to come here. I want to have a selection process in place, so we can have a few more Chalalalas and an awful lot less of the benefit tourists, health tourists, unskilled and uneducated.

Stop trying to play the racist card against those of us who want controlled immigration.

(although she does spend rather a lot of time on MN, does her employer know? wink )

an awful lot less of the benefit tourists, health tourists, unskilled and uneducated.

How many are there now and how many fewer is acceptable? What will you do with the ones who are already here who don't pass the chalalala test?