Freedom of Movement - (Chill Zone)

[Cjamm]

Boris has finally come out & said:

"EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU."

“British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down. As the German equivalent of the CBI – the BDI – has very sensibly reminded us, there will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.”

"The only change – and it will not come in any great rush – is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU’s extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal."

He then said: “Yes, the Government will be able to take back democratic control of immigration policy, with a balanced and humane points-based system to suit the needs of business and industry."

I'm so confused, I voted Remain & I'm a big supporter of Freedom of Movement, is Boris saying we can still do everything we always could, but Europeans coming here will be subjected to more immigration controls? If he's not, as I doubt the EU will ever let us get away with that, then what is he saying?

I'm not trying to be a goady fucker, I'm genuinely baffled. I've seen some horrid posts throughout this weekend from both sides, so can we leave that out and just provide answers.

Article: www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/boris-johnson-breaks-silence-to-set-out-leadership-platform

Sorry it is not but it is part of the single market and I think this is the model they are proposing as opposed to somewhere like Norway.

The free movement for EU nationals is the same as for EEA countries.

They are talking about EEA which is like Norway.

Switzerland has lots of bilateral treaties with the EU.

Either way, they both have freedom of movement, which is a bit more complicated in Switzerland. I think they both have more immigrants per capita than the UK currently does and I also think they pay more in per capita (not 100% here and don't have time to check).

They have no seat at the table and no veto.

With an EEA country like Switzerland you still need to have a job and apply for a visa (so in that way immigration is controlled). But feel free to correct me.

yes I think it's technically true that in Switzerland you need to first find a job in order to be allowed to stay on, while in the UK you're allowed to stay on for as long as you want as a jobseeker. In practice it makes little difference, since unemployment is so low in the UK, EU immigrants find jobs easily so can stay on

and I think they may be able to limit the number of authorisations they give out.

no, they're not able to

did anyone else hear this high-ranking German politician speak on radio 4 this morning? (didn't catch his name - I think he was the number 2 in Merkel's party)

he seemed to be expecting that the UK would stay in the Single Market paying full fees, but with a chance at some sort of concession on freedom of movement - I'm guessing something like "freedom of workers", as discussed above in the Swiss model

in practice this would change little to nothing to EU immigration in the UK, but it would allow UK politicians to at least pretend that they got some significant concessions on immigration, thus making the Single Market palatable to Leave voters.

I think it could work?

"I think it could work?"

Well yes, it's exactly what we had. They'd already agreed that we could not pay benefits.

this has been hilarious.

yes - we need the EEA model - so free movement in exchange for free trade - or the city of london will die. BoJo cannot afford to let that happen. no conservatives will let that happen.

so - as a recap - leaving does not mean £350 million for the NHS and it does not mean reduced immigration.

all we have done is remove our powers to negotiate new legislation that we will have to comply with. excellent...

well, there is a small technical distinction, in that EU immigrants wouldn't be allowed to stay on as jobseekers for more than a few months, which they are now.

in practice - yes, exactly the same thing. But enough theoretical difference that a shameless hypocrite like Boris could try selling it to his supporters.

the Leave vote is going to have to be given some sort of fig leaf here, otherwise there is a real risk that the Single Market won't be politically acceptable, and Britain will flunk out of the whole thing (which is what the hardcore Leave politicians really want)

"well, there is a small technical distinction, in that EU immigrants wouldn't be allowed to stay on as jobseekers for more than a few months, which they are now."

Nope, they can stay on as long as they like - as long as they're self supporting and not claiming benefits, which is what we had just been granted.

So the same in every way.

They're going to be given an imaginary fig leaf.

oh right, I'd forgotten about the "self supporting" option - I thought that was set pretty high though.

but yes, now that Cameron deal is null and void, it's likely that Britain will negotiate long and hard to get something very similar.

it just needs to be a tiny, tiny bit different to allow Boris to sell it. The man is shameless, he'll only need a smidgen of half an imaginary concession to brazen it out.

(but this is why it has to be Boris - if the negotiations are led by someone who's actually sincere in their anti-EU and anti-immigration stance, they'll never go for it)

I'd be happy with Teresa May. she is ruthless and not tainted by the lies of the Leave campaign.

its so frustrating - I've been shouting from the rooftops about the fact we cannot have free trade without free movement and all the leave voters I spoke to about it just didnt believe me. they are in for a shock.

did anyone else hear this high-ranking German politician speak on radio 4 this morning? (didn't catch his name - I think he was the number 2 in Merkel's party)
Yes, I heard part of it, he sounded quite reasonable and seemed to agree with the idea of controls on immigration and UK staying in the single market.

Germany are going to be our strongest ally in our negotiations to leave. they are as gutted as the remain voters that we are going. they are sounding very conciliatory and sensible which is frankly good news.

I think the Tusk and Junker need to pipe down but they are panicking.

in other "told you so" news...

the French PM has now said that "TTIP cannot happen", because it would be bad for health, bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and a beacon for populist movements.

now what did Boris say about TTIP again? ah yes -

it'd be "a massive potential win for humanity", and "If the EU can’t pull it off, we in Britain should offer to go first and do it ourselves."

I didn't catch the German Politician, but that's really interesting, the EU don't want us to leave, so I think that they're more than willing to help make it look like we've won whilst we're actually in a worse position, who cares about losing our veto when we get to pretend to control immigration & now the French have called for the EU to ease up on their threats, which was nice of them.

I don't think much will change, my neighbours an EEA citizen, she's Norwegian & was telling me yesterday that she's never been treated differently to EU citizens when it comes to things like social housing/benefits/work/travel so although they'll most likely call it freedom of labour it will probably be exactly the same.

The attitude of the nation will entirely depend on how good Boris is at PR, if he can get a big enough theoretical distinction then he'll run with that & hope for the best, I want him to win the party vote as this is really his doing, so he should really be forced to try & fix it .

they are sounding very conciliatory and sensible

Well, the German politician did flat out laugh at the interviewer when asked if it was likely Britain would get access to the Single Market without paying fees and without immigration. "Nothing is free", as he said.

Right now it seems to be shaping up as a disagreement between Germany, who want to drive a hard but fair bargain, and France, who want to show that leaving the EU comes with a huge cost. So I'd assume the EU position will end up somewhere between the two.

Let's not forget that both France and Germany have elections coming up, in which they're facing eurosceptic threats. They both have an interest in not making things look easy for the UK. It's just a question of degree.

I don't mind paying extra, as long as we get to keep Freedom of Movement. I do very much mind losing our veto, it really diminishes our presence on the world stage, but it should make thinks much easier for the EU, as we always seem to be vetoing everything.

Yes, Chalalala, I agree that France & Germany have to make things look rough for us, they've got to show other EU countries & their own citizens that they gain nothing from leaving and lose quite a lot.

If the EU can’t pull it off, we in Britain should offer to go first and do it ourselves - This is just going to end up being one more of Boris' lies. The TTIP isn't good for us, it goes against everything we believe in as a society, Boris just needed to bluster & brag, I doubt he really meant any of it.

Will the freedom of movement have to be Schengen? Both Norway and Switzerland are Schengen. It will be new negotiations. The opt out from Schengen was under the old membership.

yes Cjamm the difficulty of a Single Market deal is that it has to be sold in the UK as an improvement on the current deal, and in the rest of the EU as a downgrade for the UK!

similarly, France and Germany will have to balance their economic interest in keeping strong relations with the UK, and their political interest in showing that leaving is not a good idea.

everyone's going to be walking a very, very right rope...

I don't mind paying extra, as long as we get to keep Freedom of Movement

But how is that going to go down with those who voted out because they definitely didn't want freedom of movement? The ones who are angrily pointing out that they don't care if Jocasta gets her Erasmus exchange when they can't get a job or a house?

These are very interesting political times, 20 years ago, each individual government could somewhat control the information their citizens received, they could make things look how they wanted but with the internet & social media, their's no way any government can spin this how they want to. It's going to be a political bloodbath.

I think France & Germany, 2 countries that helped create the EU will have to decide what matters more to them, the EU or their relationship with the UK, Junker is going to heavily push to punish us, France needs to fight off Le Pen & will destroy us to do it, Merkel is I believe waying up which way to go, she's currently on our side, but if the far right rises even more in Germany, she'll have to ruthlessly deal with us & I do believe we're the type of nation to cut off our nose to spite our face, if the EU takes a heavy hand to us, we'll be as petty and as spiteful as we possibly can be, if we're going to be destroyed, we'll drag the EU down with us.

Noblegiraffe, that's a Tory/Boris problem . They lied and said a leave vote equaled a limit to Freedom of Movement or at least some sort of control to movement from Europe and now they have to go & explain to everyone why in reality they now have to pay to keep that privilege. It will be political suicide, I have no idea how Boris is going to spin it, but I'm looking forward to seeing him try.

Boris has been sacked from two previous jobs for lying. Once from The Times and second when he was working as an advisor to a Tory MP. He lied constantly when mayor claiming he couldn't be expected to remember all details accurately.
If boris becomes PM expect more of the same.

NobileGiraffe - nail on head. As everyone who understands EU law has been shouting for months now, it was a complete pipe dream and was never going to happen.

leave voters will be incandescent. they have very literally been lied to. it was never going to be achievable because it would harm our economy too much. its so tragic/hilarious that people saw this vote as sticking it to the establishment - Boris/Farage would sell their first borns to protect the vested interests of the establishment.

So if that does happen, all we've done is downgrade our current agreement?

That second referndum doesn't sound such a bad idea now does it