Not my circus, not my monkeys is not good enough- a thread for those who actually want answers

[Bearbehind]

I was going to give this up as a bad job but given the post on the last Leave thread that's nearly full saying that 'any woman with half a brain voted to leave' I felt the discussion needs to go on.

[smallfox2002]

The suppression of pay is easy to dismiss, because for everyone other than the bottom 5 percent it means increased pay.

Even then it needs a significant 10 percent in immigration in an area to lower the pay of the bottom 5 percent the LSE study showed that this needed to be in several thousands, for it even to start having a marginal effect, and then only after 2008.

The suppression of pay had been far more to do.with the fall out of the world banking crisis than immigration, otherwise why did pay rise even for the lowest paid between 2004 and 2008 when immigration from he EU 8 was high?

Controlled immigration? You'd have to suggest how this could be done, non EU immigration is already higher and this is controlled.

[caroldecker]

smallfox free movement may or may not have helped. Put what is wrong with free trade and no free movement?

[caroldecker]

But, not put

[LoveInTokyo]

caroldecker well, I guess it depends how much we value having access to the single market.

The other member states have made it very clear that we won't get access to the single market without accepting free movement, so what do we think is more important? I think leaving the single market would certainly cause very real and long term economic pain, which would benefit no one.

From my own personal point of view, if we lose our free movement rights it could be a real problem for me.

[larrygrylls]

Carol,

We won't get free trade and no free movement (not from the EU anyway). Realistically, we can ask for some restriction in trade in return for some control over EU immigration. That is a negotiation which could go either way. We do have more leverage than the ardent nay sayers would have us believe. On the other hand, many in the EU don't want out to appear to be the easy option, so will be a tough negotiation.

[smallfox2002]

Within the EU? The cross border nature of many industries is improved by it, shortages in areas are easier to fill, but having said that shortage areas that have been filled by EU workers still have shortages

Essentially it's positive in the majority, net tax contributors, economic growth etc etc.

NAFTA doesn't have it, but it means that many over stay visas in all countries and dip offor the radar in terms of tax. This means many amnesties, why not keep it legal rather than encouraging an informal economy?

May or may not have helped? If you look at the UCL and LSE studies you see that broadly it has, as stated there are areas that haven't had he reciprocal raise in funding because of their increased tax take, but this is more to do with austerity than immigration.

The local funding issue goes back to 2012 when areas in surplus were allowed to keep more than those in deficit. It's why we've seen poorer areas lose libraries and swimming pools but not much of the home counties. It's also interesting the 300m was made available to plug funding gaps in tory areas but not labour ones.

Politics plays far more than immigration.

[LoveInTokyo]

If we do end up with a hard Brexit then the sad thing is that the people who want and value their free movement rights will lose them, and the people who didn't care about their free movement rights are unlikely to see any tangible benefit or improvement to their lives.

[smallfox2002]

Apart from increased costs, poorer NHS services, the list goes on.

I'm still waiting for the reasons that areas with low immigration like the north east voted out because of immigration.

Oh and having been born in Hartlepool and still going back there to visit aged relatives I can tell you that it was immigration. In a town the has 1.5 percent EU immigrants, if you don't count the Irish nationals hat have been there forever.

So we can dacount pressure on wages and services, housing and others. Wtf is it?

[Bearbehind]

larry you are an enigma.

I don't really get where you are coming from.

Posters like caroldecker do the Leave vote no justice with their ridiculous comments like 'what is wrong with free trade and no free movement' because they genuinely appear to be labouring under the illusion Great Britain is still Great enough to have its cake and eat it.

You are are Remainer turned soft Leaver but seem to defend a harder Leave more than is reasonably justified.

I'd be interested to understand exactly why.

[smallfox2002]

Larry, the EU hand is far better than our own, wto agreements take years and the EU know, and countries within it can actively encourage, that the single market is a far bigger prize for industry than the UK is alone. Both service and manufacturing.

I'm under no illusions that brexit won't happen, but the fact is that the EU is our most important market. Nothing will change that the brics as a whole make up 5 percent of our trade and Australia and nz 3

My mother had a phrase which I repeat (don't you just hate that) about cutting off your nose...

[caroldecker]

It may be tough, the EU may cut off their nose - but this is another reason o leave. The EU leaders do not do what is best for the peoples of the EU, but for a failed ideology.
Look how the PIGS have suffered and still think the EU is for the peoples benefit.
If EU leaders want the best for their population they will allow free trade with no free movement. They will suffer with any other solution - maybe not as much as us, but they will be worse off.
They may think this is worth it to keep the EU project on track, but proves an adherence to a failing ideology, rather than acting in peoples best interests.

[RBeer]

And that is why the EU I'd happy that the UK is leaving. The right wing has taken control of UK politics and the EU wants none of that.

[RBeer]

My Dutch colleague , who is now moving his family home , said to me , and I quote.." We don't need the racist Farage/Trump shit in Europe for we know how ignorance and racist ideology destroys everybody".

[larrygrylls]

SmallFox,

You still have not provided me an example (throughout all of history as your canvas) of a sustained free trade, free movement of people group of countries.

From what I can understand in talking to historians (which I am certainly not), these zones have either fully integrated (I believe Germany was one at some point in history) or collapsed acrimoniously.

The EU is not sustainable in the way remainers want it to be. The thing is, Bear et al, you want leavers to justify their vision but you don't want to outline your vision of the EU in 20 to 30 years.

My personal guess is a Northern European federation and the rest of the EU out. So, where do we want to be relative to this?

[TheForeignOffice]

Apologies for going slightly off topic, and for the fact that I've already posted this elsewhere, but in keeping with the thread title of seeking answers loosely around what Leavers are looking for....this really helped me understand Farage's view on freedom of movement:

Article on Farage applying at the German Embassy: //www.politico.eu/article/is-nigel-farage-applying-for-german-citizenship-brexit-consequences-ukip-europe/

I don't think he's eligible for dual citizenship as a non res, based on marriage alone. He will be applying for dual citizenship for his children (they are entitled to this as acquired by birth on maternal side).

It's clearly very important for him as a parent to maintain EU freedom of movement rights and work opportunities for his children (of course all British people used to have this right guaranteed, so no need to apply until now ). Thank goodness he also personally maintains freedom of movement via his wife's German passport and the spousal provisions within the majority of EU countries which are far more humane than the UK's for non-EU spouses.

I have a lot of sympathy for him..finally got around to getting my DC German passport for exactly the same reasons and the paperwork is rather onerous.

From this, I deduce that freedom of movement is extremely important to the most vociferous leader of the Leave campaign and that whatever happens next, he'll ensure these rights are not stripped from his family. He just happy for them to be stripped from everyone else.

[Bearbehind]

The EU is not sustainable in the way remainers want it to be. The thing is, Bear et al, you want leavers to justify their vision but you don't want to outline your vision of the EU in 20 to 30 years.

I don't think any Remain voter believes the EU is perfect but being at the table in order to help shape change over several decades is a very different proposition to making a hard exit immediately with no plans for the future.

[larrygrylls]

Bear,

From your above post, your 'vision' is just as fuzzy and full of unicorns as any leaver's.

'Being at the table to help shape change over decades' is the ultimate waffly non answer. What changes do you want? Do you want federation or reduced freedom of movement? Do you want the Euro over the entire zone? Do you want tax harmonisation? Do you want transfer of money to poorer nations?

[smallfox2002]

Why should the collapse if former trading unions be repeated by the EU?

Carol, please stop citing the way the PIIGS countries were treated, a lot of the mess was of heir own making! Greece for example has never collected enough tax, and tax evasion and the informal economy are rife, at the same time as high public spending and an average retirement age of 58.

Question to you both, why do you think freedom of movement is such a problem?

[Corcory]

Well said Larry.

[larrygrylls]

Smallfox,

For many reasons which I have elaborated on previous threads. Competitive borrowing, implicit ECB guarantee of banks which can be exploited, competitive corporate tax rates luring businesses to cheapest regimes, labour moving to richest countries and further impoverishing the poorer countries in a vicious circle.

Hostorical precedent is ignored at one's peril.

There is still resentment in w Germany over the German unification and that is a zone which clearly shares language and culture and is now unashamedly a federation.

[Bearbehind]

larry, I didn't have any big issues with the EU as it was so I don't have a 'vision' for its future. The U.K. had concessions over bail outs and migration that other nations didn't have, I think we were in a much better position on the inside.

The changes I'm talking about are those which arise over time and get addressed as and when which is very different to needing answers to everything immediately.

Stop trying to twist it round in order to avoid the questions.

Still there then cocrcory

[Peregrina]

I imagine the UK would have gone on much as it had done before, asking for opt outs and rebates, saying no to the Euro, possibly OK with transferring a little bit of money to poorer nations, and no to tax harmonisation.

I could see a Northern Federation comprising Germany, Scandinavia, NL, UK (if it still exists) and Ireland working reasonably well.

[whatwouldrondo]

Larry I can think of two off the back of my head.

This is from Niall Ferguson "Nevertheless, the fact remains that no organisation in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour than the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries"

Then there was the Chinese tribute system which sustained Free trade and Free Movement in South East Asia as a basis for economic prosperity for 2000 years.

Of course both involved coercion by more powerful states on less powerful states, the former more than the latter since China only required the tribute states to kowtow and acknowledge their cultural superiority, a pragmatic compromise that even Britain was prepared to concede prior to Jardine inciting the Opium wars. It in the main left them to govern themselves.

However I think it is dangerous to look for precedents in history, since you will never again get the particular set of factors that led to either the British Empire or the Chinese tribute system. Ironically now the Tibetans Mongolians and Uyghurs are at the mercy of a brutal Chinese regime and the countries of the former Empire are viewing Brexit with a certain amount of satisfaction that Great Britain is finally going to pay the price for it's sense of superiority and entitlement and that now they are the ones it will have to kowtow too (plenty of that in the Indian, Hong Kong and Australian Press)

For me given that the world is made up of loose geographical blocks of countries allied by economics and shared cultural and political values be it in Asia, Asia Pacific, South America, Africa it makes absolutely no sense for us to break with the block that accounts for 50% of our trade and with which we share more politically and culturally than sets us apart, though what sets us apart is respected and valued. If the Empire and Chinese tribute system teach us anything it is that such arrangements can be the basis of greater prosperity for the whole than for the individual members.

[smallfox2002]

Historical precedent doesn't have to be ignored entirely, but it shouldn't stop you from doing things because in the past it hasn't worked. We'd never have had had a UN if we 'd said:" Well historical precedent shows that it doesn't work because the League of Nations failed."

Lets play:

"labour moving to richest countries and further impoverishing the poorer countries in a vicious circle."

This needs to be significant and take the majority of young and most able out of the country, in most countries who are "poorer" yet the number of Romanian immigrants in the UK, and across the EU is far smaller than the much richer Polish (21st highest GDP in the world, with high living standards). It also leaves out the remittances point, people leaving send money back which boosts the local economy and gets taken in tax take, which can be spent improving public services. Most immigration is not permanent though, so emigration can be of high benefit as remittances come in , and workers come back.

The other points you made would all be common in a trading union even without freedom of movement, would you rather we weren't in one at all?

[larrygrylls]

Small,

The remittances is a sad point really. It puts a short term boost into countries at the expense of long term intellectual capital and role models. I would hate to grow up in a country where all the best and brightest want to leave. It is not just about economics.