Westministers: The Lords Strike Back

[RedToothBrush]

This needs no fanfare or lengthy post. Just this:

The Lords are demanding amendments unilateral protection for EU citizens.

Labour was split 358 for an amendment to 256 against.

This is after Amber Rudd had tried to reassure the Lords by writing a letter assuring peers that EU citizens would be treated with the utmost respect.

Utmost respect = an amendment to guarantee unilateral support.

Today is a good day. It should have been done in the first place.

YER, I have been quite happy with the term "EU citizen" for many years, but yes, the term "expat" for Brits abroad and "immigrant" for non-Brits here has been widely used in the media particularly since the referendum. It's politically charged and in the weeks after the referendum I formally complained to the BBC and the Telegraph about this. I know many people who also complained.

Referendum date seems reasonable.

Noone is really grumbling about Polish plumbers

It's because there aren't any here. You can't get a plumber for love nor money .

Seriously, while I don't doubt that working Britons will continue to be welcome in most European countries, I think you're idealising EU attitudes towards migrants. There is plenty of racism and discrimination against migrants in most EU countries, it's just not (generally) white Europeans who are the targets. Le Pen and the FN mostly hate North Africans not Brits, but where that sort of prejudice exists (and a quarter of the French population is comfortable enough with racism to vote for Le Pen), then in the wrong circumstances it can easily be turned against any group that is framed as the outsider.

Le Pen and the FN mostly hate North Africans not Brits, but where that sort of prejudice exists (and a quarter of the French population is comfortable enough with racism to vote for Le Pen), then in the wrong circumstances it can easily be turned against any group that is framed as the outsider.

It is the same here Misti. At one time it was people from the Indian sub-continent who were the outsiders (and still are). Only recently has it become EU citizens, especially E Europeans.

Don't panic Rhu!!!!

It was this post from bigchoc that did it

"Immigration of EU citizens is just not a big issue in the EU like it is in the UK (MENA migrants / refugees are a very different matter)
Hence why they ae pretty relaxed about UK expats
It's not virtue, just different demographics

Most EU countries, like Germany, are worried about their falling burthrate & aging population. So well-behaved immigrants are quite welcome.
Noone is really grumbling about Polish plumbers or East European fruit-pickers or care-workers, because they are widely accepted as beneficial to the country they choose."

It gave the distinct... white Europeans are better than black africans feeling and made me cringe...

Re: Expat vs Immigrant, it's been the subject of several academic papers, it's well summarized here www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration

The use of language by politicians and the media has been fascinating too. TM's semantically charged "citizens of nowhere" speech, notoriously, and the press have been clearly differentiated in their choice of vocabulary, "expat vs migrant" being the clearest example in the DM, Telegraph, Express, even The Times, while The Guardian, The Independent, etc have been much more careful to use "EU citizens".

I think you're the only person who read that into it

their cutoff who arrived is the 2016 referendum, not the Brexit date.

This is not going to fly with the EU27.

Tbh, while I'm happy that the Lords did their job of scrutinising and proposing amendments to government legislation, and helped frame the bargaining chip argument as morally and intellectually bankrupt (which it is), I think that the vote has more political than practical significance. Perhaps, though I am not hopeful, it is a signifier that opposition is starting to coalesce around soft brexit principles; unfortunately, it may already be too late.

I don't think the May government is interested in negotiating. I think they actively want negotiations to fall apart early in the process, so they have plenty of time to whip up the tabloids into an orgy of Europe hating before the next GE, and are not held responsible for their failure.

I don't like the langauge that is used on both sides of the debate....

Leavers are xenophobes or too stupid to understand that they were taking a risk etc.etc.etc

Neither side of the debate has been acceptible

I still think we are better off outside of the EU.

If course there's xenophobia in EU countries! It's just that in the UK it's become part of the official discourse! It could go that way in other EU countries too, let's hope not. If it did the UK would have the dubious honour to be pioneers...

don't think the May government is interested in negotiating. I think they actively want negotiations to fall apart early in the process, so they have plenty of time to whip up the tabloids into an orgy of Europe hating before the next GE, and are not held responsible for their failure

That's my fear...

Most EU countries, like Germany, are worried about their falling burthrate & aging population.

You would think the UK would be too, but instead we have decided to fixate on immigration, and will stick our heads in the sand when we find that we can't get care home staff. Or we will decide that Commonwealth citizens are now welcome again. This is a bit tricky though, because for most of them, their skins are the wrong colour, and this will upset the racists.

It is the same here Misti. At one time it was people from the Indian sub-continent who were the outsiders (and still are). Only recently has it become EU citizens, especially E Europeans.

Exactly. The UK in recent decades has been a relatively tolerant place. If unscrupulous politicians backed by a few rich newspaper magnates and businessmen can shift attitudes on migration with such ease, we should not be complacent in Europe.

This is why I am so passionate about the idea that the interests of UK immigrants in the EU and EU immigrants in the UK are not diametrically opposed and competing, as brexiters would have you believe; instead, they are closely aligned.

The brexiter response to the Lords vote is premised on the idea that there are "good" migrants (British "expats") and "bad ones" (EU migrants). But "good" immigrants can easily be reframed as unwanted ones, as we've seen with Eastern Europeans in the last decade. More recently, since 23rd June, the "bad immigrant" label has progressively been extended to all EU migrants, however qualified, how ever well-assimilated and almost regardless of their family ties to UK citizens. Next, you will find the label "health tourist" and "scroungers" being applied to British migrants returning from Spain to claim healthcare and housing.

Conclusion: what's good for EU migrants in the UK is good for all migrants, and what's bad for them is bad for all of us too.

I think we have been very unreasonable to commonwealth countries by allowing ourselves to be sucked in by Europe so much that we are unable strike good deals with them on various issues.

jaws5 good article on semantic choices, and May showed true form in using old anti semitic trope. Yes, ex pats are white, immigrants are black.
Gruesome.

"Commonwealth better than EU" is another part of the current discourse, repeated ad nauseam under different guises, the latest version is Farage's "our real friends speak English". But of course this is not xenophobic.

What the hell has may done that is anti semitic. I would.probably have noticed that!

Farage is a twat and I don't like him.

I do think favouring Europeans over commonwealth countries is shit though and just another form of racism.

I would like to see an end to that.

Yer "citizens of nowhere" is an old anti-Semitic slur, as my Jewish friends immediately pointed out at the time and it was the subject of an article in the New York Times then. If you have a look at anti Semitic propaganda in the 30s and it's full of those kind of references to Jews.

Conclusion: what's good for EU migrants in the UK is good for all migrants, and what's bad for them is bad for all of us too
right here too.

And there are 6 million British migrants(don't have the breakdown for countries they're in) and only 3 million EU British atm.

I do think favouring Europeans over commonwealth countries is shit though and just another form of racism, yeah, that's why a student from New Zealand happening to be studying here at the time of the referendum could vote and I couldn't after living here and paying tax for over two decades...

I think we have been very unreasonable to commonwealth countries by allowing ourselves to be sucked in by Europe so much that we are unable strike good deals with them on various issues.

We could have treated them decently on immigration. We chose not to.

Strangely enough, Germany does more trade with certain commonwealth countries than the UK does, so how this is the EU stopping us is beyond me. It's more likely that the Germans make stuff that people want to buy. It's no accident that our mass market car makers are all foreign owned.

That is really interesting jaws. Seriously? how the hell did that happen? Please explain in more detail.

I am genuinely interested.

The lady's not for turning.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/02/no-10-refuses-to-budge-on-brexit-bill-despite-heavy-defeat-in-lords

^The government is determined that the bill to trigger article 50 will not be altered, even if a standoff ensues with peers who backed an amendment to guarantee the rights of EU citizens on Wednesday night, No 10 has said.
........................

Davis said that if the UK government “had had our way” an agreement in principle would have been made in December – but not all EU countries were prepared to make that commitment^.

Looks earlier comment was on the money, deliberate chaos, and blame pesky foreigners.

Still it went well for Mrs Thatcher, not as if any one's going to 'stab Mrs May in the back'.