Westminstenders: Boom. The Brexit Backlash starts to hit.

[RedToothBrush]

So it turns out that immigration figures that stated students overstayed were wrong. The home office knew this. And sat on it. Since 2015. Under Theresa.

That smells a bit doesn't it?

Imagine it: "Let's do lunch Paul. I'll cover up and give you a nice immigration story for your front page. In return, crown me PM."

Then tonight BOOM. Labour look like they have made a move. Soft very swishy Brexit. Even less brexity than the Beano Brexit that the Tories have been trying to announce on the quiet over the summer whilst Brexiteers are on holiday.

amp.theguardian.com/global/2017/aug/26/labour-calls-for-lengthy-transitional-period-post-brexit
Labour makes dramatic shift on Brexit and single market
Party opens clear divide with Tories, with support for free movement and paying into EU budgets for up to four years

Labour is to announce a dramatic policy shift by backing continued membership of the EU single market beyond March 2019, when Britain leaves the EU, establishing a clear dividing line with the Tories on Brexit for the first time.

In a move that positions it decisively as the party of “soft Brexit”, Labour will support full participation in the single market and customs union during a lengthy “transitional period” that it believes could last between two and four years after the day of departure, it is to announce on Sunday.

This will mean that under a Labour government the UK would continue to abide by the EU’s free movement rules, accept the jurisdiction of the European court of justice on trade and economic issues, and pay into the EU budget for a period of years after Brexit, in the hope of lessening the shock of leaving to the UK economy. In a further move that will delight many pro-EU Labour backers, Jeremy Corbyn’s party will also leave open the option of the UK remaining a member of the customs union and single market for good, beyond the end of the transitional period.

Why would Labour suddenly do this? It's not just because of the youth vote. What about their leave voters?

Faisal Islam on the subject:
2. On Labour Leavers is very very interesting and involves quite the psephological judgement re the election....
...the calculation appears to be that Labour Leave voters had the chance to vote for Theresa May's brand of Brexit, and bar 5 seats, said No
Was that because Lableave voters were already signalled "hard Brexit"? Or many millions such voters much more concerned about other things?

Have Labour been polling their voters on this?

Theresa has also apparently set her sell by date: Friday 30th August 2019.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-sets-date-shell-quit-11061894.amp
Theresa May sets date she'll quit as Prime Minister - giving herself time to see Britain through Brexit

The longer the transition and the squishier it gets, the more the more you wonder.

Mr Barnier will enjoy his coffee and newspapers tomorrow as he prepares for round two of Brexit talks starting next week.

The question on his mind most: Will David Davis remember to bring his notes this time?

I think in most cases (I hesitate to say all), HO decisions are cock-up not conspiracy.

Many people would be shocked by how junior the decision-makers are for most (apparently) straightforward cases. They are told to apply the Immigration Rules, make the decision, close the case and move onto the next one. In some caseworking teams, they are expected to consider 30-40 applications a day (and overseas some caseworkers are expected to do double that). In other countries, it's a requirement to have a law degree to be able to make immigration decisions, but some HO decision makers won't even have 5 GCSEs including Maths and English (the requirement was dropped for a period, but was re-instated a few years back IIRC)

It's another example of the UK trying to deliver public services on the cheap

On misogyny I think that the respect shown to women in the 70s and 80s at universities has definitely gone. What goes on under the umbrellas of "banter" and "hazing" is shocking and certainly would never have been acceptable or allowed in the uni bar on a Wednesday night after fixtures then not even from certain well known misogynist TV sports presenter, not that anyone remembers him, because he was neither entertaining or good at sport . It is extremely worrying that whilst you would expect it to persist, whilst suppressed, in the older generation there is a whole new generation adopting misogyny in new forms. There was a manifestation of that cultural shift on the comments on the Conservative attempt to Twitter to the yoof, "like the terrible people at every Russell Group uni" I think it read. They are the ones moaning about safe spaces, campaigns on campus sexual harassment and rape etc.

consider 30-40 applications a day the embarrassment that is the passport control in British airports shows the shockingly low level of staffing for immigration.

It's being done on such an industrial scale, Olenna that one has to wonder at the mindset of the politicians who have authorised it though. And the mindset of HO officials who carry out these orders. 5 GCSEs is pretty shocking too.

That's what I was getting at whatwouldrondo ; there's a level of base and visceral sexism, which seems to have become mainstream, and poor young women are caught in the slip stream. Like every generation they look at the elders and can't believe we were part of quite an important and powerful feminist generation, which got results. British feminist and black history's being quietly re written, and like BME history, it needs to be noted.

That was, until the Women's Marches, when I loved seeing daughters looking at their chanting singing mums and grandmas with astonishment.

Would you rather eat dinner with someone who worked for the Home Office or someone who worked for the Daily Mail?

Tax inspectors seem positively fluffy these days.

It's being done on such an industrial scale, Olenna that one has to wonder at the mindset of the politicians who have authorised it though. And the mindset of HO officials who carry out these orders. 5 GCSEs is pretty shocking too.

In my experience in local government is anything to go by (and I have heard from friends that civil service is similar) budget cuts are ordered and then people sit in a room and work out how they are going to run their service with much reduced funding. More often than not the people doing this (and the politicians agreeing it) have no real experience of the day to day work being done, so are not always aware of the consequences of the cuts they are making (things look good on paper, but not so good in practice).

When issues do get raised they are shrugged off a lot of the time as the feeling is there is not much choice but to go on anyway. Sometimes there is an ideological drive from the top, but often it is just incompetent people out of their depth who do not really have a clue what they are doing.

Where I used to work we also had the added joy of external consultants who had no real understanding or experience of public sector work redesigning processes they didn't care about. Obviously that didn't really go very well for anyone, but it did cost an awful lot of tax payers money.

British feminist and black history's being quietly re written, and like BME history, it needs to be noted.

A lot has been achieved and the fact is we are now going through a period of backlash because of that. When you are pushing against a dominant ideology there reaches a point where it will start to push back. I see what is happening now with the seeming rise of fascism and misogyny as the fight back from a white patriarchy who have suddenly realised that their power is being eroded. To a certain extent it is to be expected and we all have to just keep pushing on through. I see the willingness of people to now openly challenge racism and misogyny, and the rewriting of the past as vital to this.

Dugdale's resigned.

DH just said that. I wonder why?

Official reason here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-41082916. Election fatigue. could genuinely be 'wanting to spend more time with the family'.

Her girlfriend/partner is an SNP MSP, her dad is a prolific SNP tweeter and Corbyn claimed in a Q&A session up here a couple of days ago that it it would be too difficult to have a different Brexit settlement/federal structure because it would be "problematic to have different legal systems"
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/home-affairs/justice-system/news/88503/jeremy-corbyn-mocked-saying-problematic-scotland-have]]

....maybe it was just the accumulation of factors.

Like every generation they look at the elders and can't believe we were part of quite an important and powerful feminist generation, which got results.

Yes, but we had to take the reins ourselves - no one did it for us.

Where I used to work we also had the added joy of external consultants who had no real understanding or experience of public sector work redesigning processes they didn't care about. Obviously that didn't really go very well for anyone, but it did cost an awful lot of tax payers money.

As a retired Civil Servant, (and also previously in Local Government), I saw cases where staff made a suggestion, which was rejected out of hand - wouldn't work. Only for external consultants to come in and make the same suggestion, which of course, had to be implemented. In one case a colleague said that one of the ideas had been his suggestion - as submitted via the suggestions scheme. It was in essence, saved a lot of money, and at least they paid him a very generous reward as a result. They could have saved the oodles of money spent on the Consultants; except in practice, they couldn't because Thatcher had decreed that we needed external Consultants to tell us how to do our jobs better. (I will say no more about the bright ideas of the Consultants, which ought to have been rejected.)

The knives are out for Boris Johnson. That can be good and bad news.

BBC Newsnight‏Verified account @BBCNewsnight

“Working with Boris Johnson is like walking a few feet behind a horse shovelling its sht” – a source tells @nicholaswatt* #newsnight

You didn't have to turn on the charm for me, That.

Your dwindling blessings are all you will have to count once Brexit kicks in.

Do you not understand the implications of full employment for growth, then, That?

Wait are you saying higher unemployment is "price worth paying" and something you'd prefer?

that, could you please tell us why an end to FOM will benefit our lives.

Could you at least try to prove there is a thought process behind your bluster and bravado?

Don't argue economics with these people folks. You cannot have a sensible discussion with someone who does no understand what full employment means (let alone what its implications are for the wider economy).

Don't let them derail this thread or it will end up like the in the MN politics forum which has essentially been shutdown by spam from posters who flood every single post with extraordinary volumes of what is mostly rubbish. Some people have tried to counter it but it's impossible when you are dealing with people who have literally nothing else to do but watch for new posts and drown them out.

I was about to say the same thing misti
A person who doesn't even understand how immigration works couldn't possibly grasp the basics of full/ideal employment levels and the negatives associated with them.

Bearbehind
Could you please tell us why an end to FOM will benefit our lives.
FOM has inevitably caused numbers of people to move from poorer parts of Europe to richer parts. It makes economic to them personally sense and it is unsurprising. With an aging population and declining birh rates, we need some immigration. But it has to be controlled.

FOM has caused massive impact in many many parts of the UK with massive increases in the need for school places, housing, doctors appointment . The list is long. A country's resources need to keep with growing demand.

It's ironic, that some of the most blantant anti immigration and racist views you hear express in Europe right now are in places like Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria.

As we hold ourselves to higher standards on this thread than are espoused by some people (ahem), I should point out that we have nominal almost full employment.

For a real picture of the nature of employment in the UK, we need to look at ONS and TUC studies. Take the one by the TUC showing that 47% of the jobs created in the North West of England since 2011 have been insecure. Or that fact that with the official unemployment at 4.5%, the lowest since 1975 and the employment rate the highest on record at 74.9%, so on paper, with the tightest labour market in almost half a century, workers are no better off in terms of wages, and in fact are worse off after adjusting for inflation.

We do need to be aware of the real nature of the UK labour market, and of people's real-life experience of it.

that, thank you for your response however it is still nothing more than prejudice.

How will any changes to FOM after Brexit actually improve people's lives?

Do you actually know of anyone who's life has been adversely affected by the current FOM or is it just what you've read in the Daily mail?

Mathanxiety
The only incoherent fantasy here is the U in UK

If the Scots nationalists gain enough support for another independence referendum and they win, I would accept that democratic outcome. Personally I would have allowed Nicola Sturgeon to get on with it now. If Scotland wanted to be independent of the UK but to join the EU and adopt the Euro, I would wish them well.

I wonder which way the net migration would be? Hmmm let me think.

Bearbehind
Do you actually know of anyone who's life has been adversely affected by the current FOM
I do indeed. Local builder, employing local tradespeople (bricklayers, roofers and plasterers) told me he is undercut on almost every quote mainly because his competitor brings in tradespeople from Bulgaria. They live in a trailer and mobile home on his yard while they are working - so presumably not affected by things like the high cost of rents in the area.

But there's no intention of restricting skilled labour from coming to this country so how is that actually going to change?

How do rate "skilled"?