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?

But Bigly, It's more than just moving the furniture. A whole mind set needs to change and not just always look at going for the cheapest easiest route. Governments only look at the effect they will have from one election to the next. This might be an additional benefit of Brexit, in that we have to relook at how we are running the country long term in order to make a success of it. Short termism just isn't going to work to get Brexit to work IMO.

thecatfromjapan Apologies for not clarifying that I was catching up with thread and meant this www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/29/joiner-shane-ridge-born-and-raised-in-britain-told-to-leave-home-office

This might be an additional benefit of Brexit, in that we have to relook at how we are running the country long term in order to make a success of it. Short termism just isn't going to work to get Brexit to work IMO.

That's a very nice idea and gad there been any indication, prior to the referendum, that this might be the case, Keave may well have achieved a landslide.

The fact is there wasn't, and still isn't.

Have you seen anything since the rerendum which make you think this is going to happen?

The point I was making corcory is that we don't need brexit to do any of these things. You are hoping that be cutting of the supply of EU labour things will get so bad the Government will be forced to make changes. I would rather we didn't have to create a disaster in order to make improvements.

Sorry, Elena. I thought you were responding to our visitor's very sad story.

The Home Office stories are, genuinely, grim.

Clegg the soothsayer? This short article of Brexit predictions, written the day before the referendum, is astonishingly accurate:

inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/will-wake-vote-leave/amp/

Depressing. I'd like to see what Clegg predicts for now if we continue to follow this course.

thecatfromjapan It is such a fast-miving thread I cannot keep up.

National Trust to pull advertising from Mumsnet due to swearing www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/national-trust-to-pull-advertising-from-website-due-to-swearing-on-posts.html

What happened to the National Trust?! Surely they did not take all that rubbish about their Easter advertising seriously?! I saw the posters in real life, they did say Easter. Have they been taken over by the Daily Mail? I thought the whole point of Mumsnet was swearing

thecat your research on Lancashire doesn't surprise me at all. As I have noted before there is also very little EU immigration in Scotland as well. There is also a surplus of homegrown builders. However they do complain that whereas in the past they would have commuted weekly to London etc it is no longer worth their while to do so because they are undercut by EU migrants there.

I referred to the relative lack of EU migrants outside London and the South East earlier. For London it is 1m out of 8m or 12% of the population. For rUK it is 2m out of 57m or 3.5% (although there will be concentrations in tourist economy, farms and cities). Especially once factoring in that there are far fewer elderly and infirm people proportionately in London than in rUK it is just not the case that most elderly people are being cared for by EU migrants, although they likely are in London and the South East.

www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/londons-geography-population/londons-population-by-age/

Scotland requires all Local Authority care contracts to pay the Scottish Living wage and also provide standard employment terms. Most care workers are Scottish.

Poland has a lower birth rate (1.32) than Germany. For the last 5 years Polish GDP growth has been consistently above UK and Germany and in 2016 was 2.7% against UK (1.8%) and Germany (1.9%). They are now actively incentivising workers to stay at home. In any case, recovering growth in the Eurozone makes mainland Europe relatively more attractive than the UK than it was.

It was always extremely foolish to rely on cheap uncontrolled EU immigration to fuel the UK economy because the underlying demographics and economics were always going to reverse, Brexit or not - I half suspect this is why no long term building or planning to accommodate migration was done by GO/DC or TB before them .

National Trust to pull advertising from Mumsnet due to swearing

Well they can fuck off ...

You fucking beat me to it lh

On a slightly unrelated but sort of related note, I've now finally been able to finish The Mandibles. Terrifying how much of now you can see in it. Even down to the constant need for some form of enemy.

Interesting story on how Nissan are planning to respond to Brexit in Sunderland. Increased production and increased sourcing of parts from the UK.

asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Nissan-bolstering-UK-production-as-split-with-EU-looms

This is an interesting piece on Frankfurt. They are starting to wonder if they really want 10,000 London bankers plus 90,000 ancillary jobs. That translates to 150,000 to add to the existing 700,000 population.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41026575

If the National Trust are listening then I am not a huge fan. In Scotland they tend to be the only major landowners restricting access to the countryside and buildings of cultural significance.

Fuckity bye NT!! 🖑

School places - for ideological reasons, central government has banned local authorities from opening new schools. New schools have to be free schools and the chains behind them tend not to want to open them in places of need, but in places of money.

Looking in from the outside, this may be the single weirdest government policy decision of the last decade.

Where I live, if new kids arrive, the local council is simply obliged to open a new class. If you are in catchment, you are guaranteed a school place. We moved in July; DS starts at the local high school on Monday.

Does anyone here have any views on the David Jones story? Apparently, The Times picked up on it. I suppose I'm wondering about this because I wonder whether there is an on-going issue about on-line democracy, and whether there is an issue with social media and the Brexit vote.

I'm also curious as to the relative silence in mainstream media about the issue, and whether The Times publishing an article marks a shift in that.

I am somewhat hampered in all of my questions owing to a. having failed to buy the Times b. not being able to access it on-line c,. having taken a long break from being on-line, so being behind things generally.

The Russian troll you mean? The evidence is very convincing that Russian interests are running both right and left wing trolls. FWIW I have been systematically blocking obvious trolls on twitter for about a year, this account was one of them.

"School places - for ideological reasons, central government has banned local authorities from opening new schools. New schools have to be free schools and the chains behind them tend not to want to open them in places of need, but in places of money."

Looking in from the outside, this may be the single weirdest government policy decision of the last decade.

And which genius was behind it... ?! It's Gooooove. Mind you, almost anything done while he was at DfE has a certain whiff of bat guano about it.

I live not far from Frankfurt
I've never heard anyone complaining at the prospect of thousands of new wellpaid jobs coming to our region
Colleagues, neighbours, local businesses are all happy that a vibrant region will become even better.

Local politicians are jubilant and going all out to attract business to move from the Uk post-Brexit

It is common to hear that the aim is for these new jobs and businesses to compensate for any export losses to the Uk

However, job losses in the German car industry due to Brexit have been assessed by iirc the German branch of Deloitte as about 17,000
The total jobs in the industry are 750,000 so should be quite manageable via natural wastage, not taking on so many new people.

So, the extra jobs gained from the Uk will be a nice boost, but it is thought the total will exceed the job losses due to Brexit.

I'm no lover of Gove, but it was Blair's government that started the Academy programme: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_(English_school)

It might be that Free Schools took that and made it worse, but we should be even-handed in our criticism.

I am also old enough to remember when all carers were paid directly by local or central govt.
The work was always hard, physically and emotionally, but the pay wasn't terrible.

Back in the bad old 1970s, before vetting, I had a holiday job as a carer in the long uni vacation.

It paid the same as other casual work I did, wages directly from local authority, for full 40 hours worked per week, set start and end times.
There was sufficient time to maintain full service and dignity of those being cared for.

However, the salary would have to be a million quid annually before I'd have done it as a career.
Heartbreaking to see the elderly with such loss of faculties, some distressed by it I so respect those who can do this as a vocation.
That's apart from dealing with smelly bodily fluids all day

After I had to care for my mum when she had dementia, even with support I had a sudden burnout after she died and I was off sick for 2 months.

Carers are incredible people and I would gladly pay more tax / council tax for decent wages & conditions, as there used to be

I wish other people shared your view!!

Direct remittances from overseas workers account for 10% of Philippine GDP, mainly employed in Asia and the Gulf. The money sent to relatives also fuels the domestic economy and increases foreign exchange reserves aiding the balance of payments. The whole economy / society is geared to sending, mainly female workers, overseas. It is common for their children to be raised by grandparents also caring for their parents, who are all maintained by the money sent home. Wrongly or rightly improving the conditions for these workers overseas was a major priority for the Philippine government ( or at least previous governments, there is little rationality in the government of Duerte, and it seems likely there will be more people seeking to leave the country as a result of his policies of violence and brutality) rather than actually improving the domestic economy so that skilled workers have opportunity at home, or indeed doing anything about the exploitative loan sharks / dodgy agencies that these workers use to access the job markets. It is not unusual for those working as helpers in Asia and the Middle East to actually be highly educated to degree level. So yes those nurses coming here are actually ensuring their elderly relatives are cared for. aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/overseas_filipino_workers_become_economic_heroes_20130415

Carers are incredible people

They really are. I never really understood why vocational work is so under paid. Nurses and carers deserve more. And want to give more to their patients too.

Hester That Clegg article is mind blowingly accurate. Are you sure he wrote it before the Referendum?
He should set himself up as a clairvoyant- Mystic Clegg?