Is there really a majority for ending freedom of movement?

[Figmentofmyimagination]

To me, the worst thing about Brexit is the removal of freedom of movement rights from UK workers, especially young workers. We've introduced the highest university fees in the western world, made housing inaccessible to anyone without access to the bank of mum and dad and now we are removing free movement rights.

What is driving this desire to limit the life chances of young people?

what has Trident got to do with being in the EU? Remain voter who supports keeping Trident here.

meanwhile I am a Remain voter who opposes Trident ... again, trying to over generalise isn't helpful.

Our low skilled imigration will come from places like Ukraine, to support industries like farming and our medical staff etc will come from Asia. Visas were the first thing India wanted to tie into a free trade deal. This may cost more and predications are the economy will suffer so fewer jobs all round. I'm struggling to see the advantages to this.

I don't think FOM has been a benefit, all things consider to the citizenry of the UK. Has it been a benefit to UK businesses? Quite probably, in part because it excuses them the cost of training their own workforce to the highest standards because there is a pool of already trained people to draw on.

As to how we replace this. 2 things, training our own workers properly and attracting talent from across the world. The first of these we are pretty terrible at IMO, the second we are currently fantastic at IMO, I see no reason why that success wouldn't continue.

Non EU migration we can currently control to a greater extent than EU migration. It might go up, it might go down.

If the power is returned to them, the various parties in the UK will have to develop an immigration policy using the greater controls they can use after we leave and the electorate will choose whether they want higher or lower levels.

I think it’s just a general protest against immigration. Leavers have no power to block non EU immigrants so they try to block EU ones instead.

attracting talent from across the world… The first of these we are pretty terrible at IMO, the second we are currently fantastic at IMO, I see no reason why that success wouldn't continue.

When Theresa May went to India to see about attracting more talent from there, they (not unreasonably) wanted thousands of extra visas granted in return. She wasn't down with that, if I recall correctly.

I mentioned it as an example of big piles of cash that could have been spent on something useful. It could apply to a very expensive aircraft carrier with very expensive planes. The UK on it's own hardly needs this as it can't possibly declare war on anywhere on it's own and expect to win, unless it is the lsle of Wight.

Thats strange, i work in an industry that has very little migration, yet my pay is just 3k more than it was in 1996 and i ve not had a pay rise for 6 years.
btw its a hi skilled job and training has gone out the window too!
(private sector)

UK business has chosen this path, in order to boost profits, its nothing to do with the EU or migration & min wage has insured low skilled workers have received inflation plus pay rises.

ref attracting skilled etc its interesting as you say we are very good at getting them here, once here they ve access to EU research facilities, travel etc indeed the co-op within universities is massive, same as our aero space benefits from Airbus or Pharma from the uni sector.

My fear is post brexit, we will not be a place specialists want to come and work.
unfortunately brexit is an opportunity for EU too :( hasn't europe made a play for fintech new start ups? i read that recently.

India said it wanted 100,000 visas. Theresa said 'no thanks'.
The UK will discover how beneficial FoM has been when more EU citizens leave.
So much of what has been said today is simply the UK governments REFUSING to run the country properly. Cutting bursaries for nurses, training for engineering and so on. It has chosen to buy in 'EU' and other overseas labour rather than invest properly in the people of the UK.
With Mrs May's 'hostile environment' tactics this failing is going to bite the UK hard as there are many other more friendly places for workers to go.

I'm assuming you are just on a windup now @1tisILeClerc
This is the second major defence project which you have decried and suggested we spend the money on something else "useful" Not sure why any of this is relevant to FOM? Perhaps you'd rather Britain were undefended....but I cannot imagine why! Especially since our defences are also Europe's.

Anyhow, we have the aircraft carrier so the big pile of cash isn't there to be spent on other stuff because it is now pretty much "aircraft carrier" shaped So we carry on...

FOM is supposed to continue under transition anyhow as I understand it, if May's deal gets passed.

The UK used to be good at attracting fantastic talent. I think that is likely to change - the NHS levy is a form of double taxation that isn't going to be popular, the restrictions on income, the stories of Home Office malice and incompetence... Would you want to come to a country where you can make an honest mistake on your taxes, correct it and still be threatened with deportation as a terrorist?

Oh, the UK will still get its oligarchs, but they won't be bringing in much revenue as they are so good at stashing it elsewhere.

I think mostly people voted to leave because of immigration. So I can see how there's a strong desire to end fom and introduce stricter control. But it doesn't take into consideration that the current and most likely any future government is very unlikely to implement any actual monitoring of immigration whether we're in eu or not.

Are all countries who do not have a Trident equivalent "undefended"? I keep hearing from Brexiteers that the UK can manage just fine outside the EU, just like all the countries who are not members. Surely we can manage just fine without nuclear submarines, just like all the countries who do not have them?

@LouiseCollins28
As to how we replace this. 2 things, training our own workers properly and attracting talent from across the world. The first of these we are pretty terrible at IMO

I agree that the UK should train more people, but in the 40 years that I've been working, I've never seen it happen. At company, industry and national level, the UK is poor at training and developing talent. I have no faith that this will improve. On the contrary, if we look at an area such as training nurses, the UK has gone backwards.

A trainee nurse in Austria pays no tuition fees, receives a grant, pays less than €50 a month for accommodation and the same for meals, earns extra money when working unsociable shifts and is valued and well-paid at the end of their training. This is how it was in the UK in the 1970s - providing the NHS with the majority of the nursing requirement and enabling an amount of social mobility. The UK's response over the last 15-20 years? Remove the nursing bursary, 'lose' the experienced, older nurses as they're too expensive to employ, bring in cheaper third world nurses, introduce health care assistants etc.

the second we are currently fantastic at IMO, I see no reason why that success wouldn't continue.

Except attracting talent relies on an open, welcoming attitude towards foreigners. This has all but evaporated - the PM thinks that EU citizens are 'queue jumpers' and while Home Sec she spearheaded the 'hostile environment' campaign and oversaw Windrush and the letters to EU citizens that were 'sent in error'. It also depends on the level of economic activity in the country. A fall in GDP of 5%-8%, another million unemployed and the closure of most of the UK's manufacturing is not going to attract foreign talent.

@Havanananana

Agree totally regarding training people. We have been on the wrong course for ages on this.

Perhaps if the supply of EU labour is reduced then businesses and organizations will have to get a grip of this, and pay people properly as well. I do think I have more faith than you do that this will happen, I think it will have to or those businesses or organisations will fail.

Except attracting talent relies on an open, welcoming attitude towards foreigners. This has all but evaporated - the PM thinks that EU citizens are 'queue jumpers' and while Home Sec she spearheaded the 'hostile environment' campaign and oversaw Windrush and the letters to EU citizens that were 'sent in error'. It also depends on the level of economic activity in the country. A fall in GDP of 5%-8%, another million unemployed and the closure of most of the UK's manufacturing is not going to attract foreign talent.

My DB (now a US citizen) came back to the UK to do his doctorate (paid for by Uncle Sam) before starting up his own very high tech company with a couple of colleagues. There were plans to base the EU office in Oxford (where he studied). That's all changed, and there's now no interest in the UK at all from the investors.

Perhaps if the supply of EU labour is reduced then businesses and organizations will have to get a grip of this, and pay people properly as well.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

That's a hollow laugh, if you were wondering.

{I'm assuming you are just on a windup now @1tisILeClerc}
Not at all.
When you have the UK crapping itself when a couple of guys get an easyjet flight to Salisbury and leave a teaspoon of Novichoc lying around, having a hugely expensive aircraft carrier with a few planes isn't going to help.
A 'conventional' war where people rush around with guns only gets you so far. Eventually you need negotiation and peace as you will otherwise have 'won' nothing.
Ypres, hundreds of thousands died fighting over a piece of land half a mile wide by about 8 miles long over a 4 year period.
There are some villages in France where even 60 years on the ground is so contaminated by the chemicals used in various bombs that nothing can be grown and people can't live there.
Have a look at N Korea, where much of the country's GDP is spent on armaments, the life of ordinary citizens is shit.
You may want to live on a racist Island, fine, but the world is a much bigger place and I want my DC to live to the full.

I m not saying all FOM is bad, many aspects aren't, but it’s like a lot of things in live, very clever people often rich people force something on us that they in their good wisdom see as be beneficial and fair and wonderful, then in the long run it turns out that it’s not work very well for certain people, FOM was set as forced on us from 92 onwards ( didn’t vote for it ) and it is only in the last 15+ years has it has an effect on us, esp from Poland ( not knocking them) even Labour eventually admitted that far far more people arrived then they thought would

Perhaps if the supply of EU labour is reduced then businesses and organizations will have to get a grip of this, and pay people properly as well. I do think I have more faith than you do that this will happen, I think it will have to or those businesses or organisations will fail.

If BMW can no longer get the engineers they need in Oxford, they'll just move the factory. If the games developers cannot attract the coders and design folk, they'll just move to where they can. If the hospitals cannot attract the qualified staff then waiting lists will just get longer.

Just as important is the reduction in semi-skilled staff in critical areas such as food production and elderly care. There is nothing in the government's plans to suggest how this will be addressed - on the contrary, these people are being deliberately shut out - and the demographics of the country mean that there is not enough home-grown talent to fill the gap. The UK cannot wait for 3 years while new staff are recruited and trained. Food needs to be processed now. Your granny needs a cup of tea and help with her ablutions now, not in 3 years time.

{ even Labour eventually admitted that far far more people arrived then they thought would}
So why didn't they do anything about it?

Well it's either that or their businesses will fail. Up to the owners I should imagine

1tisILeClerc Because they would have to admit they made a mistake and we know how politicians like to admit their mistakes

LouiseCollins automation is probably the way they will go. Ever more sophisticated robots. That and moving business out of the UK. We live in a small world now, businesses move production and HQ when it's needed. Those of us with burgundy passports will just follow.

@Hesta54

FOM was set as forced on us from 92 onwards

FoM has been one of the Four Freedoms since the day the Common Market was established. Throughout the UK's membership of the EEC/EU you have been able to vote for or against the EU's proposals. Every 5 years you get to vote for your MP and MEP.

Much of the car industry has overcapacity as the global economy is slowing. I think it is BMW but certainly a German manufacturer is lining up for new production in China in just over 3 year's time as that is where it sees growth. Simply closing the doors on factories in the UK would be painful, but not impossible. Without JIT and free trade the reason for Nissan to be in Sunderland largely disappears, so they again may well just walk out.