Is this what taking back control looks like?

[Randy McNob]

I wouldn't necessarily have blamed someone in Boston for voting for Brexit. There were parts of the country where large influxes of non-UK nationals was almost certainly challenging. But overall, EU citizens have been hugely beneficial to this country. The data is all there (in terms of how much more they contributed in terms of tax, etc, the jobs they did...). Funnily enough, though, there don't seem to many of the Brexit-voting Bostonians queuing up for jobs in the local agricultural sector. From what I've read there are massive shortages of agricultural labour across the East of England, and farming representatives have been lobbying the Government for increased quotas for EU labour.

PS: The "supposed reason" for the difference between Settlement Scheme applicants and numbers of EU nationals in the UK is taken from the Office for National Statistics.

Exactly right. EU migration contributed billions to the economy and was only about 20% of overall migration, ending it will cost our economy billions. They use Boston, an extreme example where there is a larger than average migrant population and apply it to the main which simply buys into a tabloidy narrative to show migration in a negative way, like they are all benefit scroungers and rapists. The more relevant question should be how many of the Boston migrant population pay taxes and contribute to the economy compared to the overall number?

and ending free movement means ending freedom of movement for British people. Other Europeans still have freedom of movement and can simply go elsewhere. Total lunacy

 

[ManOfSussex]

#takebackcontrol in Dungeness yesterday, as per the front page of The Times.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

I wouldn't necessarily have blamed someone in Boston for voting for Brexit. There were parts of the country where large influxes of non-UK nationals was almost certainly challenging. But overall, EU citizens have been hugely beneficial to this country. The data is all there (in terms of how much more they contributed in terms of tax, etc, the jobs they did...). Funnily enough, though, there don't seem to many of the Brexit-voting Bostonians queuing up for jobs in the local agricultural sector. From what I've read there are massive shortages of agricultural labour across the East of England, and farming representatives have been lobbying the Government for increased quotas for EU labour.

PS: The "supposed reason" for the difference between Settlement Scheme applicants and numbers of EU nationals in the UK is taken from the Office for National Statistics.

I agree on the point that most immigration, be it Eu or non-Eu can have many positive effects but having little or no control of the numbers was problematic for numerous reasons and unsustainable. It's also worth pointing out that the (clearly false) claims when estimating any net benefits of EU immigration, that having a large influx of cheap Labour had little or no effect on suppression of wages always seemed a bit implausible to me. Transitioning from a virtual open door to a more controlled system (combined with Covid) has left some industries struggling in the short term but having an immigration policy where we have much greater control, entry based on needs to specific sectors while having the power to prevent entry on a much wider basis (eg immigrants with criminal records) shouldn't be beyond our capabilities as many/most countries around the world manage their borders this way.

Yes, and the BBC fact check site covered this in their analysis but still concluded "It is now clear that far more EU citizens have been living in the country than previous estimates suggested." and "the settlement scheme has given us the best estimate we've ever had". It's also worth noting the ONS hasn't had a great track record estimating immigration numbers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56846637

 

[Jim in the West]

I agree on the point that most immigration, be it Eu or non-Eu can have many positive effects but having little or no control of the numbers was problematic for numerous reasons and unsustainable. It's also worth pointing out that the (clearly false) claims when estimating any net benefits of EU immigration, that having a large influx of cheap Labour had little or no effect on suppression of wages always seemed a bit implausible to me. Transitioning from a virtual open door to a more controlled system (combined with Covid) has left some industries struggling in the short term but having an immigration policy where we have much greater control, entry based on needs to specific sectors while having the power to prevent entry on a much wider basis (eg immigrants with criminal records) shouldn't be beyond our capabilities as many/most countries around the world manage their borders this way.

Yes, and the BBC fact check site covered this in their analysis but still concluded "It is now clear that far more EU citizens have been living in the country than previous estimates suggested." and "the settlement scheme has given us the best estimate we've ever had". It's also worth noting the ONS hasn't had a great track record estimating immigration numbers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56846637

I also agree that completely uncontrolled immigration isn't sustainable. I thought the "Emergency Brake" concept that Cameron tried to negotiate in 2015 was a good idea. If the EU had agreed to it, I doubt we would have had Brexit, and everyone would have saved a huge amount of time and money. The crazy thing is, a few years before the Brexit referendum very few people were worried about immigration. The referendum provided the opportunity for the right wing of the Tory party, UKIP, and assorted others, to stir up resentment of foreigners. Now that Brexit has been "done", and we have brought back control, one might have hoped that the narrative could move on. Unfortunately most of the travails of this country are still blamed on immigrants and the nasty EU. At some stage those who voted for Brexit might actually get on and do all the things that the EU apparently stopped us doing. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Regarding the number of EU nationals in the UK, we'll have a better idea soon when the Census data is published.

 

[A1X]

The EU didn't need to "agree" to an emergency brake because the UK already had the right to implement it under the existing parameters. Yet no Government did.

 

[beorhthelm]

The EU didn't need to "agree" to an emergency brake because the UK already had the right to implement it under the existing parameters. Yet no Government did.

a lot of what we "could do" but didnt over the decades was because they require some form of citizen or residency registration to manage. common across europe, we dont have anything like that in the UK, so rules that work there dont work here. passing a residency registry,on the behest of EU would have been a tall ask, even if ultimately sensible and dealing with a lot of problems.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

#takebackcontrol in Dungeness yesterday, as per the front page of The Times.

View attachment 138835

Its actually hilarious, I am a big fan of the work of the French here - give us more money to do very little.

Can't even send them back to France lool

 

[JC Footy Genius]

I also agree that completely uncontrolled immigration isn't sustainable. I thought the "Emergency Brake" concept that Cameron tried to negotiate in 2015 was a good idea. If the EU had agreed to it, I doubt we would have had Brexit, and everyone would have saved a huge amount of time and money. The crazy thing is, a few years before the Brexit referendum very few people were worried about immigration. The referendum provided the opportunity for the right wing of the Tory party, UKIP, and assorted others, to stir up resentment of foreigners. Now that Brexit has been "done", and we have brought back control, one might have hoped that the narrative could move on. Unfortunately most of the travails of this country are still blamed on immigrants and the nasty EU. At some stage those who voted for Brexit might actually get on and do all the things that the EU apparently stopped us doing. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Regarding the number of EU nationals in the UK, we'll have a better idea soon when the Census data is published.

On Cameron's deal, possibly true, unfortunately from your pov the EU was totally intransigent and from my pov seeing that intransigence combined with Cameron going to Berlin cap in hand seemingly begging Merkel for more control over our immigration system sort of reinforced the take back control message. Over a year before the referendum, more than 50% wanted immigration reduced a lot and over 75% wanted immigration reduced * so I would argue the public were leading the politicians rather than the other way around. No need to hold your breath as we have already taken back more control of our immigration system, all EU citizens outside the settlement scheme are now treated equally with all other nationals hence the significant reduction in EU immigration plus criminals sentenced to at least a year in jail in the EU are now banned from entering the UK, those serving less than a year can also be banned. We have also negotiated trade deals we were prevented from conducting while in the EU, plus I am sure every committed europhile would have demanded and expected us to have been good EU members joining the EU vaccine procurement program .... MASSIVE bullet dodged there I think we can all agree and who amongst us doesn't welcome regaining control of setting sanitary products vat rates ... to name but a few examples.


* https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...G-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-060315.pdf

 

[Randy McNob]

a lot of what we "could do" but didnt over the decades was because they require some form of citizen or residency registration to manage. common across europe, we dont have anything like that in the UK, so rules that work there dont work here. passing a residency registry,on the behest of EU would have been a tall ask, even if ultimately sensible and dealing with a lot of problems.

At the end of the day the positives far outweigh the negatives, and the negatives were / are greatly exagerated by the right wing press.

We are in a far worse position where many sectors who rely on causal staff, hospitality, care homes, delivery drivers cannot get the staff, how is that taking back control? it's ceding control. Of course you could put the supposedly positives benefits on the other end of the scale but where are they? where are the examples of positive benefits of leaving the EU and ending FOM ?

 

[Jim in the West]

On Cameron's deal, possibly true, unfortunately from your pov the EU was totally intransigent and from my pov seeing that intransigence combined with Cameron going to Berlin cap in hand seemingly begging Merkel for more control over our immigration system sort of reinforced the take back control message. Over a year before the referendum, more than 50% wanted immigration reduced a lot and over 75% wanted immigration reduced * so I would argue the public were leading the politicians rather than the other way around. No need to hold your breath as we have already taken back more control of our immigration system, all EU citizens outside the settlement scheme are now treated equally with all other nationals hence the significant reduction in EU immigration plus criminals sentenced to at least a year in jail in the EU are now banned from entering the UK, those serving less than a year can also be banned. We have also negotiated trade deals we were prevented from conducting while in the EU, plus I am sure every committed europhile would have demanded and expected us to have been good EU members joining the EU vaccine procurement program .... MASSIVE bullet dodged there I think we can all agree and who amongst us doesn't welcome regaining control of setting sanitary products vat rates ... to name but a few examples.


* https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...G-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-060315.pdf

As you know full well, membership of the EU would not have stopped us having our own vaccination programme. Funnily enough the initial trials of the AZ vaccine were undertaken in conjunction with an Italian company, and obviously the manufacture is undertaken by a Swedish/UK company. So those pesky Europeans got to help us out after all!!

Our vaccination programme hasn't stopped 130,000 deaths (the highest number in Europe), and if you look at "Excess Deaths" only Italy and Spain have higher numbers (population adjusted) of the major western economies. In terms of our much-lauded* vaccination programme, we're actually not that far ahead of other European countries (Spain is about to overtake us...Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Cyprus...all are within touching distance, and will probably overtake us in the next month).

However, I agree that the zero-rating of sanitary products IS a positive step (albeit the EU plans to allow such zero-rating soon anyway). Great that we have managed to agree on one positive benefit of Brexit (even if it's only a temporary benefit)!!

*by our PM

 

[JC Footy Genius]

As you know full well, membership of the EU would not have stopped us having our own vaccination programme. Funnily enough the initial trials of the AZ vaccine were undertaken in conjunction with an Italian company, and obviously the manufacture is undertaken by a Swedish/UK company. So those pesky Europeans got to help us out after all!!

Our vaccination programme hasn't stopped 130,000 deaths (the highest number in Europe), and if you look at "Excess Deaths" only Italy and Spain have higher numbers (population adjusted) of the major western economies. In terms of our much-lauded* vaccination programme, we're actually not that far ahead of other European countries (Spain is about to overtake us...Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Cyprus...all are within touching distance, and will probably overtake us in the next month).

However, I agree that the zero-rating of sanitary products IS a positive step (albeit the EU plans to allow such zero-rating soon anyway). Great that we have managed to agree on one positive benefit of Brexit (even if it's only a temporary benefit)!!

*by our PM

Although theoretically true, you know full well, many, if not all of the passionate europhiles on here would have expected and argued that we join the EU scheme if we were still members and Brexit hadn't happened. Being the only major country doing our own thing, aligning ourselves with the Viktor Orban government would have been totally unacceptable as it would to the President of the European Commission who said member countries doing their own thing would bring about the end of the EU.

Correct, the vaccine program can't prevent deaths before it is set up and cleared for use. As you are including Spain, that puts us in the middle of the major European economies then (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain) assuming all Covid related or excess deaths are calculated in exactly the same way across every country. Trying to pretend our vaccine procurement and rollout hasn't been a success story takes some doing and yes some other European countries are finally catching up which is welcome news.

Regaining the ability to bring in blanket bans of known criminals from EU member states is not a positive for you then?

 

[WATFORD zero]

Although theoretically true, you know full well, many, if not all of the passionate europhiles on here would have expected and argued that we join the EU scheme if we were still members and Brexit hadn't happened. Being the only major country doing our own thing, aligning ourselves with the Viktor Orban government would have been totally unacceptable as it would to the President of the European Commission who said member countries doing their own thing would bring about the end of the EU.

Correct, the vaccine program can't prevent deaths before it is set up and cleared for use. As you are including Spain, that puts us in the middle of the major European economies then (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain) assuming all Covid related or excess deaths are calculated in exactly the same way across every country. Trying to pretend our vaccine procurement and rollout hasn't been a success story takes some doing and yes some other European countries are finally catching up which is welcome news.

Regaining the ability to bring in blanket bans of known criminals from EU member states is not a positive for you then?

Or alternatively, that fact you have just stated has made me and my constant lying about the EU controlling the vaccine rollout look really stupid

So now I am going to invent one of my parallel universes where the EU can't stop the rollout of vaccines, but the UK stop it ourselves and it's still the EU's fault

It really doesn't sound any better does it

 

[Jim in the West]

Although theoretically true, you know full well, many, if not all of the passionate europhiles on here would have expected and argued that we join the EU scheme if we were still members and Brexit hadn't happened. Being the only major country doing our own thing, aligning ourselves with the Viktor Orban government would have been totally unacceptable as it would to the President of the European Commission who said member countries doing their own thing would bring about the end of the EU.

Correct, the vaccine program can't prevent deaths before it is set up and cleared for use. As you are including Spain, that puts us in the middle of the major European economies then (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain) assuming all Covid related or excess deaths are calculated in exactly the same way across every country. Trying to pretend our vaccine procurement and rollout hasn't been a success story takes some doing and yes some other European countries are finally catching up which is welcome news.

Regaining the ability to bring in blanket bans of known criminals from EU member states is not a positive for you then?

I think you're twisting my words somewhat - I was simply pointing out that (had we remained in the EU) we could have done our own thing with vaccines. It reminds me of the Leave campaign - being asked to give examples of what they wanted more control over, and coming up with examples where we already had complete control!

And I was also not seeking to decry our vaccination roll-out, simply to point out that most European countries have just about caught us up - and (it seems) will soon overtake us.

The ability to stop known criminals entering the UK is, of course, a positive. I'm not sure how much safer I am as a result,, though - as we have decided not to take part in the EU Arrest Warrant scheme, and various EU countries no longer extradite criminals to the UK. Another unfortunate example of our desire to do everything ourselves and avoid co-operation with the EU. Still, I'm sure it keeps the Daily Mail readers happy!

 

[Lever]

I think you're twisting my words somewhat - I was simply pointing out that (had we remained in the EU) we could have done our own thing with vaccines. It reminds me of the Leave campaign - being asked to give examples of what they wanted more control over, and coming up with examples where we already had complete control!

And I was also not seeking to decry our vaccination roll-out, simply to point out that most European countries have just about caught us up - and (it seems) will soon overtake us.

The ability to stop known criminals entering the UK is, of course, a positive. I'm not sure how much safer I am as a result,, though - as we have decided not to take part in the EU Arrest Warrant scheme, and various EU countries no longer extradite criminals to the UK. Another unfortunate example of our desire to do everything ourselves and avoid co-operation with the EU. Still, I'm sure it keeps the Daily Mail readers happy!

A fair and balanced summary in my opinion.

 

[pastafarian]

The ability to stop known criminals entering the UK is, of course, a positive. I'm not sure how much safer I am as a result,, though - as we have decided not to take part in the EU Arrest Warrant scheme, and various EU countries no longer extradite criminals to the UK. Another unfortunate example of our desire to do everything ourselves and avoid co-operation with the EU. Still, I'm sure it keeps the Daily Mail readers happy!

As ever, a slight distortion of the truth.
Whilst members of the EU past criminality cannot be used as a tool to restrict entry for EU citizens and stop EU citizens free movement rights.....even if you did numerous stints in prison for rape, thieving, burglary,assault etc
We could stop someone entering with an existing warrant out on them but a quick swipe of the passport or ID card when entering a port of entry will not reveal past and spent criminal convictions. Your passport and ID card does not contain this information.
The requirement (for people wishing to come here to live and work on a visa) to supply a criminal check from their homeland accredited agency allows for scrutiny in the decision making process on past criminal convictions.

 

[Randy McNob]

from Wiki

According to one study, "there is little evidence to support the theory that the foreign national prison population continues to grow because foreign nationals are more likely to commit crime than are British citizens or more likely to commit crime of a serious nature"

Research has found no evidence of an average causal impact of immigration on crime in the United Kingdom.[8][9][52] One study based on evidence from England and Wales in the 2000s found no evidence of an average causal impact of immigration on crime in England and Wales.[8] No causal impact and no immigrant differences in the likelihood of being arrested were found for London, which saw large immigration changes.[8] A 2017 study offered qualified support for the notion that immigration had contributed to declining crime rates in the UK.

There was no effect on violent crime; arrest rates were not different, and changes in crime cannot be ascribed to crimes against immigrants.

A 2013 study found "that crime is significantly lower in those neighborhoods with sizeable immigrant population shares" and that "the crime reducing effect is substantially enhanced if the enclave is composed of immigrants from the same ethnic background

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime

 

[Jim in the West]

As ever, a slight distortion of the truth.
Whilst members of the EU past criminality cannot be used as a tool to restrict entry for EU citizens and stop EU citizens free movement rights.....even if you did numerous stints in prison for rape, thieving, burglary,assault etc
We could stop someone entering with an existing warrant out on them but a quick swipe of the passport or ID card when entering a port of entry will not reveal past and spent criminal convictions. Your passport and ID card does not contain this information.
The requirement (for people wishing to come here to live and work on a visa) to supply a criminal check from their homeland accredited agency allows for scrutiny in the decision making process on past criminal convictions.

I'm not quite sure which truth I was distorting - just asking a genuine question - am I now safer as a result? Crime-solving rates seem to be at a record low. Perhaps - rather than trying to point to potential EU criminals we should be focussing on catching Brits!! [ps: I know that's not the point you're making, but the rhetoric of Brexit is often to find easy targets to blame (ie, nasty Europeans), whilst by far the biggest problem is our own failure to deal with the fundamental issue].

 

[Lever]

I'm not quite sure which truth I was distorting - just asking a genuine question - am I now safer as a result? Crime-solving rates seem to be at a record low. Perhaps - rather than trying to point to potential EU criminals we should be focussing on catching Brits!! [ps: I know that's not the point you're making, but the rhetoric of Brexit is often to find easy targets to blame (ie, nasty Europeans), whilst by far the biggest problem is our own failure to deal with the fundamental issue].

Again, a fair argument...

 

[The Clamp]

As ever, a slight distortion of the truth.
Whilst members of the EU past criminality cannot be used as a tool to restrict entry for EU citizens and stop EU citizens free movement rights.....even if you did numerous stints in prison for rape, thieving, burglary,assault etc
We could stop someone entering with an existing warrant out on them but a quick swipe of the passport or ID card when entering a port of entry will not reveal past and spent criminal convictions. Your passport and ID card does not contain this information.
The requirement (for people wishing to come here to live and work on a visa) to supply a criminal check from their homeland accredited agency allows for scrutiny in the decision making process on past criminal convictions.

You haven’t understood what they wrote.

 

[Randy McNob]

You haven’t understood what they wrote.

You also have to buy into the narrative that all foreigners are would be rapists, drug dealers or terrorists