Cape Blue

Exactly this, yet some on the left seem to think FOM is a good thing for the British working class - they are the useful idiots of the business elites, virtue-signalling their approval of FOM to show they are somehow not xenophobic, whilst casting their brethren into poverty.

Cape Blue

It's your petty side we see all day long, so no surprise there.

Cape Blue

Would the UK be able to negotiate FTAs etc with other countries whilst in a CU with the EU?

I suspect a customs cooperation like with Canada is not the same as a CU.

DigitalGhost

I honestly believe that if Remain had put as much energy into listening to and addressing the concerns of just some of those people rather than belittling and insulting them at every opportunity then they could have easily won in the referendum.

The 'anybody who disagrees is a small minded racist' stance that the likes of Eddie Izzard and Sadiq Khan took was never going to work.

amideislas

so, I reckon it's another "we're impoverished because of the EU" day?

And getting rid of all those foreigners will free up berry picking jobs for those impoverished Brits?

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Red Eric

Well that's the 6 million dollar question, isn't it? And that's why it's a matter that's been wrangled about for so long in government and now in parliament. It would seem remiss not to at least try.

But if you're not in a CU or a free trade area, then you can't have a massive free trade deal with one bloc and strike up completely different and separate bespoke free trade agreements with all and sundry unless you offer the same terms to all other WTO members.

And I don't see how the UK could claim to be in a free trade area or a customs union without, er, being in one although its fairly obvious that the UK wants the benefits without any of the commitments, so is trying to present a break with both and then a partial opt in.

I agree with your suspicion about Canada - and its FTA falls well short of what the UK wants.

Red Eric

The hardships people face in the UK are largely a result of government failure to address them and of the implementation of policies actually designed to make life more difficult for some. Brexit alone isn't going to resolve that and any damage to the economy will be borne first and foremost by the least well off.

There's also the question of whether leaving the EU and the protections it affords will expose the UK to more detrimental forces from within and without. Does taking away unskilled immigration but opening the UK up to full free borderless trade with the entire world really benefit the average or less well off household? Should people doing ordinary jobs for less than spectacular salaries be optimistic about the fact that many of the hardline Brexiters who seem to have May's ear see Brexit as a chance to finish the job Maggie started?

For all the talk of remainer elites, you don't actually believe that the leaver elites have the interests of the struggling classes at the forefront of their minds do you? I mean, I know that's how some of them like to present it at times but we on here all know that's not really what it's all about, don't we?

DaveLovesDee

Many councillors are voted in on the basis of their political party. Here are the 2018 local election winners and losers, and their Brexit stance.

la mancha

​​​​​​This is where Remainers miss the point. You blame our governments and their policies yet FOM is not a government policy: it is a fundamental right of EU membership. We can possibly try to hinder it in small ways but there is nothing we can do to stop it. We are where we are with over forty years of EU membership. We are powerless to change FOM. People voted as they did because no one offered them anything, except more of the same. Not a very enticing prospect, was it, more of the same?

EMR

If you and AlL brexiters wanted to and do confine the argument to FOM to inward EU migration we could have a reasoned debate .
Bout as post after post from brexiters , the leave campaigns, and brexit supporting media confirm FOM is just a mask to cover up a wish to reduce ALL immigration..
An antipathy to migrants in general.
Don,t pretend that it is anything else.

Red Eric

No but government policy hasn't really been aimed at accommodating it in the best possible way or curbing abuse of it.

I think some people voted as they did because the campaigns were aimed at (and succeeded in) inducing a sense of panic about a largely mythical loss of control and the spectre of hordes (and hordes of a particular creed, to boot) at the door.

More of the same? Will taking away the immigration of unskilled labour (if indeed that is an outcome) actually resolve most of what people feel to be wrong? I know it will satisfy some but will it on its own make a tangible difference? And what if it's only a cosmetic change, anyway? Suppose they're not counted as immigrants but seasonal or temporary workers? Will that help?

mikelincs

FOM migration is less than the non EU immigration, so, unless you want to do what the government is managing quite well to do, there will always be migration both to and from, the biggest problem I can see is that the UK NHS relies for much of it's staffing in ALL grade and professions, on migrants, with FOM they CAN'T stop the NHS employing nurses and doctors coming from the EU, but they can, and are, stopping hundreds of fully qualified people who have already been offered jobs, from coming from outside the EU, consequently the UK NHS is grossly understaffed and underfunded, and everyonr in the UK suffers unless you pay for private, which is what this government is all about.

DigitalGhost

I presume it must be about their own political power. I can see the massive advantages offered to large corporations by the UK remaining in the EU but no politician really has all that much to gain from leaving apart from potential career enhancement.

Golden Years

How does that equate to the Canadian situation where they have a Free Trade Agreement with the EU and are part of NAFTA?
If the UK has a Free Trade Agreement with the EU it can still negotiate bilateral Agreements with other countries which it cannot do if it is part of the EU Customs Union.

DigitalGhost

It's nothing like that that at all. But nobody could possibly believe that allowing an almost endless stream of unskilled and often illiterate migrants into a country without regulation is a good idea.

Look, if you're living a great life under EU treaty rights in the likes of Spain or Portugal then I can see why you might think that EU FoM is a fantastic idea however try telling that to the single mother who works as a part-time hotel cleaner and has just had her hours cut because agency contracted Romanians will do the same job for less. Wage stagnation is bad enough in the UK without adding an un-metered foreign workforce into the mix.