Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Yeah I am not sure I know what you are getting at Sheilbh.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think its particularly unprogressive to find issue with the UK implementing a version of the kafala system.

But that's not what's happening - frankly I think that was a more accurate description of EU migration.

With a couple of weird exceptions - like seasonal workers in agriculture - migrants have exactly the same labour rights as any other worker. The visa regime has been simplified. People coming from India, Nigeria or the Philippines are on exactly the same types of visa as people from the US or Germany. Unless there's an argument that they are, despite meeting the criteria for that most common skilled worker visa, somehow unable to exercise their rights like skilled workers from the rest of the world.

In practice the biggest employers getting visas for staff are the NHS (probably the most unionised workforce in the country) and the Big 4. More generally non-EU workers are over-represented in the health sector, ICT and professional services - those do not strike me as areas that are subject to a Qatar-style kafala system or indentured labour. Rather they're the types of skills that all countries are competing for with the immigration systems. Obviously you can also change employers, change role and have time if you're fired to find a new job - again not features in Qatar.

As I say I think there was possibly more labour abuse of EU workers going on (especially Romanian and Bulgarian workers) - purely based on sectors. The sectors where EU workers are over-represented are retail, hospitality and construction (construction was disproportionatley Romanian and Bulgarian migrants). None have a reputation for good labour practices and none have a strong union presence (see the illegal blackballing of union reps in the construction industry).

That isn't to say there isn't exploitation of migrant workers - we know that exists. There are genuine examples of indentured service or modern slavery in nail bars and pot farms and agricultural labour and domestic service. But I don't think it's an accurate description of a huge increase of skilled worker visas or student visas - and many of the workers being exploited in those sectors are trafficked. I don't think the UK has a kafala system - I think it's competing for global skills in exactly the same way as most other Western countries are but has relatively relaxed criteria. As I say over 50% of the jobs market could get a skilled visa and there's no requirement, as there was pre-Brexit, to demonstrate that a UK or EU citizen couldn't do that job. Similarly about 75% of migrants think the UK is welcoming and hospitable, while 90% think you can get ahead in the UK - I don't think you'd get those figures polling Nepali indentured labourers building stadiums in Qatar.

And it doesn't mean the system is perfect - I think the really uncompetitive area is that the Home Office uses it as a revenue stream which is really bad so the costs are far higher for migrants than they should be.

Yeah I am not sure I know what you are getting at Sheilbh.

Basically that Brexit was largely about immigration, but what's happened since is good and should be welcomed (possibly the best upside to Brexit). Reconciling what happened after Brexit to migration numbers, salience of immigration as an issue and Brexit being about immigration is complicated, a bit unexpected (especially by Remainers) and requires a bit of nuance:


Trying to work out the causes is complicated. I think there is a bit to the control argument, general liberalisation, a perception of immigration now being skilled/in sectors that need immigration rather than retail and hospitality which are perceived as unskilled/not requiring immigration, and maybe a general increase in the awareness of migrants in key sectors (especially perhaps post-pandemic?). But I'm not sure if there's more going on or how to weight those factors. Looking at the polls the group that is least willing to accept the fact that immigration is increasing and people don't care are people who identify as Remainers. I think that's because there's a bit of cognitive dissonance they need to overcome.

[Tamas]

Isn't there an easy explanation for it though? With the Leave side having won, there was no more reason and agenda to keep the anti-immigration fear stoked. So it has died down. It doesn't have to be more complex than that.

[Josquius]

But that's not what's happening - frankly I think that was a more accurate description of EU migration.

With a couple of weird exceptions - like seasonal workers in agriculture - migrants have exactly the same labour rights as any other worker. The visa regime has been simplified. People coming from India, Nigeria or the Philippines are on exactly the same types of visa as people from the US or Germany. Unless there's an argument that they are, despite meeting the criteria for that most common skilled worker visa, somehow unable to exercise their rights like skilled workers from the rest of the world.In practice the biggest employers getting visas for staff are the NHS (probably the most unionised workforce in the country) and the Big 4. More generally non-EU workers are over-represented in the health sector, ICT and professional services - those do not strike me as areas that are subject to a Qatar-style kafala system or indentured labour. Rather they're the types of skills that all countries are competing for with the immigration systems. Obviously you can also change employers, change role and have time if you're fired to find a new job - again not features in Qatar.

This doesn't make sense.
Previously guy comes over from Hungary to work then he has exactly the same rights as any other British worker. If the job he took turns out to be crap then he is free to find another and switch with a minimum of effort.
This means employers will have to be a lot more careful about treating him like shit and he has more power in demanding better pay and conditions. For British workers employers can't so effectively threaten to hire a cheap foreigner to replace them (assuming they're solely UK based and can't outsource) so its better for us too.

Now he comes over and his presence in the country rests solely on the whim of his employer. If he stirs trouble they can fire him and he has to leave the country. If he wants to find a new job his choices are very limited as he has to find one willing to pay the £2000+ visa costs.
This means employers are far more able to treat foreign workers like shit with negative implications for the entire workforce, British and international.

[Sheilbh]

Isn't there an easy explanation for it though? With the Leave side having won, there was no more reason and agenda to keep the anti-immigration fear stoked. So it has died down. It doesn't have to be more complex than that.

I'm not such a big believer in false consciousness that I think concern about immigration shot up (in the late 90s) as part of a very long plan to get us out of the EU. If anything I think the opposite happened - the Leave side were able to instrumentalise/transform existing concerns about immigration to advance their argument about the EU (Farage has basically said as much).

But also concerns with immigration pre-Brexit were basically a bit like a thermostat - there is a link between concern and numbers. Obviously if you go granular it doesn't quite work (areas with the highest concern tend not to be areas with the highest immigration), but it's clear that people are responding to the facts. My understanding is that link is relatively common internationally. But that link looks broken post-Brexit - why that's broken is the question. If it's now permanently re-setting at a lower level, why.

This doesn't make sense.
Previously guy comes over from Hungary to work then he has exactly the same rights as any other British worker. If the job he took turns out to be crap then he is free to find another and switch with a minimum of effort.
This means employers will have to be a lot more careful about treating him like shit and he has more power in demanding better pay and conditions. For British workers employers can't so effectively threaten to hire a cheap foreigner to replace them (assuming they're solely UK based and can't outsource) so its better for us too.

To be clear - all migrants (with some weird exceptions like seasonal labour) have the exact same employment rights and protections as any British worker. Those laws apply to workers, not to citizens. In general my understanding is citizenship isn't tied to very much in the UK (not even voting) - the area where your visa would be relevant is around benefit entitlement/access to public services.

In reality non-EU workers are disproportionately in sectors that are heavily unionised or where you have highly skilled and educated workers who are fairly able to take advantage of their rights; EU workers are disproprtionately in sectors that have weaker unioninisation and are a little bit more lump of labour (e.g. hospitality, retail - construction is different but has a lot of exploitation). So in theory non-EU workers have less access to rights and that's true around certain points - in practice looking at the workers who have come to the UK and the sectors they're in, I think despite protections in theory, EU workers have possibly been more exploited. Migrants from the EU 10 accession countries are the lowest earning migrant communities in the UK behind every other group - that doesn't necessarily mean they can't access their rights, but I think it does make it less likely.

One caveat with that is that I think that applies to work and study visas - it's less likely to apply to family reunification visas although, my understanding, is that people on those visas are less likely to enter the workforce.

Now he comes over and his presence in the country rests solely on the whim of his employer. If he stirs trouble they can fire him and he has to leave the country. If he wants to find a new job his choices are very limited as he has to find one willing to pay the £2000+ visa costs.
This means employers are far more able to treat foreign workers like shit with negative implications for the entire workforce, British and international.

He can be fired subject to UK employment law which isn't at will - and for the purposes of a visa wouldn't include zero hour contracts, so by definition there is a contract with hours and pay guaranteed. So the employer would need to show cause or run a redundancy process. There's routes to stay in the country if they've got an unfair dismissal claim under way and even if they were lawfully fired they have two months to find a new job - assuming they haven't already been here for five years in which case they can apply for indefinite leave to remain.

I'd point out that's not a million miles from freedom of movement. There is a right for member states (which the UK didn't do much) to expel economically inactive EU migrants. You basically have 3 months - after that EU citizens need to prove they have comprehensive health insurance and don't require public funds/benefits, unless they've been resident for 5 years. Again there is a difference in theory - the practical difference in reality is marginal: basically 2 v 3 months and a different situation after 5 years of residence.

The key issue - as you say - is costs where the Home Office is clearly treating all applications/paperwork as a revenue stream rather than just using it to cover the actual admin costs.

[alfred russel]

It seems to me the political implosion of the tories is a result of the disaster of labour with Corbyn - basically parties get weak as shit when the other side descends into craziness. Cameron resigns in failure after Brexit, his leadership failed, were led by a goofball in boris, and tories had been in power a decent amount of time/were stale: by rational measures Labour should have won. But because they were unelectable, the conservatives dominated, took that as a mandate, and have descended into madness.

It is the same dynamic in the US. Trump comes along and drags the republicans into a total failure of a party, but without effective opponents the democrats decay as well.

[Valmy]

It is the same dynamic in the US. Trump comes along and drags the republicans into a total failure of a party, but without effective opponents the democrats decay as well.

I don't know man. The Republicans are still pretty effective at winning elections. The Democrats barely held on to the House by their fingernails. The result is that the Democrats are actually doing things like finally taking steps to decriminalize pot and student loan forgiveness. If they weren't under such intense electoral pressure they wouldn't be doing that shit. Doing things has long been something the Democrats avoided intensely in the past.

[Sheilbh]

It seems to me the political implosion of the tories is a result of the disaster of labour with Corbyn - basically parties get weak as shit when the other side descends into craziness. Cameron resigns in failure after Brexit, his leadership failed, were led by a goofball in boris, and tories had been in power a decent amount of time/were stale: by rational measures Labour should have won. But because they were unelectable, the conservatives dominated, took that as a mandate, and have descended into madness.

I totally agree. I know everyone here always wants the Tories to own the last 6 years but I don't think any of it is explicable without Corbyn (and the collapse of Scottish Labour). There's some other points around the edges but I think a two party system relies on there being an effective opposition that is an alternative government. For the last six years that wasn't something Labour was interested in doing and - at a point when Corbyn advisors are writing articles blaming "British imperialism" for the "prolonging" of the war in Ukraine - I can't say voters were wrong to reject them.

It was what always annoyed me because I think 2017 and 2019 all Labour needed was a leader who was in the mainstream, had a basic level of competence and a pulse because the Tories were there for the taking. And I was very scarred by arguments given that all my friends are on the left and I've been in and out of Labour - the Corbyn wars were incredibly draining

It is the same dynamic in the US. Trump comes along and drags the republicans into a total failure of a party, but without effective opponents the democrats decay as well.

Yes but I think there's more of a problem in the US - basically I think the fall of loser's consent in the US and rise of enemy not opponent politics is really worrying and I don't know how you get out of that pattern.

I think there were some issues around loser's consent with Brexit (the litigation and Russian conspiracies) but fundamentally everyone agreed that the way to settle issues around Brexit was through elections and democracy. It didn't go well for my side but I think that was fundamentally a healthy response in a democratic system - I'm not sure that exists in the US where large chunks of voters reject the legitimacy of election-winning and view each other as threats to the existence of a democratic system (I think with some validity for Dems).

Edit: But - given that the floor of the Tory vote has always been thought of as about 30% - these numbers are comically bad for Truss. As I say we've got two years to an election, but I really don't see how you recover from this without a(nother) change in the leadership:

[alfred russel]

It is the same dynamic in the US. Trump comes along and drags the republicans into a total failure of a party, but without effective opponents the democrats decay as well.

I don't know man. The Republicans are still pretty effective at winning elections. The Democrats barely held on to the House by their fingernails. The result is that the Democrats are actually doing things like finally taking steps to decriminalize pot and student loan forgiveness. If they weren't under such intense electoral pressure they wouldn't be doing that shit. Doing things has long been something the Democrats avoided intensely in the past.

Student loan forgiveness is a incredibly stupid policy.

The democrats are a gerontocracy and won the white house with a candidate that is obviously mentally and physically diminished by his age. They look to be competitive in the mid terms despite, well, look at how terrible everything is going. This is one of the worst looks the party has had in our lifetimes, but then look at the republicans....

[Valmy]

It is the same dynamic in the US. Trump comes along and drags the republicans into a total failure of a party, but without effective opponents the democrats decay as well.

I don't know man. The Republicans are still pretty effective at winning elections. The Democrats barely held on to the House by their fingernails. The result is that the Democrats are actually doing things like finally taking steps to decriminalize pot and student loan forgiveness. If they weren't under such intense electoral pressure they wouldn't be doing that shit. Doing things has long been something the Democrats avoided intensely in the past.

Student loan forgiveness is a incredibly stupid policy.

The democrats are a gerontocracy and won the white house with a candidate that is obviously mentally and physically diminished by his age. They look to be competitive in the mid terms despite, well, look at how terrible everything is going. This is one of the worst looks the party has had in our lifetimes, but then look at the republicans....

Is it? The debts incurred seem like they were causing serious social problems for very little reward. Indebting young people and limiting their access to housing and slowing family formation and all that. And for what? A tiny bit of money to the government? The principal in almost all those loans were already paid, it wasn't like we took a huge loss except for future interest. It was such a huge problem that it became a political issue so vital that Biden had to promise to do something about it to be elected. So is it stupid to do something that has enormous political support behind it? It would strike me as stupid to not address that issues from a political standpoint. Especially since the kind of promised to do so. So the wise policy is to ignore your base and instead sell them out? I guess if there were compelling reasons to do so, but what are these?

I don't dispute the leadership is too old. But it is not like the younger branch of the party is NOT for student loan forgiveness or not locking up pot users.

As far as how terrible things are going well they are going badly all over the world due to issues that have very little to do with policies done by the Democrats within the past year or so. Besides that I think it just borders on superstition to think that world-wide economics is 100% the fault of whatever person happens to be in power at that time. Likely to the extent that the US is contributing to the current issues they were policies that were probably done years ago by the past versions of the Democrats and Republicans.

I am for policies and they are doing them. I appreciate that, past versions of the Democrats wouldn't do shit and often did things the Republicans were going to do anyway like tough on crime bills. But the reason they are doing them is because the Republicans and their right wing populist message has a ton of traction and have large amounts of support across the country. Donald Trump and company crushed the old Republicans and their policies completely. They are formidable politically, I don't see how you can deny that.

Yeah they landed on the whammy as far as economics going badly is concerned just like they did after the economic crash of 2007-2008 but it seems weird to blame either of them on the current right now group. I don't think the world economy reacts that instantaneously to events. Besides what big economic politics have they even done? A Covid bill from early last year? After we already did two of them? I don't see why that would cause inflation and supply chain problems throughout the world.

[Barrister]

Student loan forgiveness is a incredibly stupid policy.

Is it? The debts incurred seem like they were causing serious social problems for very little reward. Indebting young people and limiting their access to housing and slowing family formation and all that. And for what? A tiny bit of money to the government? The principal in almost all those loans were already paid, it wasn't like we took a huge loss except for future interest. It was such a huge problem that it became a political issue so vital that Biden had to promise to do something about it to be elected. So is it stupid to do something that has enormous political support behind it? It would strike me as stupid to not address that issues from a political standpoint. Especially since the kind of promised to do so. So the wise policy is to ignore your base and instead sell them out? I guess if there were compelling reasons to do so, but what are these?

It isn't a tiny bit of money though. It's going to cost $379 billion dollars.

It's of dubious constitutionality.  Biden is using a power reserved for emergencies, but hard to see student loan debt as constituting an emergency.

It creates the risk of just encouraging students to take on more debt - hey the government will just announce another amnesty in 10 years!

It does nothing to solve the underlying problem - that tuition costs are getting out of hand.

It's just bad policy to give that much money on a group of the population who is actually doing pretty okay, instead of the truly needy.

It creates resentment - what about those people who didn't go to school, or only did a 2 year program instead of something longer, in order to avoid getting too much debt.  Or people who scrimped and saved to pay down their debt.

[HVC]

I can see tying loan forgiveness with changing loans so that degrees with a likelihood of paying off the loan are allowed. Just forgiving them cha gesture nothing for future students.

[Valmy]

It isn't a tiny bit of money though. It's going to cost $379 billion dollars.

Theoretical future money.

It's of dubious constitutionality.  Biden is using a power reserved for emergencies, but hard to see student loan debt as constituting an emergency.

That I cannot dispute whether or not it is constitutional. And the people demanded it was an emergency and demanded action, action he promised to do as part of being elected.

It creates the risk of just encouraging students to take on more debt - hey the government will just announce another amnesty in 10 years!

Highly dubious. Students have been doing the opposite for years out of terror because of the current debt crisis. I see no evidence this course will reverse. It raises the question if having a less educated population is a great policy we should be pursuing.

It does nothing to solve the underlying problem - that tuition costs are getting out of hand.

That was not the problem it was designed to solve. It was designed to address the crushing debt destroying our young adults. I don't know why just letting that issue fester is a great policy. But you tell me.

It's just bad policy to give that much money on a group of the population who is actually doing pretty okay, instead of the truly needy.

It doesn't give money to anybody. Certainly not people who had it to pay back. And again Biden didn't do this because he thought it was a great idea but because the current crisis created a political issue that political forces demanded action on it. If all these people were doing great where was all the political pressure coming from? That fact goes against your narrative. And besides it is not like every tax break or whatever in American history has only ever benefited the truly needy. It doesn't make them bad policy.

It creates resentment - what about those people who didn't go to school, or only did a 2 year program instead of something longer, in order to avoid getting too much debt.  Or people who scrimped and saved to pay down their debt.

I scrimped and saved to pay off my debt. I have zero resentment and I would think anybody who is resentful is probably some kind of psychopath. I don't think enduring years of difficult student loan debt is something I would wish upon anybody. Maybe others just love to see people suffer even to the extent it causes serious social issues for our youth and the future of our country over some kind of weird need for schadenfreude.

[Sheilbh]

Probably one for the lawyers - the Supreme Court has started hearing arguments on whether the Scottish government and Parliament is able to pass legislation authorising a referendum or not. Characteristically for a case that is, fundamentally, about the survival of the country it's not on the front page of any of the nationals

The legal issue basically boils down to what referendums are for. The Scotland Act lists the areas that are "reserved matters" which are areas reserved for Westminster and where the Scottish Parliament is not able to legislate. They include things like foreign or defence policy. Among the reserved matters is "the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England" and "the Parliament of the United Kingdom". The Scottish Parliament has no power to legislate if it "relates to" reserved matters - any legislation passed that relates to a reserved matter is "not law".

The principles for interpreting reserved matters though, are that the courts should look at the effects of devolved legislation and "relating to" reserved matters should be "read as narrowly as is required for for it to be within competence, if such a reading is possible". So everyone agrees that the Scottish Parliament cannot lawfully unilaterally end the union because that's clearly a reserved matter.

The Scottish government have introduced a bill for a referendum. The draft legislation has been carefully drafted to reinforce that, so its purpose is to seek "the views of the people of Scotland". The referendum is only advisory (as with all other referendums in the UK), so it would not necessarily have any legal effect. So the question is whether a consultative/advisory referendum "relates to" the union or not.

My understanding is that pre-Brexit legal consensus was that the Scottish Parliament had the power to legislate for an advisory referendum. They didn't in 2014 because they reached an agreement with Westminster - but they reserved their position at that point that, in their view, they had competence.

Things might have shifted though because of decisions by the courts during the Brexit litigation was broadly that while a referendum is technically advisory it is not "devoid of effect" because while its force is of a political rather than a legal nature if the executive, legislature and all political parties consider themselves bound by a referendum then it has effect and is "of great political significance". So arguably if the effect of legislation relates to a reserved matter then it is out of the Scottish Parliament's competence - even if the effect is political rather than legal. It now looks less likely that the Scottish Parliament has competence than it did before all that litigation - ironically the Scottish government was normally a party on the winning side of those arguments in the Brexit litigation when the courts made some now slightly unhelpful findings.

There are also some technical arguments from both sides about whether the Supreme Court should even hear the case at this point.

I think on the substantive point that I broadly agree with the UK government's line that a referendum even if advisory or consultative has an effect that relates to a reserved matter - so it's not within the Scottish Parliament's competence. As has been pointed out, the political objective of the Scottish government and the nationalist movement is not to hold a referendum, but to achieve independence. If they didn't think a referendum would have an effect they wouldn't be trying to hold one. But it's not entirely clear.

If anyone's interested, a good piece on the Scottish government's arguments that they do have the power (which I'm not entirely convinced by - the examples/analogies especially just don't seem to fit and instead highlight how this referendum would have an effect):
https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2022/10/11/leah-trueblood-what-is-the-purpose-of-the-scottish-independence-referendum-bill/

[celedhring]

Things might have shifted though because of decisions by the courts during the Brexit litigation was broadly that while a referendum is technically advisory it is not "devoid of effect" because while its force is of a political rather than a legal nature if the executive, legislature and all political parties consider themselves bound by a referendum then it has effect and is "of great political significance". So arguably if the effect of legislation relates to a reserved matter then it is out of the Scottish Parliament's competence - even if the effect is political rather than legal.

That was the view of the Spanish Constitutional Court when the Catalan regional government attempted to organize an advisory referendum in 2014.