The Summer 2016 UK Political and Constitutional Crisis

[Admiral Yi]

A country wanting to "unilaterally" set its own immigration policy??  The nerve.

This is kind of a silly comment.  We're talking about trade offs.

[OttoVonBismarck]

A country wanting to "unilaterally" set its own immigration policy??  The nerve.

It's hypocritical if they want many of the EU benefits. The EU isn't like NAFTA, it's an economic and political union that by necessity has a unified regulatory and etc framework. You can't even practically get most of the real benefits of association with the union if you aren't working in lock step with them--which is probably why Norway hasn't used any of its ability to go its own way (and it does have some) historically.

If Britain genuinely wants to be totally apart from Europe, and have a relationship with Europe akin to that of the United States (but with maybe a genuine free trade agreement), then that's probably possible--but I cannot see how it isn't disastrous. Britain has benefited tremendously from the union, and there's no obvious answer for where all the lost GDP growth comes from.

Suggestions like an Anglo-American Free Trade Agreement are laughable--that would hardly impact Britain at all, because tariffs on British goods imported here are already extremely low.

[Sheilbh]

Most leavers don't want customs union. It's one of their big moans.

[Gups]

I'm not sure what the EU's dream deal is, but I think EEA-Norway status is pretty good for the EU. It establishes the EU as a rational actor, but also basically says "if you leave all you're getting is a loss of your vote in the EU." That actually is a pretty decent disincentive for other countries to leave. It's actually a tacit acceptance by Britain in the validity of free movement and etc.

But the 3 main campaign arguments for Leave were removal of free movement, removal of EU contributions and removal of EU regulations and red tape. They can't possibly sign up to a Norway-like deal which imposes all three. It's basically like being a non-voting member of the EU (I've no idea why Norway signed up to the deal themselves).

[frunk]

As I said before, the UK has a pretty sweet deal in the EU now.  The only reason leave would make sense is if the UK wants completely out.  Any partially in/partially out is going to be worse than what they have now.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Most leavers don't want customs union. It's one of their big moans.

Americans have a lot of issues on which a majority is against things that the government does.  There isn't a requirement government has to follow ill-thought out positions of constituents.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I've just been checking how many foreign workers there are in the UK.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/june2016#employment-by-nationality-and-country-of-birth-not-seasonally-adjusted-first-published-on-18-may-2016

Part 6 is the most relevant bit. There are 3.34 million of them and they form 10.6% of the workforce. Meanwhile there are 1.69m unemployed (ILO definition). Many of these unemployed are more or less unemployable, they either have irrelevant skills or live in a part of the country with few jobs but have no intention of moving.

Interesting stuff. It looks to me that the economy is inextricably meshed into the wider European economy, it would take quite a downturn for us not to need these foreign workers 

[Zanza]

UK lacks expertise for trade talks with Europe, says top civil servant
Whitehall negotiators massively outnumbered by European counterparts, according to Foreign Office official

An initial government review has revealed Whitehall has only 20 "active hands-on" trade negotiators, and will be up against 600 experienced trade specialists for the European commission, Sir Simon Fraser, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office disclosed.

[...]

He said the coming trade negotiations are painstaking line-by-line, sector-by-sector work, and the current lack of capacity would require the UK government to search for skilled negotiators outside Whitehall.

[...]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/28/uk-lacks-expertise-for-trade-talks-with-europe-says-top-civil-servant

[Valmy]

Just hire Donald Trump. I hear he is going to negotiate so many great deals for us might as well give him a trial run.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Or hire all the U.S. negotiators who will be fired when Trump is elected.

[OttoVonBismarck]

But of course that's going to be across the board--anything the EU does now for its member states Britain will have to assume again, and hire people to do it. It won't be all that easy.

[derspiess]

A country wanting to "unilaterally" set its own immigration policy??  The nerve.

Other countries not liking a country setting an immigration policy that hurts them?

I don't understand comments like this. If Argentina decided to capture and execute you next time you visited that would be within their rights to do so. The US might have a problem with it though. The nerve of the US?

That's a bit of an extreme example, and therefore pretty irrelevant.  I don't see how it's unreasonable for the people of the UK to want to set their own immigration policy*.


*assuming said policy does not involve them killing me if I go there

[Jacob]

That's a bit of an extreme example, and therefore pretty irrelevant.  I don't see how it's unreasonable for the people of the UK to want to set their own immigration policy*.

It's totally not unreasonable for the people of the UK to want to set their own immigration policy.

However, if they want the benefits of an integrated market that is predicated on a certain set of immigration policy standards, then they'll have to set their own immigration policy in accordance with those standards. The crux of the issue seems to be that "the people of the UK" want the benefits of the integrated market while simultaneously rejecting the required immigration standards. That seems to be an impossible objective to achieve, practically speaking.

[Valmy]

That's a bit of an extreme example, and therefore pretty irrelevant.

The example was saying that sure a country has the right to do whatever it wants. It is sovereign. But it doesn't live on a different planet. There are other countries around.

I don't see how it's unreasonable for the people of the UK to want to set their own immigration policy*.

Which has fuck all to do with what we are talking about.

The people of the UK can set their own immigration policy. They do set their own immigration policy and further have set their own immigration policy since whenever you judge the UK to have become a reasonably democratic country. Even the EU immigration policies were agreed to by the representatives of the people of the UK. If they want to change those policies then they absolutely can and will. There are just consequences for doing things that other countries might not like.

[Zanza]

The dichotomy between "single market" and "freedom of movement" that is seen in this thread and elsewhere does not really exist in EU law. This is how it is defined in the TFEU, Article 26:
The internal market shall comprise an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured