Windrush is a diversion and strawman argument. The topic is the impact of Brexit and immigration procedures in general, and I believe I replied on point.
I don't understand the level of emotional reactions which border on hysteria, frankly.
Again, the UK has the right to control immigration like all countries have, and it is relatively straightforward and simple compared to many others. I am a EU citizen in the UK: yes, free movement has ended and that makes things less simple. This is not the end of the world. That's the reality check.
People should stop using immigration to argue for brexit because it's a nonsense argument.
Leaving the EU wouldn't effect our border controls, because they aren't set by the EU.
The UK isn't part of the "Schengen Area" of countries without mutual border control. The UK has control over its border policy, despite what brexit campaigners claim. It is the UK government that chooses to implement border policies which are regarded by some as "too lax", and then, sometimes, chooses to blame the EU for it.
The comment didn't even mention immigration, let alone go anywhere near claiming immigration is bad. You shouldn't assume that everyone in favour of brexit is bigoted.
FWIW, I'm in favour of brexit, and I'm also in favour of freedom of movement. In fact, I advocate total freedom of movement: no passports, no visas, no checks. Let free people move freely. If I can travel to Manchester without having to justify myself, why can't I cross borders in the same way? I am in favour of brexit for totally unrelated reasons.
Just because you may have heard that some brexit supporters want to impose stricter border controls doesn't mean all brexit supporters want that.
FWIW, I think the UK would’ve been better off if it had joined the Schengen Agreement.
But you are absolutely right that Brexit people are treating the exact things they dismissed as Project Fear as if it was a punishment. I’d personally witnessed this happening even before the referendum, in a conversation which went:
Him: “Brexit will be fine because the EU will give us a good deal”
Me: “No”
Him, shouting: “That proves we should leave!”
I almost wish I’d had a camera running at the time. I am well aware how mad it sounds.
Because both sets of people were treated exactly the same by the system. I.e. inhumanely.
FYI, they didn't lose the paperwork.
UK gov destroyed the paperwork, then deemed people to be illegal migrants.
Then those people were told: quit your job (or we'll force it), leave your spouse, move out of your home, and leave the country. Have 2 weeks notice because we're nice. Obviously with nowhere to go to. And because married people do not have the right to residency, if they were married to a UK citizen that didn't protect them either.
And then consequences started to happen for real. They couldn't just ignore these notices. Jobs were lost. Money was stopped.
As I said, one person even died due to life-critical hospital treatment withheld, and I'm sure many others were pretty worried because all of them would have been denied medical care until the case was settled, and lost their incomes. A number of them were illegally deported.
UK gov has done similar things to other people, not just the Windrush crowd. But Windrush got the press because it was more people at once and older people. There are others who have done everything correctly, paperwork, fees and all, and have kept their own copies of paperwork to confirm their status is fine. Who have then been told, surprise!, quit your job, ditch the tenancy, leave with 2 weeks notice etc.
As it happens, the UK has plenty of people in it who believe they are legally resident and one day find out they are not on some unknowable technicality. And others who are in fact legally resident but the Home Office decided to kick them out anyway.
For a example a number of EU citizen students found out they were not eligible to remain in the UK because they didn't purchase some kind of private health insurance - a condition nobody knew about, nobody was told about, and the Home Office was unable to explain, other than to say they should have purchased it when they arrived as students so that's the reason for telling them to leave.
That kind of technicality. Note that nobody else had to buy this mythical insurance, only students, who weren't told. Essentially the Home Office looks for loopholes to catch people in, that nobody reasonable knows about or would try to enforce. Unlike other areas of law, where "what is reasonable" is taken into account in a principled way, and a process of restoring balance takes place if something is a bit off, the Home Office seems to lack this aspect, perhaps in its pursuit of quotas for kicking out X people a year without regard for whether it's the right people, or even the people intended by policy.
As you can imagine some of these cases end up in court because it's the government breaking the law. But the court system is not well suited to protecting the individuals in these cases, and people can't afford the legal fees.
You often need a judicial review (which is very expensive), because the ordinary policy is "deport first appeal later" or "no appeal possible" depending on the case. Under "deport first appeal later", people usually fail to appeal even when they would win, because it's highly impractical when you can't access your own documents from abroad any more; yet if they do appeal, most appeals are won because the government is found to be not following the law.
OK, so the problem is that I find it basically impossible to understand how a well-informed and rational person could come to the conclusions you've come to.
The EU isn't perfect, but you'll struggle to argue that it hasn't expanded peace, prosperity and human rights across the continent. This is motherhood-and-apple-pie stuff.
Arguments in favour of Brexit thus tend to boil down to immigration and 'sovereignty'.
There's a consensus amongst economists that immigration makes us financially better off. That makes it hard not to ascribe a strong desire to cut immigration to a powerful desire for ethnic homogeneity and/or a powerful dislike of foreigners. Those things are very close to racism.
Meanwhile, the 'sovereignty' Brexit delivers is almost wholly illusory. In practice, we'll get to choose which of the big players to take the rules from. That's going to be either the US (which hardly anybody actually wants — most Brits value our health service, non-toxic food and drinking water, holiday pay, and so on — and also isn't very helpful, because the US is far away) or the EU (whose decisions we used to play an outsized role in, but no longer have any influence over).
It would be hilarious — if it weren't tragic and a little terrifying — that the ones in charge of 'taking back control' are also the ones stifling parliament, suppressing voting, and attacking academics, judges and the rule of law. As far as I can see, the only ones taking back control are the rulers, and the only ones they're taking back control from are the other citizens of the UK.
I've heard the feeling expressed by many Brexit supporters that their concerns about migration have nothing to do with immigration or foreigners per se, but more with the pace of change due to mass uncontrolled migration. Also I don't recognise the image you portray of the UK being 'the country that calls foreigners scum'. This might be what the vested interests including the media would have you believe, or what you might choose to believe if you are pro-EU, but I suspect the portrayal of Brexit supporters as arrogant racists is a little one-dimensional and doesn't have a strong basis in reality.
I didn't mean to imply Brexit was a solution to anything - just that people can understand what the deal with free movement is, but be against it for perfectly rational reasons.
I'm British and back staying in the EU, but I think your post is unnecessarily condescending and incorrectly portrays your opinions as facts.
The immigration argument is about EU citizens which the Danish system can do nothing to stop/slow, and stopping the 'free-flow' of EU citizens is most Brexiters biggest desire from the campaign. The economic studies are definitely in Remain's favour, but economics as a field is very 'woolly', often wrong and more importantly does not resonate with a large populace who have seen living standards broadly stagnate since the last prolonged recession.
There are arguments for and against - the Remain camp don't have a satisfactory answer to people who are genuinely concerned over immigration or (albeit discretely) do not like immigration in their surrounding, and the Leave campaign have the consensus on the economic side due to uncertainty over post-Brexit state and agreements.
I'm not saying that arguing against immigration is stupid... Just that the way Brexit was arguing was devoid of any real factual data or rational arguments. They were playing purely on people's emotions.
I agree, partially. Mass immigration is almost never a good idea. However, the populations you pointed out aren't from the EU so have basically nothing to do with Brexit.
tbh my personal view is not entirely aligned with the one I made the comment - I just get incredibly frustrated by the tone of some posters. Statements of how all right minded people must behave, because no other viewpoint is valid.
I suspect that many of the people for whom this is a non-issue are demographically similar to those who voted for brexit. Their perspectives are different, and shouldn't be dismissed as merely ignorant.
Of course you can be troubled, and you're free to make arguments for why it may be considered a bad thing™ - influencing Brits to give a shit.
That's by design, border control was a selling point of Brexit, as brexiters saw only the bad side of immigration. Which to be fair, is no seamless nor without challenges or cost.
I suppose the rational is:
• Diminish the friction that multi-culturalism and diversity integration can bring.
• Free jobs for the local population.
• Having to share less of lands, resources, and infrastructures.
And I see the point, but it also fails to take in consideration that:
• The UK needs the import/export flow it was used to pre-brexit to keep their current life style. They don't produce much good internally, and they need to export their service. Brexit added huge barriers to that, not just for people.
• The current British population doesn't seem very motivated to take back the jobs they delegated to immigration.
• Even if it were, it can't be instant, since that requires training an entire workforce and sometimes even require permits or certification. Trucks, bus and cabs come to mind. And the inertia will do some damage. The supply chain is already seen glitches, although not as much as I would have expected. They are surprisingly pretty resilient.
• The Northern Ireland situation is a ticking bomb. Yeah, immigrates are not just brown people. People have a short memory though, so I suppose IRA stands for nothing nowadays. They may get a nasty reminder that ignored history is doomed to be repeated.
• Scotland nationalism has been exacerbated since they were pretty anti-brexit. Also, as an immigrant, scots were pretty welcoming, they need people there.
• Big players that needed to stay in Europe are sometimes moving to France or Ireland. So the promised jobs have to take that in consideration.
• The UK has an aging population, with a 0.53% growth rate, and that was when compensated by immigration.
• The UK education system sucks. People think Oxford and Cambridge, but the reality is more Leeds Metropolitan. I've studied there, and it's not going to be easy to find qualified workers only in the island.
• The UK managed to negotiate a very privileged deal inside the UE. It had most of the advantages, and way less of the down sides that other members. This deal is dead now, they have the worst of all worlds. So even if they get some benefits, the cost may be huge.
• France and the UK never really liked each other. The UE brings peace. But now, all bets are off. Also, no more bonding program such as Erasmus to bring future generation together. And good luck to make you BSC valued outside of the UK. And I guarantee the already little patience we had for the retired brits in the South of France that never try to learn proper France will not hold forever now that we are not bros.
• All that in the middle of covid. Not their fault, but damn, that's a terrible timing.
As an alternate data point, my partner is a non-EU immigrant living in the UK. The immigration process was relatively straightforward, visa renewal was easy and she's rarely felt any hostility, unwelcoming or anyone looking down on her for being foreign.
We do live in London, however my family are from elsewhere so we've spent plenty of time in other parts.
Surveys generally say the UK and US attitude to immigrants is pretty similar, for example [1].
I'm not a fan of Brexit and wish it hadn't happened, but on the other hand I feel like the idea that there's been a huge anti-immigration shift in the UK to be exaggerated. If anything, our attitudes towards immigration have continued their trend of softening since the vote.
Most other countries around the world get to apply discretion over which immigrants can settle there - why is it wrong if the UK also gets to do that? The upset seems to be mostly from rich western EU citizens, bothered that they are no longer an exception and are now treated exactly as any other country. Many of our ethnically Indian citizens, for example, voted for Brexit.
A lot of people are using immigration issues to argue for brexit. Personally I hate this. I'm generally for immigration.
There is a positive vision for brexit, which about being open to the world, embracing free trade, free movement of labour, and reducing regulation.
The current version immigration system is broken. Any one with little skills can come to the UK from Europe. A doctor from outside Europe will have real difficultly. Personally I want both people.
You keep pushing this strawman. Just because someone wasn't for something, it doesn't mean they were against it. Immigration was simply not an issue on the Remainers' minds. Immigration was the main Brexiter point.
UK Poll results:
1. British people should be free to live and work anywhere in the EU: [Agree: 52%, Disagree: 26%]
2. All citizens of EU should have the right to live and work in the UK: [Agree: 36%, Disagree: 46%]
I don't think anyone wants to restrict freedom of movement. It's just about abuse of gullible nature of "us vs. them", creating a virtual enemy which you can easily blame for all your problems. The referendum did not represent will of people, it represented the mood - the negative mood towards their own government and way of life, which does not have anything to do with any migrants. I.e.: IBM creates AI replacing 30K internal employees with efficient process automation? Blame H1Bs! Farmers no longer relevant due to highly automated heavy machinery? Blame Mexicans!
When did building borders helped the situation? Even air-tight border separating Northern and Southern Ireland couldn't stop the real IRA terrorists...
I'm not in any way slow to understand, not in this case anyway.
> If you can't see why an open border is vital for the continued peace, and why removing it would place tension on a peace that took decades to achieve, then you've already made up your mind.
I didn't say that, and I'm not even going to engage your straw man.
And I did not blame the EU for Brexit woes, I made a pretty basic statement of fact that would probably cover any negotiation, one which was intended only to signal compromise -- hence why the UK did not leave entirely -- not woe or blame.
I don't understand the level of emotional reactions which border on hysteria, frankly.
Again, the UK has the right to control immigration like all countries have, and it is relatively straightforward and simple compared to many others. I am a EU citizen in the UK: yes, free movement has ended and that makes things less simple. This is not the end of the world. That's the reality check.
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