UKC

Surely it will lead to economic disaster?

Are people viewing an exit based on an emotional decision rather than logical one. Immigration and red tape rhetoric over exaggerated ?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

An economic disaster for the EU?

In reply to rossowen:

It is already a mess, but is being held together. Everyone in Europe will suffer if it falls apart, the UK too.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


Why? We'd have the same industries and the same markets.


Some will be. Are you?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:



I cannot see how a change of membership would affect the UK's status as a trading body. Would, for example, France decline to buy UK lamb is we were no longer in the EU? Why?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


Most economists think so. The ideal scenario seems to be in the EU and out of the Euro. I would add avoiding further political union in alliance with other sympathetic EU members. The big problem with leaving that I have never seen answered by any Eurosceptic is the 'Norway Killer Argument'. Norway has had two referendums in which the vote was to stay out of the EU. Yet they have to pay in almost as much as if were in and abide by EU rules, yet have no say in setting those rules. They have to do this because they rely on trade with the EU. Same with Switzerland.
I wonder how many out-voters realise this. Regardless of the pros and cons of staying in or leaving we would end up having to negotiate from a position of weakness (40% of our trade is with the EU but only 10% of theirs is with us) and end up paying in as much as when we were in, having to abide by EU rules but with no say in setting those rules. Crazy but true.

In reply to Pekkie:


This 'Killer Argument', does it explain why Norway still votes to stay out of the EU?

“The killer argument for staying in the EU is that Norway, a prosperous nation that was ranked at the top of the Human Development Index in 2015, (and Switzerland at No 3), doesn't want to be in it“.

In reply to The Ice Doctor: The reason is national pride, with an acceptance that the price for this is that you have to pay the money, follow all the rules and don't get any influence on how they're set.

In reply to Pekkie:

This seems a pretty good answer.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/what-brexit-would-look-like-for-britain/

Cut short: Norway and Switzerland are in a better position being out, and Norway pays a lot of what what it does voluntarily

In reply to rossowen:

>> Cut short: Norway and Switzerland are in a better position being out, and Norway pays a lot of what what it does voluntarily

Really? The Spectator is hardly the best source on this subject. How about this (and many others if you google it) which says the opposite.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/16/eu-exit-norway-option-costs...

In reply to Pekkie:

Only a 6% saving? Economic disaster!

In reply to Pekkie:



To be honest, the Guardian isn't exactly an unbiased source of information on Europe

In reply to Pekkie:


As others have said, despite this Norway and Switzerland, two of the wealthiest countries in the the world, continue to believe they are better off with this arrangement.
Do you think they are wrong for thinking this?
Of course we aren't the same as them, our economy is 2.5 times larger than both of theirs combined. Do you not think this gives us rather more bargaining power than them when we negotiate a deal, especially given the other strengths we have, G7 member, UN security council permanent member etc?


Except its not a position of weakness for the reasons I give above and also that our political pipedream isn't imploding as theirs currently is and we aren't dealing with the intractable problems of the Euro which haven't gone away just because they're not in the news everyday.
Furthermore, they sell more to us than we do to them. An unfavourable trade deal will cost them more than it will us. They've enough problems they can't cope with right now without harming their exports.

In reply to Pekkie:

Really? The guardian is hardly the best source on this subject.

In reply to Ridge:

In reply to Pekkie:

The article I posted shows that Norway have chosen to implement 9% of the legal regulations pushed out from Brussels. Switzerland have implemented 0%, but do copy them sometimes if they think they're a good idea.

In reply to rossowen:


How about The Economist? They're pretty scathing about the Brexit argument.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21674698-there-growing-risk-britain-w...

In reply to pec:


>The politicians & economists in both countries think so. The referendums were decided on emotional issues such as fishing and national pride. Maybe as small, rich countries they can manage the relationship. I'm not sure that we could. Isn't it better to be inside the tent pissing out?


Not so. 40% of our trade is with them, 10% of their trade is with us.

In reply to Pekkie:


The Financial Times aren't too happy about it either

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/302232fc-7d88-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64.html

In reply to Pekkie:


Fishing was an economic issue, which allowed Norway to avoid the lunacy that was the EU Common Fisheries policy. By now we should be wary of what politicians and industry want, what's good for them isn't necessarily good for us. As for being inside the tent pissing out, when the tent is filling up with people who are pissing inside it and it's about to burn down, then I'd be in favour of getting out.

In reply to Ridge:




Rune Bjåstad, Minister Counsellor for Culture and Communication at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Paris.

In reply to Big Ger: Do you want to be in the EEA?

In reply to Mike Stretford:
Not particularly, no. The EFTA is more appealing.

In reply to Big Ger:

OK. I guess you're pointing out to Ridge that Norway are mostly in, like use. They get to keep their fish, we're out of Shengen.

In reply to Pekkie:


It is more to do with the culture being different to most EU countries, their internal priorities are different in the three Scandinavian countries. More tax, spent locally, but those local, not Brussels etc.. A similar EU vote in Denmark or Sweden would probably see their exit from the EU too. There is a reason they still have their own currencies too and not the Euro.


You can still trade with the EU, from outside it. It doesn't become a closed off market.

What the UK exit would do is trigger the collapse of the EU sooner, the Euro is dead, their immigration and border policy has failed, half the countries are near bankrupt supported by the other half. The writing is on the wall. Europe will fall into 2 or 3 regions, North / South. Or Far North, North and Southern, as they have most in common in all respects. It was nice idea, even in the UK we can't get 4 countries that generally try to speak the same language to agree consistently, there was no chance of the EU working long term.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

No, I was really emphasising that we don't need to be "in" to trade with the EU, to participate in the markets there, nor to share some common ground when it is in the interest of the country.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


it's back to the days of old, borders are pretty much back up between the Nordics. Which is unheard of. Open borders between them existed long before the EU thought of it. It's a pain as daily travel between them is very common, which means those without an ID card ( under 18) need to carry their passport.

In reply to Big Ger:


EFTA and EEA are interlinked

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association

There's a fudge for the Swiss but they spend a lot of time voting through eu regulations. They have the 'sovereignty' of voting on each issue but if they vote no they will face sanctions and ultimately restriction from the free market.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

I'm aware of that, interlinked but not dominated by the EU. I still prefer the way the EFTA works, and feel it provides a cushion against further EU empire building and interference in sovereign matters,.

In reply to Big Ger:

OK, I assume you are passionate ate about getting control of agriculture and fisheries but nothing else, including immigration.

In reply to Mike Stretford:
As I said, I find it more appealing than the EU. But staying outside the Schengen Area would be easily doable as part of the EFTA, would it not?

In reply to Pekkie:

Norway is, of course, a 'lucky country'economically as it has half of the North Sea's oil and gas.

Norway is 'Lucky' to have oil and gas , but Scotland is often said to have the burden of oil and gas!

In reply to Big Ger: I hear you. Unfotuneateltey I doubt it will be in option in the event of a no vote, it's too similar to eu membership. Many people will be voting on issues other than agriculture and fisheries.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

We agree on that mate.

In reply to Big Ger:


I don't know, all EFTA members are in it. The EU likes a fudge, but 'freedom of movement', which also applies to the UK, seems to be something they won't back down on.

In reply to summo:


Yeah Europe is changing. I don't think this is a great time to have the vote as we don't know what will emerge.

I think the expansion of euro zone is practically over, I don't think any of the 7 obliged states have any plans to join.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

If we can remain outside Schengen, as we presently are despite being within the EU, then staying outside it as part of EFTA should present no problem, surely?

In reply to Pekkie:

I can understand the FT and Economist not being happy about it because bean counters do not like change, unknowns or decentralization.

I don't see this as a purely econonic issue though, for me it is more about regaining sovereignty and being cut loose from being tied in more and more with the EU. It may or may not come at a financial cost (although no one is suggesting we will go bust) and perhaps we may still need to abide by some legislatilation to trade with the EU. That's OK. But ultimately the decisions we make will be made here and not handed to us by Brussels.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


You must work for the EU, only hold a vote when you know the result, or if you don't get the result you want, tell the country to keeping having referendums until they do.


Don't count on anything, logic isn't the EUs strong point. Turkey is a concern to say the least.

In reply to summo:


That is clearly not what I said. Let's keep this thread on the right tone Summo.

In reply to Big Ger:


You would think so, but I wouldn't count on that. What's certain is we would still be bound by the same eu freedom of movement legislation we are now. Some people are unhappy about that and will be voting no on that basis, they won't be happy when they find out there's no change.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


you said it wasn't the right time. When is the right time, when the EU is all roses and you know the result. It's the same thing as you said.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


The UK has Schengen opt out, I can't see it being trade away either.

In reply to summo:

Yeah, then you're imagination went into overdrive.

I think it will be the right time when we know what sort of organisation will emerge from the euro and refugee crisis. When we know what we will be voting on. It may be it gives us a clearer reason to vote out, so next time reign your imagination in.

In reply to Mike Stretford:



Are we not voting on their inability to manage these two problems, despite them being visible years ago. Even now Merkel talks about the migrant problem being related to borders and taking people in, the problem are wars in Syria etc.. the EU elite refuse to acknowledge what the problem is. The same with the Euro.

In reply to summo:

Interesting how the tone of this thread appears to be far more pragmatic towards BREXIT than the simple "In or out" thread of a couple of weeks ago.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


having a referendum on In or Out, is the worst option. As the EU could work with serious reform, but how can people vote for that. So those that desire reform with simply vote Out. The fence sitters will vote yes for stability, so it will be tight call.

In reply to summo:


I'm not no. I'll vote for what I think is in the UKs best interest.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

This thread is mostly just 3 people though, of which 2 support leaving the EU. I wouldn't take it as a broad cross section of UKC like the in or out thread was.

In reply to summo:


How can we hope to reform something we're not part of? I want reform. I'll be voting 'Yes'.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


And what is that? The problem we are starting to encounter is the battle of the "scientific" report stating categorically that we will be better off in or out. Remember the Scottish referendum. If Scotland left, people would be about £1k better off a year. But if they stayed in, they would also be £1k better off a year.

To me, it is a question of create a turmoil of unknown consequence, or leave things as they are. A vote to leave seems like an opportunity to study the law of unintended consequences at great detail.

In reply to Pekkie:

Do you think its good in a democracy for the will of the people to be overidden by the will of the politicians and the narrow interests of the economists? If they are so right why are they not able to persuade the public and wasn't it economists who made those dire predictions about what would happen to us if we didn't join the euro?


Sorry but you're missing my point. We do definately run a trade deficit with the EU, i.e. they sell more to us than we do to them
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32231055
Read the last paragraph for the EU specifically.

The fact that it accounts for only 10% of their total trade but 40% of ours is because the rest of the EU has an economy much larger than ours.
The fact also remains that it is in both our interets to continue trading so a deal will be reached regardless and our bargaining position is clearly stronger than that of Norway or switzerland.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


Sorry to be pedantic but "yes" will not be an option on the ballot.
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections...

In reply to RyanOsborne:

Agree, but where are the better togetherers on this thread? conspicuous by their absence. Admittedly, probably all got better things to do rather than changed their minds, but I was expecting a more stringent defence than was present earlier.

In reply to ByEek:


I agree, I'll probably vote in on the same basis of you. Other's may decide the UK is better out, and going off this thread and the other recent one, some will make it a protest vote on the EU as a whole, including aspects we aren't even part of.

In reply to pec:

Why would we cease to trade with the EU if we left it? Who has suggested we would?

In reply to Big Ger:

Not me.
Many of the scaremongering arguments made by the "remain" side seem to imply that would be the case, along with the implication that all the jobs connected to that trade would be lost. Indeed a leaflet posted through my letterbox last week by the pro EU side even told me that the free healthcare provided abroad by the EHIC system was one of the benefits of membership.
Yes, of course trade wouldn't cease, that's my point.

In reply to Big Ger:


I don't think anyone's suggesting we would 'cease to trade' but some businesses who operate in the UK to have access to the EU market might be inclined to move to mainland Europe if we were to exit. This would obviously be dependent on the deal we could get post Brexit. What do we stand to gain from exiting that would be so good that it's worth the risk? I can't see anything.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24859486

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/brexit-would-lead-to-loss-of-100000-b...

In reply to Mike Stretford:


if the past 40 years have shown anything, it is that the UK electorate vote out a party or politics that it does not like, it doesn't vote for what it desires in the future.

In reply to Big Ger:

No. But we would no longer be able to negotiate trade deals with the same punch. We also forget that whilst the public hate the idea of immigration, in a service economy such as ours, we really benefit from importing people with high levels of skill i.e. immigration. Shutting the door on Europe will no doubt also shut the door on a labour market that we currently benefit from. Or are we going to continue to allow immigration in which case, what is the point of leaving?

In reply to ByEek:


People travelled for work before the EU and people travel for work now to countries not in the EU. You find the job, work permit, visa etc.. you move. The difference now is people travel, then look when they get there etc..

In reply to Mike Stretford:



Slightly off at a tangent, but do we do believe the referendum will be allowed to take place? I suspect there are too many vested interests, (political and financial), in the creation of an EU superstate to allow the plebs to interfere?

In reply to pec:


Not so long ago I was accosted in the pub by a fellow who obviously liked a pint or two. He waved a rolled up Daily Mail in my face and ranted about how we need to 'leave this stupid European Union'. That's often the level of argument.

On the Euro I seem to recall that many economists and politicians at the time weren't in favour. The consensus now seems to be that the best scenario is in the EU but out of the Euro.

In reply to Ridge:


The time to block it would have been before the law got passed requiring it by a certain date.
Be very hard to back out of that considering how many people it would piss off. The tory party would be at war, Labour would be split, kippers would be joining the tories, Greens would probably join in since they are pro referendum (although in favour of Europe) and not sure about SNP and the NI parties.
It would be an unholy mess.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

At this point after hearing the in-out arguments so far I'd go with my gut feeling. Out.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


I don't understand how the issues that they say are reasons to leave even relate to being in Europe. E.g. the immigration example given in the OP: The folk in shanty towns in Calais aren't going to suddenly turn round and settle for France because the UK is out the EU. I can't see the relevance.

In reply to Ridge:

Dunno, this seems pretty binding

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/36/crossheading/the-referendum/ena...

In reply to petellis:

I don't think its the calais fiasco (although it may well be a motive for some) but more the undemocratic reckless decision by Merkel to invite millions without consultation. This is what frightens a lot of people about the EU. No one knows who makes the decisions, and the ones that do you probably have zero influence over at the ballot box.

In reply to petellis:


I think if the UK were out of the EU I suspect the French would insist UK border control returns to the UK from France (the French are doing us a favour there).

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


^ This

If the Germans want to destroy social cohesion in their own country out of some misplaced guilt over WW2 then that's their decision.

It's the idea the rest of the EU has to blindly go along with them that causes me concern, and makes me think we'd be best leaving them to it.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

Agree, suspect then we would see processing centers built , possibly not on our mainland. Proven successful elsewhere I believe. (probably high cost)

In reply to summo:


Indeed. But as someone who has struggled to recruit in the IT world, it makes the task even more difficult.

In reply to Pekkie:


Is that supposed to be an answer to the points I've made or just some random incident you wanted to get off your chest? I don't see any connection to my posts.

Mostly those who would now like us to leave the EU.

Consensus of whom?

In reply to ByEek:


We would actually be free to negotiate trade deals with those whom we choose to and on terms suited to us in a way that we can't whilst shackled to the EU.


Nobody, not even UKIP is seriously arguing that leaving the EU would end all immigration. The point is that we could have an immigration policy that suited our needs allowing us to bring in people with the skills we require from wherever they may be and in numbers we can manage rather than the free for all of anyone who fancies coming here from the EU regardless of what skills they may have whilst having to turn away people from elsewhere with far more to offer our economy in order to try and keep some kind of a lid on the already unsustainable levels of immigration of c.330,000 per year.

In reply to Ridge:

Hmmn, there's people from Europe who'd say the press in this country (on the whole) is largely slanted against the UK being part of Europe, in how it fairly rarely talks about the benefits.

Tit for tat statements about publications probably isn't best way to discuss it, if you see what I mean.

In reply to ByEek:

I don't believe that any of the posters on UKC would say that accepting well qualified and skilled workers into the UK should ever stop. I believe that it is the acceptance of the mass immigration of unskilled workers that spooks people as this, in general, adds little value to UK Plc but adds lots of pressures on jobs, social services, schools, housing etc. I cannot see that your business would be affected by an "out" vote.

In reply to Removed UserMike Rhodes:

The skilled worker point I'd agree with, but I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of immigrants in recent years have been effectively unskilled, and by all accounts UK plc is financially better off as a result. I don't know why people would be getting 'spooked' by having people come in and do unskilled work for sh1t money and zero job security, unless they've been told to by people with a political agenda.

In reply to rossowen:

>But ultimately the decisions we make will be made here and not handed to us by Brussels.

I'm not sure where your "here" is. It's not Ipswich. It's definitely not inside my own house. And Brussels is closer to Ipswich than much of Britain is to London.

And who is your "we"? I'm not party to the decisions that currently come from our UK government. Many decisions made in Brussels accord more with what I would like than those currently made in London.

Yes we need the EU to be more democratic. That means, in part, strengthening the European parliament and being more serious about European Parliament elections. But are decisions made by Eurocrats I didn't vote for necessarily worse than decisions made by a UK government I didn't vote for?

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:

I have no issue with the migration policies, it's their power and structure, or completely lack of respect for each nation.

They preach to countries about austerity, but the EU budget increases year on year and they refuse to reign in their own excesses. Scrapping the monthly move to Strasbourg is totally off the agenda. EMPs are very well paid and get a pension after one term in office. Their expenses are hardly small either. Their leader when PM of Luxemburg did some very dodgy tax deals with multi nationals, but finds no problem preaching to other nations now. Their accounts have been disastrous for nearly 20 years, they run out of money some years mid way through and have go asking nations for more.. the list is endless. If the EU was a business it would have been closed down years ago. Their handling of the Syrian problem, Greece, Cyprus, the Euro is dire... I can't really find anything positive about them.

In reply to ByEek:


What makes you say that?

In reply to pec:


It was intended to make the point that not everyone who votes in a referendum is informed on the subject and that many out voters/UKIP supporters believe the lies about the EU that the the Daily Mail has been shunting out on a production line over the last few years. Which is not to say that it is perfect (the EU not the Daily Mail) and that the serious no vote lobby doesn't have a case. but I think that, on balance, the pros outweigh the cons.
'Consensus of whom?'

The consensus that the best scenario is to be in the EU and out of the Euro seems to be held by most serious journalists specialising in the subject in the quality newspapers/periodicals. I can't prove that but you can check it yourself by googling. I did post links to the Guardian, Economist and Financial Times, which is quite a spread.

In reply to john arran:


I'd expect people who used to do unskilled work for almost reasonable money, who are now unemployed and on benefits, might feel less than chuffed with the situation.

In reply to john arran:


Perhaps they are concerned about population growth running at ridiculous levels, now over 300,000 a year, in what is already the most densely populated country in Europe and the effect that has on our housing shortage, overinflated housing market, oversubscribed schools, overcongested transport network. overstressed hospitals etc.
Quality of life is about more than just economic growth.

In reply to pec:


Simple maths implies that you are wrong. The EU economy/population is about ten times the UK's. Plus we would have to start again in an environment where trade deals have been thrashed out over many years.

In reply to Pekkie:


Oh of course, all those ignorant "out" voters, whilst the "in" voters are all fully in formed rational thinking people who'd never be swayed by false statistics, scaremongering or some romantic notion of pan European harmony




"Serious" journalists and "quality" newspapers, well who are we to argue with that, or even your definition of it, one left leaning paper and two who are primarily concerned with a narrow economic focus.
We can all read newspapers and decide which ones are "serious" for ourselves (and no I don't read the Mail) but you can't expect to refute the arguments on here just by telling us what your choice of "serious" jounalists believe

In reply to Pekkie:


Your population comparison is a strawman with no real meaning or import. We would not have to "start again", trade deals would be renegotiated, as they constantly are in any case.

In reply to pec:


Nail/head.

Mind you, I must just be a ranting, ill-informed, drunk, pub-dwelling, "Daily Mail Reader" to believe this.

In reply to Pekkie:


But its not just about simple maths otherwise Canada, Australia New Zealand etc would all be screwed by now.

In reply to Ridge:


The history of the EU has been shaped by national referendums. Treaties have been changed down the years to accommodate the specific worries of various member states as expressed by referendum, and most (all?) prospective members have referendums before accession.

In reply to Ridge:


But the best evidence on immigration suggests that it lowers wages in the bottom decile by about 1% (I'm going from memory here, but it's not very much). Changes in tax and benefits have a far, far greater effect on the low paid than immigration.

In reply to pec:

You would think that if people are bringing added prosperity to a country then the infrastructure could be improved with the proceeds of that prosperity, such that all would be better off. Unless some people are being allowed to pocket the profits, leaving ordinary folk worse off and blaming the immigrants? No, surely not!

In reply to Ridge:



Exactly how are we going along with it? Our govt is letting in only a tiny number of refugees.

I'm not saying the UK can solve these problems (Syria, Libya, refugees, etc), but it's a lot weaker working alone than it is as part of the EU.

In reply to seankenny:


I don't think it's that clear cut. Oxford University gives:

"The effects of immigration on workers within specific wage ranges or in specific occupations are more significant. The greatest wage effects are found for low-waged workers. Dustmann et al (2013) find that each 1% increase in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population leads to a 0.6% decline in the wages of the 5% lowest paid workers and to an increase in the wages of higher paid workers. Similarly, another study focusing on wage effects at the occupational level during 1992 and 2006, found that, in the unskilled and semi-skilled service sector, a 1% rise in the share of migrants reduced average wages in that occupation by 0.5% (Nickell and Salaheen 2008)"

CIPD gives:

"Between 2002 and 2012, the employment of UK-born workers remained static, but overall employment has grown by 1.7 million with the proportion of non-UK born workers
in the workforce increasing from 9% to 14%, as employers have benefitted from a ready supply of skilled and non-skilled migrant workers."

Not sure if 'non-UK born' necessarily equates to 'migrant', but that would indicate anything betwen a 7% to 8.2% drop in wages for the bottom 5% of the UK workforce. That's significant for those on a low wage, not to mention the erosion in terms and conditions that will inevitably accompany having a far more compliant workforce.

Happy to be corrected on the above.

In reply to seankenny:


We're not going along with it because we managed to opt out of the current 'open doors to anyone' madness. I think Merkel's grand plan was to syphon off the brightest for German industry and dump the rest throughout the EU, but neither the refugees/migrants or the new member states want to play ball. It's something like a million this year, at least as many next year, with no clear end in sight. Not to mention the families that will eventually follow. It's a significant issue on many fronts, and it's having a huge impact on a nation with a bigger economy and a lot more tooled up paramilitary police than the UK have.


We'd be even more weaker with a million extra mouths to feed and no say in the matter.

In reply to Ridge:

The UK is in a bit of an employment trap, it has become accustomed to buying say veg at low prices, often picked by people from Europe, working long hours, low wages, living 4 or 5 to a caravan. Now it can remove those migrants etc.. but many things in the UK will cost more. London's hotels are practically run by eu workers.

So there will be price to pay.

In reply to summo:



I don't doubt it, but cheap veg isn't everything.

In reply to Big Ger:


The argument that an entity with 10 times the population/GDP of a single nation state carries more weight is hardly a 'strawman', it is more like a cast iron fact ( an iron man? Ho, ho). We have been in the EU for over 40 years. If we came out we would have to negotiate trade deals afresh with the outcomes uncertain. Maybe we would get favourable deals, maybe not, but the need to start again is a cast iron fact.

In reply to john arran:


Or unless the people immigrating to a country do not bring as much prosperity as is assumed, and they actually present a bigger burden in terms of housing, schools, social services, NHS use, criminal justice services, etc.

In reply to Ridge:




The amount of people the UK has accepted is proportionally a very small percent of our total population, and there's nothing to say that the UK is suddenly going to start accepting more immigrants.

In reply to pec:


They haven't spent the last forty-odd years in the EU and don't have to face the problem of negotiating fresh trade deals from a standing start.

In reply to Pekkie:


But it is, in terms of export and import, it should work the other way to your assertion, an entity with 10x the population would need 10x the resources, and provide a better market.

Exports from the UK to EU and non-EU countries have grown on average by 3.6% and 6.5% respectively in each year between 1999 and 2014. However, the stronger export growth to non-EU countries has resulted in the proportion of UK exports destined for the EU falling from 54.8% in 1999 to 44.6% in 2014. Growth in the value of UK imports of goods and services from EU and non-EU countries is more comparable, growing on average by 4.7% and 5.5% respectively in each year since 1999.


Wrong again I'm afraid, existing deals can stand, new ones, as has always been the case, can be negotiated.

In reply to Big Ger:


From what I've read it's not so much questionable assumption as established fact, although I confess I don't have a handy link to show that.

In reply to Pekkie:


Ludicrous now.

"Australian merchandise exports to the EU were worth A$19.6 billion in 2011, a 5.3% increase over 2010. Australia’s major merchandise exports to the EU include gold, coal, wine, medicines and zinc ores and concentrates. Australia’s merchandise imports from the EU in 2011 totalled A$40.4 billion, up 5.2% on 2010. Australia’s merchandise imports from the EU were dominated by manufactured goods, with the top categories of imports including medicines, passenger motor vehicles, chemicals and civil engineering equipment and parts.

The EU is one of Australia’s largest two-way services trading partners, with two-way services trade in 2011 valued at A$21.4 billion. Australia’s services exports to the EU were worth A$8.3 billion in 2010, a decrease of 2.4% compared to 2010. Australia’s services imports from the EU rose by 2.8 % in 2011 to A$13.1 billion. Recreational travel services was the largest single services export to, and import from, the EU in 2011. Australia and the EU are like-minded on most issues in services trade and recognise the increasing contribution to exports made by this sector."

In reply to Ridge:




Take a look here: http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/how-small-small-impact-immigration-uk-wages#.Vq...

To quote:

"In the latter cases, the coefficients indicate that a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants working in semi/unskilled services - that is, in care homes, bars, shops, restaurants, cleaning, for example - leads to a 1.88 percent reduction in pay.... a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of migrants working in a sector – the amount needed to generate the “nearly 2 percent” wage impact is very large. Indeed, it is larger than the entire rise observed since the 2004-06 period in the semi/unskilled services sector, which is about 7 percentage points.

"...we can calculate that the new paper implies that the impact of migration on the wages of the UK-born in this sector since 2004 has been about 1 percent, over a period of 8 years."

So a very small effect, according to the latest studies.

In reply to pec:


Of course not all out voters are ignorant, Daily Mail reading know-nothings. but you can't deny that the constant hammering away at the EU by the said rag hasn't had an effect.


'Narrow economic focus'? You mean the focus on how my children and grandchildren will get jobs and make a living? What other focus should there be in this referendum?

>

In reply to Big Ger:


By "assumed" do you mean studied at great length by economists, statisticians, etc?

In reply to Big Ger:


I'd be careful if I were you about using the word 'ludicrous' here. Australia is a particularly poor example to use to support your case. As you yourself point out above, Australia's exports to the EU are mainly basic commodities (the values of which are nose-diving as we post) while imports from the EU are high value goods. Just like a developing country. Hardly a good model for the UK.

>

In reply to seankenny:

Yes, assumed as in; "no one has provided definite proof, so people assume the statistics which back their side of the debate are the true ones."

In reply to Big Ger:


Well the statistics you dislike are the ones that come up from people who study this stuff. I'm guessing that as jobbing academics they're more concerned about being proved wrong by their colleagues than backing a particular politician, but I could well be wrong on that.

I look forward to seeing some solid arguments that back your case.

In reply to Big Ger:


Just repeating something like a parrot or a stuck record doesn't make it true. If we leave the EU we will have to negotiate new trade deals. Fact. There was no JFK assassination conspiracy. The Americans did land on the moon.

In reply to Pekkie:

But you still haven't given a single jot of evidence to show how and why all British exports to the EU would need to start again (your words.)

If countries outside the EU can trade happily, and not need to "start again" each time they market goods within the EU, why should the UK?

Your hard held, but unsupported, idea that leaving the EU would mean that all contracts between UK exporters and EU importers would have to be torn up and renegotiated, is, dare I say, ludicrous.

By te way, talking of parroting, your unsupported mantra "need to start again" has been repeated here far more often that anything I have said. Pot/Kettle.

In reply to seankenny:

Thanks for the link, I'll have a read of it.

In reply to john arran:


That theory presumes that we run a budget surplus but we don't, we still have a very large deficit. In other words we have to borrow money for every person in the UK to provide the services we've come to expect already, i.e. each person costs the state more than each person generates on average.
Unless the migrants generate considerably more wealth than average (which they don't because huge numbers of them do low skilled, low wage jobs) then it either increases the amount the government has to borrow or the borrowing gets spread more thinly over more people and services get worse.

Anyway, an extra 330,000 people per year doesn't generate the space to build the houses and roads we need, its only the population that's getting bigger

In reply to Pekkie:


Works for Norway, but then they somehow ended up with all of "our" oil and gas didn't they?
Yes Australia seems like a really poor example because of its growth and now contraction through the commodities boom and Chinese demand - which now looks like it will be dropping.

In reply to Big Ger:


Free trade agreements were at one time mainly about the removal of tariffs though that is increasingly less important - though still a factor. They also include opening up markets for services and investment, competition rules, public procurement ad intellectual property rights - all the things that make trade easier. The EU has spent over forty years working on this. See
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/june/tradoc_149622.jpg It may be that we can go it alone. Maybe. Maybe not.

>

In reply to Pekkie:

And there's no reason why they should end if the UK leaves the EU. Your link actually shows that you do not need to be in the EU to have access to all of this, thanks for that.

In reply to Pekkie:
That shows the EU has no agreement running with the vast majority of the world, including the USA, China, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia, etc. How do we ever trade with them?

I'm sure the agreements with Syria, St Lucia, St Kitts and so on are working wonders though .

In reply to Pekkie:

It may be that we can go it alone. Maybe. Maybe not.

Except of course we can.

In reply to Pekkie:


Well there's migration obviously and the effect it has on wages, housing, public services, transport etc, not to mention social cohesion.
Then there's democracy, or rather the lack of it in the EU. The cost, bloated regulation and beaurocracy. Sovereignty, with the constant drive to ever closer union and the uncertainty (given the EU's track record) that any assurances we're given on this one will mean anything in a few years time.
Then there's the issue of whether we really want to part of an organisation that is arguably dieing on its arse with all its grandest projects collapsing around it, mired in economic stagnation and becoming an ever smaller part of the global economy, too big, too cumbersome and too many vested interests to truly reform itself. Or should we strike out on our own as a truly global trading nation (we have a good track record in that respect) and reach out to the wider world with whom we have stronger links than any other European country.
I actually think Brexit could be the best thing for the EU in the long term, its second largest member jumping ship could be just the kick up the arse in needs to jolt it from its navel gazing complacency and bring about the streamlining reforms it needs to be competetive in the global economy.

I think all of that is at least as important as arguing over whose estimates of whether the average houshold will be £500 a year better or worse off are most accurate since its all speculation anyway.

In reply to ByEek:

This just isn't the choice. We're currently in turmoil with unknown consequence. What's EU border policy? Who knows. Will we have a common immigration policy in 10 years? Who knows - it is necessary though, at least within Schengen. What will the EU's border be in 10 years, will it include Turkey, Ukraine? Who knows. Will there be common fiscal policy among the euro members at least? It seems necessary, but again the answer is who knows.

There's no leaving things as they are, they currently don't work even from a europhile perspective. Further integration is necessary.

In reply to pec:

Why does that gives us any kind of barginaing power ?
Surely that would be true only if we could actually do away with their imports easily without hurting our economy. Somehow I doubt it.

In the event of a full brexit with exclusion from the EEA, they woudl still be exporting to us as they always did, they'll pay some low tariff regulated by the WTO, and it will be the UK consumer paying for it in the end.

Even then, exports to the EU are worth about 10% of UK GDP, exports from the EU are worth only 3% of EU GDP...

The idea that the UK could do well or better outside of the EU and EEA is at least arguable, but to pretend we'll have some kind of magic bargaining power is just wishful thinking. If we have such awesome bargaining power why then are the demands Cameron made to the EU just cosmetic ?

In reply to thomasadixon:

In reply to Pekkie:


And thus it could have the same, or similar, agreements with a non-Eu burdened UK. Thanks.

In reply to RomTheBear:




Nobody is claiming "magic bargaining power", are they, or "awesome bargaining power".

Why stoop to this?

In reply to pec:

>'Well there's migration obviously and the effect it has on wages, housing, public services, transport etc, not to mention social cohesion.'

Migration works both ways. Many people from the UK have found jobs in the EU.


I agree with you on this one (though I would hope that my spelling is better). The UK has a history of trying to reform the EU and avoid increased political union, along with like-minded countries. This is the one area where we should draw a line in the sand.

In reply to Big Ger:


You won't accept it, will you? EU has 10X population/GDP of UK therefore much bigger punching power. It's quite a simple equation.

In reply to RomTheBear:



If we leave the EU its in everyone's interest to continue trading with each other, nobody seems to be disputing that. We will however have to reach some sort of agreement with the EU as to the terms of that trade, those terms are therefore up for discussion, there's no predetermined arrangement.
Currently Norway, Switzerland and Iceland all have different terms, i.e. the ones they negotiated and we will negotiate ours.
If the EU imposes unfavourable terms on us we will reciprocate and that will hurt them more than us because the value of their exports to us is greater than the reverse.
Hence we have a strong bargaining position because its not in their interest to impose a bad deal on us and by default, themselves.

In reply to rossowen:



You missed some words out of the last sentence. I've corrected it for you.

Except, in my opinion, of course we can (I hope)

In reply to Pekkie:




Sorry, bureaucracy, as in bureau or desk where all the penpushers work of which there's an overpaid abundance in the EU.
Its bedtime

In reply to Pekkie:

No I won't accept it.

The EU has 503 million inhabitants

Australia has 23.13 million inhabitants, (23x smaller,) yet still trades freely with the EU, (A$19.6 billion ) without that bullying power that population size grants the EU interfering, (which only you think exists.)

New Zealand has 4.471 million inhabitants, (114 x smaller than the EU,) yet still managed trade in goods amounted to Euro7.9 bn. last year

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
This is worth posting again.

.............................................


Take a look here: http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/how-small-small-impact-immigration-uk-wages#.Vq...

To quote:

"In the latter cases, the coefficients indicate that a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants working in semi/unskilled services - that is, in care homes, bars, shops, restaurants, cleaning, for example - leads to a 1.88 percent reduction in pay.... a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of migrants working in a sector £ the amount needed to generate the £nearly 2 percent£ wage impact is very large. Indeed, it is larger than the entire rise observed since the 2004-06 period in the semi/unskilled services sector, which is about 7 percentage points.

"...we can calculate that the new paper implies that the impact of migration on the wages of the UK-born in this sector since 2004 has been about 1 percent, over a period of 8 years."

So a very small effect, according to the latest studies.
...........................................

Somebody dislikes facts?

I think it's worth posting again so people can be well informed. Happy disliking.

In reply to Big Ger:


The trouble is, Australia and New Zealand are not good role models for a brexited UK. Their exports tend to be basic commodities (value nosediving as we post) and imports higher value goods. Talking of higher value goods, one of the UK's recent UK's success stories is the attraction of foreign car company investment. These investment decisions depend on the UK being in the EU and might be at risk if we left. Blimey, is that the time! I'll let you ponder on that one while I get some shut-eye....

In reply to Pekkie:

The head of Toyota doesn't agree with you. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1afaf414-b81f-11e5-b151-8e15c9a029fb.html#axzz3yJ...

Also I seem to remember that similar scare stories were banded about by company Chiefs executives that if we don't have the euro as our currency it would be bad for the Uk. How wrong they were.

In reply to Pekkie:


That's the second time you've posted that, and I'm not sure why. I don't think anyones suggesting we disassemble the UK economy to replicate that of Aus and NZ, just illustrating that that international trade isn't impossible outside of the EU.

In reply to pec:


I am not sure what is the point though, any agreement that would involve still be part of the EEA would still mean having to comply with the bulk of the EU regulations.


But that is simply not true, their export to us is a way smaller share of their gdp than our export to them.
And most of it is with only two countries. Even assuming they wanted to be nice to us, you'd have to have the unanimous agreement from everybody else...

And again they'll need to sweeten the deal only if we could actually do away with their exports to us.

But I agree most likely everybody will still want to trade with each other, possibly the uk will join the EEA like Norway and will have to adopt the bulk of EU regulation and have the free movement of people. In which case it would have defeated the point of leaving for most people who wanted out.

In reply to Ridge:


It certainly is not. It would be perfectly possible for the UK to trade under WTO rules.


Howrver I see no evidence we would somehow manage to negotiate full access to the single market without any of the rules, if we had such a bargaining power we would be able to use it now within our EU renegotiation anyway.

In reply to Ridge:

I will give you simple practical examples of how it works as an exporter ( I manufacture goods in the UK, and sell both in Europe and outside Europe including USA, China ,Japan and Australia- so have " reasonable knowlege on this).

First of all there are the shall I call them "safety " rules. Physical goods in Europe are CE marked. It does not matter where they are manufacctured, you still have to comply with those rules. They are set in Europe.It does not matter whether you are in or out. But your influence on those rules is helped by being in Europe.

Next and this is where it gets messy there are customs barriers. For example in selling with the USA there is a 5% tariff on my goods. But because of " favoured nation status" with EU its actually " zero". In China its 20%, but because the EU does not have a recipriocal agreement on these goods with China it is at 20%. In Europe there are no customs barriers.( I will leave VAT out of the example).

When I ship to say Germany. I put a delivery note on the consignement and off it goes. It is ridiculously easy.

Being in Europe makes it far easier to trade in Europe and globally negotiatiate as a block with other countrys. It would be stupid and irrational from a trade perspective to come out of Europe's trading block.I dread a vote in favour of an exit.

In reply to Pekkie:


But most of the eu is in less than a desirable financial position, the eu needs the UK contribution to keep the wheels on the gravy train. Not mention a UK exit would tempt others to join them.

In reply to RomTheBear:

>> 'But I agree most likely everybody will still want to trade with each other, possibly the uk will join the EEA like Norway and will have to adopt the bulk of EU regulation and have the free movement of people. In which case it would have defeated the point of leaving for most people who wanted out.'

Morning campers! This is the nub of the argument. The ways things are likely to operate, if we voted no we would likely end up having to accept the very things that made us vote no in the first place. But with no say.

In reply to neilh:

>> 'Being in Europe makes it far easier to trade in Europe and globally negotiatiate as a block with other countrys. It would be stupid and irrational from a trade perspective to come out of Europe's trading block.I dread a vote in favour of an exit.'

There you have it from someone who knows. I think that's me about done on this thread. Must get some climbing done. This site is called UK Climbing after all.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Does anyone actually think the bulk of referendum voters are bothered about trade agreements and head office locations? I don't. How many will know that Stuart Rose leads the“Stay in Britain, Better in Britain campaign”. “The Better in Britain Campaign” or “Better Stay in Britain campaign” or "chairman of Ocado campaign" (all errors he made in an interview yesterday when asked about his leading role in the organisation.) Not many.

How many are not comfortable about the mass migration into Europe of millions of young muslim men, the complete lack of any cohesive plan to attempt to distribute and integrate them, the fear that integration/enrichment is a pipe dream with very little empirical evidence to suggest otherwise, the stories of sex attacks throughout Europe (and the attempted press cover ups) the fear of terrorism and the fear of diluting ones own countries values and traditions by a thousand cuts all without a voice because you were never asked.? I suspect quite a lot. Fed daily on a news feed of ISIL atrocities, planned terrorist attacks, sexual violence towards western women, and a distinct lack of images of refugee women and children (not saying they don't exist)

These fears, however irrational you might think, could now be the dominating factor in the decision making of vast swathes of the UK populace. Not financial....and many probably think the financial price to pay for leaving the failed EU is a price well worth paying. I believe Merkel has possibly fatally wounded the better together campaign.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Switzerland is not part of the EEA, we don't have to be to trade freely with the EU


However most EU countries individually export more to us than we do to them, when the discussions are taking place everyone has their own national interests to protect, they aren't going to endorse a deal which is bad for their own country so more countries have a vested interest in striking a good deal than don't.


And one of those two is Germany who effectivelty call the shots since they bankroll everybody else!


And can they do away with our exports to them?


Norway adopts much more EU regulation than it is obliged to. There is no blueprint for what happens when a country leaves the EU, we can't say it will be the same as Norway, Switzerland etc. its all up for discussion and we have a strong hand.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Try telling that to my employees who know that we barely sell anything in the UK, its easy their jobs are threatened.And I am only a small company. if you worked at one of the big car plants ( owned by say BMW or VW)or somewhere else( say at a Siemens plant) you would not be saying that.

In reply to neilh:



I think this is a red herring. Of course you have to comply with whatever standard the importing nation sets, so being in or out of the EU has no effect. CE is a pretty low standard anyway compared to TUV or the old BSI.




I take the point entirely that exporting to Europe woukd become more conplex, although other countries manage it.

In reply to Ridge:


Sure, and Tom Randall managed to climb E7 wearing a banana suit, but that doesn't mean it's recommended climbing gear.

In reply to Ridge:

I can still influence CE. And yes standards are being harmonised, but I still have a say in Europe. I would prefer to be in instead of out.

You miss the point about negotiating the deals.The Uk would have to renegotiate with every country/trading block globally, it would lead to emergency tariffs being imposed. Nightmare.

Mind you if you are not bothered about the effects on thsoe of us who earn our living by exporting, please feel free to ignore our views/experience.

In reply to neilh:

I don't doubt your colleagues and some others working at car plants have legitimate concerns. I just don't think they are a majority who will be thinking about job security as their main influence when ticking the box.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

And so how does us leaving the EU protect us, any more than we are currently, from the "mass migration of millions of young Muslim men" into mainland Europe?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

If they become EU citizens and we aren't in the EU then they would have no automatic right to travel to the UK.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Probably not a lot, but stepping away from the opaque faceless central EU beaurocracy machine is probably a good start in a lot of peoples minds. People might still have a small hope that we could get some sovereignty back and start to stand up to some of the bizarre and dangerous decisions made by people from other countries who you have zero control over rather than the status quo, which has hardly had good press over the last 5 years.

If we were not in and the referendum was whether to join or not..what would the answer likely be? I reckon not.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Except they would because we'd still be subject to the freedom of movement rules to stay in the EEA?

In reply to RyanOsborne:

We don't know that. We don't know what being out of the EU would look like.

In reply to RyanOsborne:
Possibly one of the first things that will be negotiated out of if millions more keep flooding in from North Africa and the Middle East with no control.

If things don't change and there is no control of this mass migration, then maybe the public will demand changes and these laws, agreements, treaties will get changed.If not, governments get changed. All these agreements are worth fck all if they are abused by millions of migrants deciding where best suits them. Hence why the EU is in so much trouble. Schengen? what a joke. EU countries now not respecting it...why? because it's being abused. They need to get a handle on it otherwise the zeitgeist will take a poleshift.

remember all these treaties and agreements were written up early 1990's. Europe is in a totally different place now.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Well the most likely scenario seems to be that we would end up still a part of the EEA, so the whole isolationist argument of 'we'll be in control of our own immigration policy' is extremely unlikely to materialise from leaving the EU.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

You don't think EEA will be dropped as soon as it becomes obvious there is no border control at all between Europe and NA /ME . Schengen hasn't fared too well has it? Countries will change opinion, governments will change and population opinions will change and EEA will seem archaic in the new paridigm *

*hypothetical

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

You think that Germany and France will let go of the freedom of movement rules within the EEA if the UK were to leave the EU? Why would they do that in the future, when they've been digging their heels in about it in Dave's 'negotiations'.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

What do you mean? Dropped all together, or dropped from the ideas of what the UK wants post Brexit?

In reply to RyanOsborne:

I'm just opining on a doomsday scenario where unfettered immigration from NA/ME will lead to all the European privileges being eroded. It would be silly to think otherwise.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

But how does that relate to the UK leaving the EU? In all likeliness, that change to the EEA rules either will or won't happen regardless of the UK's membership, and we'll be subject to the effects of it happening or not whether we leave or don't.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

I was responding to the argument that even if UK left EU, EEA rules would mean that "europeans" could travel freely to the UK. I was simply saying that should the tide of immigrants from NA/ME keep up into Europe...EU memberships/EEA treaties etc will be seen as not be fit for purpose and changes will be demanded, or walked away from by members. Eg. see schengen. I think we are witnessing the collapse of the EU as it was designed to function in the early 90's. It just doesn't seem to work very well in this new environment

In reply to RyanOsborne:

If we choose leave the EU then we get to make our own laws, whatever we choose them to be. If the Tories choose to keep all the stuff that we've voted to get rid of then I can't see how the government would stay in place, it'd break up from the inside if nothing else.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

It seems to me that the chances are, if we left the EU then there'd be less chance of that happening, as Dave (of the politicians in power) is the one banging the loudest anti-immigration drum? Surely if we were out of the EU and France and Germany breathe a sigh of relief that Dave's shut up about renegotiating freedom of movement, then the issue will die down a bit, and the EU (and EEA) will carry on as normal?

In reply to thomasadixon:

But we'd only get to make our own laws about freedom of movement if we left the EEA and rescinded our access to the single market, which seems highly unlikely.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


But again - this doesn't change if we are in or out. As far as I see it, Germany's decision doesn't really affect us. The refugees are in Germany.

In reply to RyanOsborne:


It's certainly possible we'd be part of the EEA if we exited the EU. But any terms of our entry would be up for negotiation. The pro-EU camp will say we can't do any better than we've done already and the anti-EU crowd will claim we're in a good negotiating position. It's not really about which is right (because we don't know what would happen after an exit vote), it's about people's perspective of it.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

Well once the Germans start issuing migrants unlimited free train tickets to France, and France finds it can't persuade the UK to accept them, I think the French will be remarkably pragmatic when it comes to 'letting go of the freedom of movement rules'. (Probably accompanied by burning lorry loads of bratwust all over the place).

Freedom of movement within the EEA isn't an immutable natural law that cannot be destroyed no matter what. It's an agreement that relies on the various parties abiding by it. I don't think the point when it falls apart is too far off if things continue as they are.

In reply to petellis:


Well, if you believe the refugees are all in Germany and will remain there and no more will arrive.. I suppose there's not a lot to worry about.

In reply to Ridge:

"Freedom of movement within the EEA isn't an immutable natural law that cannot be destroyed no matter what. It's an agreement that relies on the various parties abiding by it. I don't think that point is too far off if things continue as they are"

Exactly! and the cracks are starting to show and the EU has been exposed as unfit to manage this crisis.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


I think the above is the crux of the matter, and in many cases is the reason to consider leaving the EU.

Germany has badly misjudged the effects of all this, their social services and security services are virtually overwhelmed by the influx. This has the potential to get very violent very quickly.

Their only solution seems to be to replicate the situation across Europe whilst continuing to accept a theoretically limitless stream of refugees and migrants. Using the political structure of the EU is probably the only effective way to acheive that. I think this is the reason for not wanting ever closer union under the EU.

I hope I'm completely wrong about how things might go over the next few years.

In reply to Ridge:
But it is an inherent part of the single market offered by the EEA. The freedom of movement covers goods, capital, people and services. Without those things you don't have a single market, you just have a trade agreement, which Germany and France seem unlikely to bow to?

Edit - In response to 'Freedom of movement within the EEA isn't an immutable natural law that cannot be destroyed no matter what. '

In reply to RyanOsborne:


They might not want to, but should the worst happen then reality might overtake things. The 'single market' isn't a supernatural entity with god like powers that will reign for all eternity. It's a political construct that has trundled along nicely for many years but may not be appropriate for a future Europe.

In reply to Ridge:

Freedom of movement for EU citizens will not be affected by the refugee crisis. The refugees do not have the right to freedom of movement as they are not EU citizens. You or I will still be able to travel and live anywhere in the EU, we'll just have to show our passport at the border.

France has already suspended Shengen, they will not be accepting train loads of refugees from Germany.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/12008561/Schengen-a...

Germany's response hasn't caused an influx of refugees, it's just meant they are not all in Greece. As for stopping them reaching Greece, what do you suggest? The more 'practical' measures' are all quite inhumane.

One thing is for sure, British public and political opinion is not out of step with most of the EU. It is not a reason to leave.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/11/24/a-guide-to-the-right-wing-media...

It's actually a myth that most refugees are male and of fighting age, not that you directly said that.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


Agreed, although it depends on how effective border controls are, and if suddenly issuing EU citizenship is seen as an option.


In practical terms, how would they stop migration on foot?


This is a really good point. Establishing camps in North Africa and forcibly deporting from Greece, or camps within the EU is probably the least inhumane option. Relocating a significant portion of the Middle East and North Africa to Europe isn't a good option either.


I think political opinion in Germany is well out of step with German public opinion, never mind the rest of Europe.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Those stats are for Syrian refugees, including those currently in camps in the Middle East. The demographic of those currently in the EU, (not just Syrians), differs.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

I don't think that link tells you where the refugees are geographically. Obviously we only care about the ones in EU countries

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Its a bit wider than that -financial services etc etc- most of the non public sector in reality.

In reply to Roadrunner5: Maybe , maybe not. Lots of evidence of young men only at calais

Have a look at this recent video that was in the press a couple of weeks ago. 4 mins in. How many women and children can you see?

youtube.com/watch?v=2ESI4pTDI9g&

In reply to Ridge:

It's going to be a huge challenge over the next few years. I don't think re-location will work as you have to find a country willing, and it isn't something Europe's politicians, including the UKs have the stomach for. I do agree migration north to Europe from the Middle East and Africa is not a sustainable option.

Traditionally it would have been a military response, but in this case it risks a collision with Russia, or a power vacuum Islamists can step into.

The only thing I'm certain about is there is this crisis is not a good reason for the UK to leave the EU. Are nearest neighbour is France, we have UK Border Force there, and France is not keen on taking lots of refugees.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

So are you confident that a pan European voice of agreement and action will be forthcoming on this "crisis" in short order?

In reply to Mike Stretford:

Another EU member deciding to take matters into it's own hands http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliament-approves-pla...

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:




Well that's scientific..

Go to Saudi film the streets? You say Saudi was only male.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Right, so the women are all indoors in Calais then? lol

Of course it's not scientific, here are some more
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-26/frances-highways-descend-chaos-law...

"Last June, men accounted for 73 per cent of those who risked the dangerous sea crossing to Europe from Turkey, via Greece. But according to new figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, they have accounted for just 45 per cent so far this year.At the same time, the proportion of women has nearly doubled from a low of 11 per cent last summer to 21 per cent now. Children account for the remaining 34 per cent."
(from FT last week)

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

This is miles off topic, but I think the general methodology of migrating in destitution is for the guy to go first and try to bring his family over once he gets the means to.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

Probably true...and thus making the numbers even more troubling

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

No, that should be obvious from my reply to Ridge.

What's also obvious is it is no reason for the UK to leave the EU.

If you want a 'pan European voice of agreement and action', then campaign for a federal Europe, but to be honest I didn't think you were the type?

In reply to Mike Stretford:

Not sure what you mean? if a pan european voice of agreement and action came to be I would be all for it.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:
So it's mainly women and children..

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refu...

Nice article here on myths.. Worth reading

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


Depends on the nationalities. Sweden took lots from the Balkans, not many extra relatives followed. Many made use of their education from Sweden and have return to their homeland. Many 2nd generation people are just the same as native Swedes now, although it wasn't all harmony.

Many from the ME and Africa, have big extended families, multiple wifes etc..

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

One fundamental point people are forgetting is that if the UK were to exit the EU would fall apart.

FFS, they were talking about the EU collapsing if Greece left, taking its mass of debt with it.

In reply to Big Ger:

Greece is part of the Eurozone. Big difference.

In reply to pec:


You need to get a realistic grasp of recent European history. In my parents time, between 30 and 40 million people died across Europe, 20 million displaced, many many tens of millions wounded, starved, raped or stricken by disease. 70% of the industrial infrastructure of Europe was destroyed. The highest UK income tax rate in the post-war period was about 140%. It took ten to fifteen years to resettle all the displaced persons.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Greece contributes about 1.26% of the EU budget, the UK 12.5%.

Greece is now in hock to the EU.

Big difference.

In reply to Big Ger:

But it was specifically that Greek was part of the Euro that was the major issue during that particular crisis. Nothing changes, structurally, for the EU if Britain votes out.

In reply to Ridge:



I think Germany will be able to cope. Things get "very violent, very quickly" in countries with limited states that don't work very well. That's not the case in modern northern Europe. Even in Greece, which has had an incredibly deep recession and financial crisis, the country is mostly stable - even if the social services are currently overwhelmed. I think you may be fear-mondering, or just frightened.



Well given that so far the number of migrants has been around 0.3% of the entire EU population, it would make sense to spread that very small number around at least a little bit.

I do find the idea that refugees will settle in Germany, learn the language, get jobs, build up a life and support networks, etc, for the five or however many years it takes to get citizenship, and then suddenly up sticks for another part of the EU. Some might, but most won't.

Get a grip people.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


not true, the UK pays in more than it gets out. So their budget would be smaller overall. There aren't many strong nations in the EU, so a UK exit would hurt. There many other impacts, like other EU nations fishing the better UK's atlantic waters etc..

In reply to summo:
I wouldn't bring fishing into this.. We spent centuries stealing other people's stocks

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:
Losing 12% of its income changes, how will they afford to keep the Brussels bureaucrats in luxury?

In reply to seankenny:


Concerned rather than frightened, but I think you're overestimating the power of the state, even in a rigidly ordered country like Germany. People in northern Europe are incredibly compliant when faced with authority, even most violent criminals will give in when cornered. European countries are stable because they have a largely apathetic population conditioned to be highly docile, not because of robust state control. However gather together a few hundred people who have nothing but contempt for what they see as a feeble and weak police force, (by Middle Eastern / African standards), and have no qualms about getting stabby and rapey, and how do you keep order? Shoot them? Or use the current German tactic of trying to cover it up and hope it goes away.

Assad has problems keeping order with artillery and helicopter gunships, I don't think a PCSO with a couple of hours assertiveness training is going to be much use should the new arrivals get fractious. I think that is beginning to dawn on the Swedes and Germans, the most enthusiastic exponents of mass migration.


That could easily expand to 1% in 2016, easily up to 5% even if there are no further arrivals but next of kin and other dependants arrive. These are not small numbers, especially as none will be settling in the newer EU states. I think you're understimating the scale of this issue.


Germany can't provide all those jobs and houses, it's struggling now.


I hope you're right, but I sense a lot of naivety and belief that nothing could ever go wrong in Europe on this thread. I'm not predicting civil war or tanks on the street, but a lot of extremely violent and random acts on a daily basis that the police will be largely powerless to deal with.

In reply to Ridge:


I think you most definitely have this the wrong way around.



When I think about statements like this (which seem ludicrous to me), then I'm reminded of the influx of Tamils which arrived in the UK as a result of the war in Sri Lanka. Plenty of them most definitely were Tamil Tigers (probably the toughest terrorist groups of recent years, unlike ISIS these guys were smart). Of course some of the Tamil boys, brought up in a fairly lawless environment, carried on their inter-Tamil beefs on the streets of London in the same style as they would in Jaffna and were duly caught, tried for murder and given long sentences. Can't say Tamil violence is a particularly big problem these days.

The idea that our police force is weak compared to elsewhere is just wrong. They are not brutal, but you don't need to be brutal to keep order. You actually need to be effective, which modern police forces sometimes manage to be, no?



Well, there's a war in Syria - before the conflict it was a peaceful country and I'm pretty sure most refugees want to live peacefully. That's why they've left... of course some people will be traumatised and could be trouble but all this talk of needing to shoot people and helicopter gunships, it's just ridiculous. The UK, Germany, France, etc have really strong states, mass outbreaks of violence are really rare and have been for a hundred years. I'm not saying there won't be problems, or that what happened in Cologne wasn't a total failure on the behalf of the German police. But your talk is, frankly, panic-mongering.




So you're forecasting a trippling of refugee numbers in 2016. On what basis is that made on? Of course, you could be right, but it's just a guess.

, easily up to 5% even if there are no further arrivals but next of kin and other dependants arrive.

Only if the numbers of refugees double - if we stick at our 0.3% of the whole EU population, surely this would imply that each refugee will be bringing over 15 next of kin. Household size in Syria averages at 6.3 according to UNHCR, so your figure is right if this year is the same as last year, which I suspect is likely. Of course lots of those will be kids, which will be a challenge but more on the lines of providing primary school places rather than tooling up helicopter gunships. However, given the level of fear you've displayed on here so far, it may be an approach you recommend for dealing with the Syrian toddler.


These are not small numbers, especially as none will be settling in the newer EU states. I think you're understimating the scale of this issue.

They are not small numbers but they are not impossible to deal with. Agreed, the fact that Eastern Europe doesn't want to play ball (and after accepting all those EU development funds...) is going to make it much harder.



I thought it was helping them deal with a demographic deficit.


Incidentally, do you base this on previous crime rates from refugee populations?

In reply to seankenny:



I don't think the Tamils arrived in anything like the numbers Europe is currently expreriencing.


They're not particularly effective against large scale disorder.


Apart from a couple of world wars and a bit of ethnic cleansing round the edges.


I hope you're right, but given the large numbers of failures of various police forces across Europe on New Years Eve I suspect there is a deeper issue than a few lads getting lairy and an inept local police chief.




I'm not advocating shooting toddlers, calm down. Just illustrating how fragile social cohesion can be.




I don't think that has gone as planned. The doctors and engineers haven't turned up in the expected numbers.


Refugee populations, no. The current influx is not exclusively made up of refugees. There are a significant number who aren't fleeing anything, and there are significant problems with crime in Europe and Scandinavia as a result. I'm more concerned with current crime rates from economic migrants than previous refugees.

Anyway, I suspect we're not going to agree on this one.

In reply to pec:


What's your source ? The OECD estimates that the fiscal impact of migration in the UK is +0.46% of GDP.
There are other studies but most seem to lean towards a net fiscal benefit, more so in the case of EU migrants, it mostly depends on whether you count all the children of mixed Migrant/UK native towards to cost of the migrant or just half of them, and other various factors.

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/fiscal-impact-immigratio...

At worst, we simply don't know.

In reply to RomTheBear:





You realise those figures appear to be based on the stats from 2007-2009 ?

Whereas now -

http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/government-admits-it-has-statistics-recent-eu-m...

ahh...

In reply to Roadrunner5:

I like the fact 2 disliked my post yet not explained why.. presumably because they are ignorant.

We almost went to war with a European nation over us stealing their fish in the 1970's..

"A multimillion-pound compensation deal and apology was offered by the British government in 2012 for fishermen who lost their livelihoods in the 1970s. More than 35 years after the workers lost their jobs, the £1,000 compensation offered to 2,500 fisherman was criticised for being insufficient and excessively delayed.[85]"

As I said we are far far from innocent in this.

In reply to neilh:

Thank you for speaking from an informed position, hopefully some people might actually listen.

I'd add that, after a Brexit the EU nations will be pushing very hard for the UK's share of FDI, historically the UK has done very well in this regard (think Nissan in Sunderland etc.). The long term (Five - ten year) effect of reduced investment from the EU US, Japan, China would be huge.

From the other side of the world we are baffled as to why you are even contemplating this.
Cheers
LD (Australia, where the commodities and Sheep come from)

In reply to Roadrunner5:



Would that be the Cod Wars, with Iceland declaring a 200 mile exclusion zone and ramming British trawlers?


I think you'll find the above refers to compensation paid to British fishermen, not Icelandic, so I have no idea why the above bit of text somehow proves your point.


It's ok, I get your point. The UK is irredeemably wrong for 'centuries' of wrongdoing in fishing, ergo wrong about everything.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

the same country less than 5 years ago voted not to pay back money lost in their economic collapse to other EU nations. I wouldn't lose sleep over Iceland and there were two sides with two very different accounts in the cod war.

In reply to off-duty:

Some if the studies are more recent and the article mentions them.
But anyway, as I said, we don't know for sure, the positions of many on this topic seem to be based purely on assumptions and perceptions.


Yes, I know, they don't want to release any data since the EU negotiation started. HMRC days that it would "interfere with the negotiation process". Yep, shit, the truth could damage their broken arguments...
Probably Cameron doesn't want anyone showing that renegotiating tax credits for EU migrants will have zero effect on immigration.
BTW it's illegal to not release this data, but this is no surprise from this government.

In reply to RomTheBear:


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immigrants-contribu...

In reply to Big Ger:

.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/european-immigrants-contribute-5bn-to-uk-economy-but-...

it is of course impossible to know how the economy would have grown without them. So the figures are meaningless, unless you run parallel experiments. Would the UK have spent less on infrastructure, how much immigrant income was sent elsewhere in Europe, would UK unemployment be less, could employers not find the skills without recruiting outside the UK? or even is it modern slavery because they'll work the kind of hours for a low wage no Brit would?... it's all statistical guesswork.

In reply to summo:


Actually I believe the OECD studies does comparative study and they find a net fiscal benefit for uk ( that's including Eu and non eu).
But given the state of the data, and the fact that nobody can agree on what constitutes the cost of a migrant, the most conservative answer to this question is that we simply don't know.

Yet despite the data scientists themselves admitting their own ignorance, there seem to be no shortage of people with a passionate opinion on the topic. Based on what, I am not sure.

In reply to Big Ger:

Right, it's agreed - we should raise more taxes to fund our public services.

In reply to Big Ger:

So it sounds like we should definitely stay in Europe then, thanks for the link.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

We don't need to stay in Europe to welcome workers from Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland etc with skills or labour which we need/can use, do we?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Or we should be careful about adding drains on our public services?

In reply to Big Ger:

So you think we should have a ticklist of countries which people are allowed to come from? And just make sure that people from Syria (who are fleeing because of a war we're contributing to) aren't on the list?

In reply to Big Ger:


Don't need to leave either. Seeing that you want to join efta, and don't mind immigration fro Europe, why do you want to leave the EU, is it just fishing?

In reply to RyanOsborne:


There could be a ticklist, or a set of criteria for entry. Something along these lines;

http://www.australia.gov.au/information-and-services/immigration-and-visas/...



That is a fantasy you have conjured up from your own imagination, and bears no relation to anything I have said, is it not?

In reply to Mike Stretford:


So we could do either.


Now, seeing as I have only mentioned EFTA in this thread, can you quote where I said; "want to join efta,"?

I would call for more restriction on immigration from the EU too. See my link in the reply above.

In reply to Big Ger: We had a conversation on this thread on Monday morning (around 7is) were you expressed a preference for EFTA membership. If that isn't the case, fine.

In reply to Big Ger:
No, it's not a fantasy, it's a question I was asking you. The question mark should have been a give away.

In terms of asylum seekers, which people arriving from Syria are, is it not governed by UN conventions anyway, so leaving the EU would make no difference?

In reply to seankenny:
In agreement with your contradictions of the post above you.

We have a moral responsibility to help these people, and we're getting off lightly by only receiving a tiny minority of people. These people will settle down, get jobs and learn English over time. Their kids will play with our kids, who may grow up and fall in love with English people and have kids with them. I know some may be very frightened by this idea but I am not.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


No, you are right "a preference" for it over the EU, no an outright wish to join, thank you.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

It was an odd one to ask, seeing as I've made no reference to Syrians. The way it was phrased was accusatory.



So why ask?

In reply to Big Ger:


Because it is a thread about the UK leaving the EU. And some people are suggesting that people arriving from Syria are a reason to leave the EU. Which it's not, as leaving the EU makes no difference.

In reply to Roadrunner5:
That is a good article, but it doesn't mention anything about make up of men/women/children. From the same paper

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/08/refugee-crisis-germany-creaks-...

"There are no signs the numbers will let up in the near future, with one government minister warning this week that many women and children can be expected to follow the males who made up the majority of those making the journey first. Merkel£s decision last month to £open the doors£, particularly to Syrian refugees, has attracted growing criticism even within her own party as an estimated 10,000 people continue to arrive every day."

Also the FT article I referenced earlier also claimed that the first wave was mainly males and only now is the ratio becoming more balanced towards women and children.(and that is only the ones making the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece)

I don't know what the truth is anymore than you do. We all have the same resources to draw from and I guess it's human nature to cling to the stories that support your own views. Anyway, I still think the migrants in Calais are mainly men as is mentioned on the wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais_jungle
"The majority of the inhabitants of the camp come from conflict-affected countries.[12] The migrants in Calais are mostly young men, with about 62% of the population being men with a mean age of 33, of non-European origin."

In reply to RyanOsborne:


Where have they been; "suggesting that people arriving from Syria are a reason to leave the EU", I must have missed that. I CERTAINLY have made no mention of it.

What about the Romanians?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

What's the executive summary? I intend to vote, but really don't know enough about the pros-and-cons of our European membership to be able to make an informed decision yet.

Appols if this is going over old territory, but the debate is far too advanced on this forum, and in the press, to be able to catch-up...

As far as I can tell, in broad terms.

Pro-Europe: Better for trade and industry, but we'll get stuck with the status-quo; the occasional dubious EU intervention into our legal system and governance, membership of a corrupt and dysfunctional Euro-bureaucracy, membership fee's, inability to govern our own borders.

Leave: Better for self governance and law-making but additional bureaucracy when trading with EU members which will make it more difficult and more expensive to do business in Europe and could damage our economy / the European economy as a whole, better protection from the knock-on effects of EU nations failure to reform and recover post 2008 financial crisis, increased protection from the 'contagion' of poorly performing EU economies such as Greece and Italy.

How do the political parties align?

What does the experience of non-union European nations show us?

What is David Cameron trying to renegotiate and, if successful, how would this affect us?

What do other EU members think about all of this - do they want us to stay or go?

In reply to RyanOsborne:


Doesn't that rather depend on any (potential) coordinated EU approach to distributing refugees across member states?

In reply to Big Ger:

Did you miss the bit where you posted a link to an article about the net cost of migrants from outside the EU in response to part of the thread about the Syrian refugee crisis?

In reply to THE.WALRUS:

Have you ever dealt with the 'dysfunctional Euro-bureaucracy' ? in my experience over the last 15 years its much more functional than many national or regional administrations. And most of the complaints about interference in the English & Scottish legal systems are from the Council of Europe rather than the EU (& anything coming from the EU will have been agreed by our government & MEPs)

In reply to Big Ger:



We already have an (even stricter) system for non-EU immigrants.

We could have the same system for EU migrants if we chose to leave the EU and the single market.
This will also mean that British workers will lose their right to work freely anywhere in the EEA.

To me, on balance, I think it's a lot of cost for little or no benefits. I guess it depends how much you care about having many foreigners in the country, and whether you care about opportunities to work elsewhere.

In reply to THE.WALRUS:




Probably not. We could stop EU citizens entering the UK but then that would be reciprocated and we wouldn't be able to visit the EU.

When it comes to refugees/economic migrants from outside the UK, we will be in a worse situation. France would no longer tolerate UK border guards on their side, meaning all asylum claims will be dealt with here, and we will be obliged to treat people humanely under international law.

European economy as a whole,

And with other countries outside Europe, we would have to renegotiate treaties with other countries which are currently done on our behalf by the EU.


No, I can't see any reason why. Outside the Eurozone as we are, yes, but not the EU.

In reply to Ridge:

Agreed. But my point remains: we know how to deal with this. It's not the insurmountable problem which you fear. It does, however, require political will and some money. It might not be fair that our part of the world is suddenly ringed with a bunch of failed states, but it is most definitely our problem, whether we like it or not. The question is how to deal with it effectively and humanely.


Really? In previous posts you categorised Europeans as docile types who do what they're told, compared to our more feisty cousins in the Middle East. I see it the other way around. Europeans are enormously energetic, debating politics and society and how to make stuff work, whether it's for fun on UKC or seriously in the offices of companies, public bodies, NGOs, etc. We're always fiddling to improve our societies, and our leaders are always trying to work out what we want (at least in part). The Middle East, by contrast, has suffered decades of political and economic atrophy and it's this lack of responsiveness that makes people so utterly angry that they riot to get what they need. Similarly in less ordered countries like India (but to a lesser extent).

So fundamentally, we deal with large scale disorder by bringing people into the political process. When that fails, and there are riots, then we manage to deal with them fairly effectively it seems to me. But the strength of European societies means that's very much a final recourse.

The question should then become not "can we water-canon the angry Syrians?" but "will they be brought into the political and social fold?". Clearly, this one's up in the air. But indulge me in a thought-experiment. Let's say all the good upstanding citizens of UKC are made unemployed and decide to move to Lagos where all the jobs are (hey, it's a thought experiment!). How long before most of us are paying bribes and backhanders and generally behaving corruptly? Probably not so long. So, which is a more powerful determinant of behaviour - the individual and their background, or the society in which he/she finds themselves? Clearly it's not cut and dried - the existence of forced marriage, FGM and Tower Hamlets corruption attest to this, as does the website selling Marmite to ex-pats in the US (insert smiley here but you get my drift) - but I'm fairly confident that our social norms are more robust than many pessimists believe.



Indeed, I stand corrected!


So, we're talking about Cologne and Oslo and where else? I'm not aware of more but if you have better information than I do, please share it. What "deeper issues" are we talking about here? To me, sexually predatory young men and a failure of policing are fairly deep issues already - and ones that absolutely need addressing urgently. Not because I want to cover my backside politically, but just because those kind of assaults of totally unacceptable.



Ahh sorry, no smiley, naughty me. I believe it's less fragile than you , but that the major assaults on social cohesion come from elsewhere.



Figures to support this claim? I imagine it will take years to work out what new arrivals can do, how their qualifications stack up, what they end up being employed as - I'd be looking for studies on this in about 2020 before coming to a conclusion.


You're right, it isn't. This article breaks it down:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34131911

So we see the top four countries for migrants in 2015 were Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq. Now I agree, people from countries such as Albania, the fifth on the list with around 55,000 migrants, probably don't have much of a claim and are piggybacking on the crisis to make money. I've no problem with sending them home if that's the case.

When you say "significant problems with crime" can you muster any facts to support this claim? Or is it just a supposition? I'm not saying you're wrong, merely that you're armed with a tool to help you search through much of the information in the world, so maybe you've used it to come to this conclusion...


You're scared. That's fine. But how about making a good case as to why you're scared, rather than making woo woo scary claims about crime and integration and needing helicopter gunships to keep the new arrivals in order?

In reply to RomTheBear:



Indeed. However since you are the one quoting them, some clarity would have been nice.
Ie - The stats are mixed. Studies (most recently to 2011) disagree whether there is a benefit or a loss, though the figures appear to fluctuate between +/- 1% GDP.

And your summary - "at worst" it isn't that "we don't know" (although it appears that we don't)
At worst EU migration causes us a loss.





Given that Cameron is pro-Europe it's difficult to see why he/the government would prevent publication of anything that would show EU migration in a good light.
Looking at the data to date it appears likely the exponential increase in issue of NI numbers continues - and from what I recall it was largely post 2011

In reply to off-duty:

Possibly because he his arguing that curbing benefits will reduce EU immigration, and the data most likely shows that it's bull***.

Imo someone should sue the government for not releasing this information.

In reply to seankenny:

Except that (as I believe you know) academic work suggests that societies "work" when the vast majority trust each other, the law, and the institutions of State. In successful societies, when a small majority don't, then the rest of society, led by a few activitists, will bring them into line.

However, once a significant minority don't have this "trust" and ignore the accepted standards of society, so the "activists" are outnumbered, the majority fail to support the "activists", and trust and behaviour break down on a large scale.

Many of the immigrants Africa and Asia come from places where such "trust" is weak or non existent. They can be absorbed into a European society and will adopt majority behaviours, in small or gradual numbers. But large numbers arriving and bringing their own "lack of trust" undermines the whole basis of how the host society functions. The host society loses the ability or will to impose it's standards of trust.

Your analogy of Europeans going to Africa and adopting local behaviours is thus a false analogy. It doesn't work the other way around. It s much easier to lose trust than to create it.

In reply to seankenny:

"You're scared. That's fine. But how about making a good case as to why you're scared, rather than making woo woo scary claims about crime and integration and needing helicopter gunships to keep the new arrivals in order?"

Winner of most patronizing post this week! lol You engage him on all his "fears" even admitting the "sex attacks" as legitimate then end it with this. Funniest post in a while..damned with faint praise....you definitely have an interesting style of arrogance

In reply to Postmanpat:




Interesting theory although I am not sure what is your evidence ? If indeed it is true, where is the threshold in terms of numbers we can actually take without undermining society, and are we even close to that threshold ?

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:



Yeah, I don't deal with idiots easily, but I did suggest plenty of things to alleviate the woo woo scary! Not sure if I should hyphenate that phrase, what do you think?

In reply to Postmanpat:





I am of course aware of this work, although I'm not sure it works quite as you make out. I think there's a lot more around governance standards and so on, rather than "activists". In the context of this debate it might be interesting to review what's happened on integrating East Germany, which certainly was a low-trust society before reunification. One wonders if the confidence of the German political class might come as a result of their experiences...

Your third paragraph assumes that all migrants here will want to replicate the behaviours of a low-trust, corrupt society. It's clear that this is a danger, Tower Hamlets comes to mind and perhaps local politics in Bradford (unsure about the later and happy to be corrected). But do we have evidence that the broad mass of migrants to the developed world desire or even are able to replicate the shitty aspects of their home countries? What numbers would be necessary to overturn the current good norms of our socities? The examples I've given above suggest that creating ghettos is absolutely to be avoided. We could do this, oooh I don't know, by ensuring the migrants are fairly well-spread across the continent in order to minimse the chances of this happening... Perhaps this requires a Europe-wide plan...

In reply to RomTheBear:


The leading work is by Robert Putnam(Harvard). Alesino and Glaeser (Harvard) have made related arguments. They and others are quoted in "Exodus" by Robert Collier, which also has various charts addressing your question about numbers etc.

I don't propose toe cut and paste all the arguments and evidence. Suffice to say that the willingness of significant sections of society to regard Mark Duggan as some sort of folk hero, or to deny or excuse the blatant electoral corruption in Tower Hamlets highlight the potential risks.
Supposing the highly politicised lawyers defending such people ever make it to the bench ? How will they judge such cases?

In reply to seankenny:



Well, you'll also be aware that the more and the quicker migrants arrive the more likely they are to stay within their own cultural ghettos in which, however much they might aspire to different values, they will constrained to maintain their original values-exactly what we see in Bradford and Tower Hamlets.

Frankly, the idea that we can have some sort of top down Europe wide fixed geographic allocation of migrant is totally impractical ( and undemocratic). It's just not going to happen.

I think the German example is highly misleading. East Germany was a low trust society but had only been so for a generation and shared an enormous cultural and behavioural heritage with the West. There have been problems even in that case.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Do we see the same in Leicester though? And after all that city is full of Ugandan Asians and nothing says low-trust society like a leader who keeps heads in his freezer. The question of course is can we replicate Leicester rather than Tower Hamlets, and can we see any signs that Syrians - who until 2011 lived in a middle-income country rather than a very poor one - have some of the positive attributes that Ugandan Asians might have?




Isn't a country-wide geographic allocation roughly what happens with asylum seekers in the UK?



So which is it? Either trust can be easily damaged, or 40 years of a low-trust environment makes little difference.

In reply to seankenny: " Yeah, I don't deal with idiots easily, but I did suggest plenty of things to alleviate the woo woo scary! Not sure if I should hyphenate that phrase, what do you think? "

I think the tint of rose that you sport in your lenses can only be matched by your amour propre . Re hyphens, I would suggest speech marks as "woo woo" is describing a siren. Not really my expertise, an onomatapoeia dictionary may help you?

In reply to Postmanpat:



Well, if you're saying there are figures at which point we need to be extremely careful, surely it's worth quoting them so we have something empirical to go on. Otherwise we're back with assertions such as "significant" support for Mark Duggan, which I'm extremely wary of.



Two answers suggest themselves. The sensible one is along the lines of surely this is why we have a system of appeal courts and so on? The more flippant one is ask women - they've had to put up with sexist judges for years but things seem to be moving in the right direction.

In reply to seankenny:


Off the top of my head Malmo, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart & Berlin. Quick link below:

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/25/full-extent-of-germany-migrant-s...

The deeper issue is how you co-ordinate a thousand sex offenders in one place on New Years Eve, or was that an unfortunate coincidence?


So how do you determine how the qualifications of someone with no identity papers, let alone a CV, stacks up against his claim to be a doctor?




Kosovo??


As I'm on my mobile excuse me for not providing extensive links, but we have:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-up-mass...

38,000 recorded crimes by asylum seekers in Germany 2014:
http://www.presseportal.de/pm/30621/3080198

A culture of sexual assaults in asylum centres:
http://mobil.ksta.de/koeln/-fluechtlinge-sexuelle-uebergriffe-sote,23742590...

Rape in Wolfsburg:
http://m.waz-online.de/Wolfsburg/Stadt-Wolfsburg/Schrecklich-Jugendlicher-i...

If I wanted a depressing lunch break, I'm sure I could find more.

Obviously the above are done by a minority of asylum seekers, but given rape isn't legal in the ME either it looks like there's a large number of undesirables in the mix.

Fortunately the Germans aren't at all worried or buying weapons :
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article149324141/Deutschland-hat-Angst-und-gr...

In reply to seankenny:


In that case do your own googling in future

In reply to Ridge:
When did I say everything?

Fishing yes, we stole we raped people's seas.

Having different fishery management zones is ludicrous. It's one area which makes 100% sense to have an EU level approach. You do realize fish aren't xenophobic idiots scared of borders?

The EU haven't been great in that sense but they are changing and a European level approach for us is the only way to go. We aren't like Norway.

I think you will find we were 100% wrong in the Icelandic case, hence why we apologized for sending vessels there. We should never have allowed that. We didn't respect the Icelandic zone, like we didn't anywhere else but you guys face short memories.

In reply to summo:


Go on what's the other side?

We were quite clearly wrong.

Yes Iceland was also wrong, so that excuses us f*cking them over? I've criticized them for their banking response.

You say the EU shouldn't be controlling out fishery. How does that work? We share sand banks with holland and numerous other countries. We'd have no say in their management, very little influence.

Ecologically the EU and a common fisheries policy is common sense, not that it has been a success. But a unified management system is the future and slowly things are improving, much better than when we managed it ourself anyway.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Except the CFP is the one reason that Iceland has no interest in being a member of the EU and has a 200 mile radius of waters. They think having the EU controlling fishing is a complete non starter to the point they threatened to leave NATO to keep the fish to themselves. *

* I am not saying they were wrong to do this, just that it isn't exactly an endorsement for EU fishing policy when coupled with the destruction of our own fishing industries

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:
Iceland different. Like Norway to some extent but Norway like us, even more do for us, shares so many nursery grounds. It's just nonsensical not to have a common approach, it was badly run, but it was the right idea.

In reply to seankenny:

>The question of course is can we replicate Leicester

Your aim is to replicate Leicester!?

In reply to Ridge:




I don't want to downplay the seriousness of these crimes. My partner was groped and I was threatened by a group of young male migrants a few years ago and it was all pretty unpleasant. (Kiwi Day in London, in case you were wondering. And no, I'm not making this up for effect.)

Equally, we shouldn't indulge in scare-mongering. And I quote: "Cologne-style sex attacks by migrant gangs occurred in 12 of Germany’s 16 states... Lower-Saxony, Brandeburg, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland...all received one complaint each."

Now the article doesn't say whether those single complaints were related to gangs, or general sexual harassment, and the article is unclear, given that the opening paragraph says "sex attacks" but a bit down it's widened out to include pick-pocketing.

To be clear: these crimes absolutely should be investigated, the participants charged, sentenced and hopefully deported afterwards. The media have a duty to cover them and the police have to talk about them. Anything less is terrible.

What I do have an issue with is the idea that these kinds of crimes represent a somehow existential problem for Europe.



It is, quite literally, child's play to get a bunch of people together these days:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206919/Riot-Facebook-party-attende...


I absolutely have no idea.


Agreed.





Running this article through Google Translate (I don't speak German), it says that the number of crimes by asylum seekers roughly doubled, whilst the number of asylum seekers went up by nearly four times. The German authorities are saying most of the violent crime actually takes place between asylum seekers in detention centres. It's all pretty grim, but it's not the end of European civilisation.









Agreed, it's horrible. But the report says the alleged rapist was arrested on the same day of the attack, which is a far cry from the "out of control violence" which you're suggesting is going to happen.


We definitely need to ensure that as many women, children and families are being let in as possible.

In reply to seankenny:

With the recent issues of G4S and the doors, it is interesting to see where the asylum seekers are being housed. It is certainly in low housing cost areas and I reckon there is no real aternative to this. Housing them in high costs areas such as London etc is just not realistic or cost effective. Have any studies been done about how this impacts on the local communities in those areas? Or is it just to early to say?

In reply to neilh:

The doors were painted red 20 years ago, a complete non-story http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/news-from-todays-select-committee-the-...

In reply to The Ice Doctor: I live in Norway and I've applied for citizenship as this will be a royal p,i,t,a for many expats. Changing nationality puts me in a prime position to profit

In reply to Roadrunner5:


Not so straight forward as the fishing rights and saga goes back to the 14 or 1500s. Roughly a 100 years ago Denmark ran Iceland and the Faroes, with a UK fishing agreement of 50nm from Iceland. A Danish gunboat 'claimed' that a UK trawler had broken this and physically fired at the trawler more than once. The rest among many other incidents is as they say history.

Iceland had hissy fit, when really it was the UK fisherman that were fired at and should have been upset. The French would be been a bit more dramatic than the UK had this happened to their fishermen. Anyway, Iceland blackmailed NATO, who feared losing control of the North Atlantic if Iceland withdrew from NATO and UK was hand a rough deal of 200nm limit, quadruple what it previously was, well shafted.

In reply to summo:

Hold on Iceland had a hissy fit to protect one of its only natural resources. It has fishing, heat and a convenient location. It doesn't have much more else.

It was 12 nautical miles and the British Government announced it would send naval vessels with their fishing vessels to fish inside. The wars started in the 1950's really.

To protect their own fish stocks that was quite sensible as 4 miles means nothing. Even 12 miles is a joke, especially when you consider migrations such as the mackerel.

We had no righto go and fish other peoples resources but did so as we thought the world was ours.

Mackerel are a great example of why we should have once policy and Iceland has suffered when the EU and Norway allocated themselves 90% of the TAC for mackerel.. meaning Iceland and the Faroes had to have the remaining 10% and basically were the tail to the EU's dog. That is what we will be if we left the EU and the CFP. We will still share the same stocks, the same nursery grounds, we'll just have no say on the TACs. We would get screwed over. We could just fish more but to the detriment of the stock, and our fishing industry again..

As I said it is entirely nonsensical to approach fishery management in a country by country way, especially for those species like mackerel which migrate through so many territories.

The EU has issues, and the CFP does, but there is NO ecological or scientific argument for removing the management at that level.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Care to link anything that contradicts my 50nm being extend to 200. No idea where you get 12 or 4 from.

In reply to RyanOsborne:


No, why do you ask?

In reply to RomTheBear:


We do not.


That would be a good thing.


No, it may mean that the application process for UK workers to work within the EU is a little more stringent.



Well I would query the "lot of cost", but, on balance I think it would work in the UK's favour.