Brexit: A New Era for the UK?

[Stavros]

Thanks. Which EU countries couldn't you live and/or work in now if you wanted to?

Context is what matters here -when I worked in France in the 1970s I did not need a work permit because the work was temporary and exempt from the regulation. The Single Market opened up opportunities in all sectors without the need for regulation for citizens of member countries.

The supporters of Brexit who have trumpeted a country free of EU regulation now find that to work in the EU UK citizens need to conform to regulations because the UK is no longer a member of the Single Market -just as EU citizens need to meet certain requitements to work in the UK, unless there is a crisis like there is now which allows the very same Brexit Fanatics to relax the rules to cover their own arses.

UK citizens no longer have the freedom to even visit the EU for as long as they like, being obliged to leave after 90 days.
https://www.frenchentree.com/brexit/...-how-it-works/

Meawhile, there is a shortage of labour because EU citizens don't want to work in the EU, or cannot be allowed in because the jobs they do does't pay up to or beyond a limit set by the UK Govt, so freedom is lost both ways.

“We had a lot of European chefs,” said Creely, who also runs the flagship Ezra & Gil on nearby Hilton Street, “but a lot of people left after Brexit. Brexit is massively responsible for the problem, particularly when it comes to chef shortages.”
At Dimitri’s, which has a red “Vote Love” sign in the window – a play on the “Vote Leave” posters that appeared everywhere during the 2016 referendum – Benson agreed. “We need to let the Europeans back in to work. It never should have stopped.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business...-in-manchester

The devil was always in the detail, and the devil is shrieking with laughter.

[Stavros]

Conference season means only one thing -waffling bollocks from politicians playing to their base. The days of real drama, when Kinnock rescued Labour from Militant are long gone, but in Manchester, the Conservatives are revealing that they don't want to talk about their Brexit even as they can't avoid it. With supply chains issues the 'critical' issue of the day, threatening Christmas dinner without Turkey (which I haven't eaten at Christmas since, I think, 1983), Boris Johnson and his Bo Selectas are blaming employers for preferring cheap labour to the business acument that innovates to survive, thus:

"What I think needs to happen there is a question about the types of jobs that are being done, the pay that is being offered, the levels of automation, the levels of investment in those jobs ... What we can’t do is in all these sectors simply go back to the tired, failed, old model, reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration, get people in [on] low wages." (But Johnson then says he is in favour of 'controlled immigration')...

Other Tories, in private/off-the-record statements are frank:


“Business was served notice in the referendum that all this [cheap labour] is ending,” says one minister. “They didn’t invest, so now they’re paying the price.”
And this is what’s so interesting: the number of Tories talking about business getting its just deserts, seeing the current chaos as a painful but necessary war of nerves. “Boris was quite right: f--- business,” one senior Tory says, referring to a now-notorious remark the prime minister made about corporate lobbyists. “They haven’t innovated, haven’t automated. Now they’ll have to – and pay up.” Striking language for the party that was, once, the party of business."

But what does business say?

Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, said it was “nonsense” to claim the problems in the sector were all down to low wages. He said:

"The idea that we have just been dependent on cheap labour, we haven’t been investing in infrastructure, is utter nonsense.
It is lot more complicated than that. Even though we have increased wages quite dramatically, we are still not getting people wanting to do that job.

He said pig farmers were facing a “nightmare scenario”, and he said the government should relax visa rules to all skilled workers from abroad to enter the country to fill vacancies."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-politics-live

[filghy2]

And this is what’s so interesting: the number of Tories talking about business getting its just deserts, seeing the current chaos as a painful but necessary war of nerves. “Boris was quite right: f--- business,” one senior Tory says, referring to a now-notorious remark the prime minister made about corporate lobbyists. “They haven’t innovated, haven’t automated. Now they’ll have to – and pay up.” Striking language for the party that was, once, the party of business."

The political right is totally incoherent on the role of the market nowadays. The Thatcher-Reagan free market paradigm was over-simplistic in ignoring many important realities, but it has been replaced with a dog's breakfast. As I've said before, the right is not really about free markets or small government any more. It's mostly about cultural tribalism, and their attitude toward business depends on whether they serve that goal or not.

Maybe business should have invested more in workforce skills, technological innovation, etc, but isn't it the role of government to implement policies to ensure that happens? These quotes are an abrogation of responsibility.

[Stavros]

Maybe business should have invested more in workforce skills, technological innovation, etc, but isn't it the role of government to implement policies to ensure that happens? These quotes are an abrogation of responsibility.

You make an important point, because it seems to me that the allure of political power is too great for even the most hardened Libertarian to let it go -Johnson, Gove, Rees-Mogg can make as many statements as they like about markets, but they are not going to trade in their chauffeured limousines, their tax-payer funded country estates and the High Table mentality that goes with it, to hand over power to small and medium sized businesses, or even the Billionaire Hedge Funds and Sovereign Funds of oil-rich Sultans and Kings.

More pertinent is the view of Larry Elliot in the link below which discusses just-in-time wrorking methods and the global supply chains which work well until there is a crisis, when it ceases to work at all. The irony of those who pitch Globalists against Patriots, is that the reliance/dependency on JiTand Supply Chain productiona and distribution is what made them and their backers very rich indeed. Whether or not the UK can repatriate production from China/Asia to deal with Supply Chain issues is possibe, but as a country with low productivity ,poor training and stagnant wages (though HGV drivers might become the richest workers in the UK, if anyone can find them), the UK with its colossal debt does not look like it is going to get out of the moribund state is is now in.

And we have yet to even see a serious start to the negtiations on Services with the EU. Given that David Frost negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol which he (and the DUP) now says is unacceptable (Arlene Foster says it should be scrapped immedately), what hope is there that this Government will negotiate a good deal with the EU on what constitutes the greater part of the UK economy?

Brexit over? It has barely got started.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...economic-model

[mrtrebus]

Thanks. Which EU countries couldn't you live and/or work in now if you wanted to?

I don't have an automatic right to live and/or work in any EU country now.

[obslam]

I don't have an automatic right to live and/or work in any EU country now.

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

[Stavros]

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

A misleading post, thus-

“UK citizens do not need a visa or residency permit to live, work or study in Ireland. Under the Common Travel Area (CTA), UK and Irish citizens can live and work freely in each other’s countries and travel freely between them. Both the UK and Irish governments are committed to protecting the CTA. Read our guidance on the CTA.”
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/living-in-ireland

The CTA has been in force with amendments since the 1920s and is thus an agreement independent of the EU.

[obslam]

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

[Stavros]

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

In a liberal democracy, we extend rights and respect to minorities, and do not intend to limit the freedom of the individual, the freedom of expression, freedom of movement.

My freedom of movement into and out of the EU (but not the Republic of Ireland) has been taken away by Brexit, just as a new Bill before Parliament threatens to remove my right to engage in free expression on the Internet.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politic...edom-of-speech

[Jericho]

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

You could have....But that would have been more obfuscation, too.

You can polish that turd until the world runs out of J-Cloth, but Brexit Britain is
Shit Today,
Shit yesterday.
And by golly, it's going to be shit tomorrow!