EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[najaB]

If the UK wanted to leave Europe, that would be the case.

What are you on about?

 

[meridian2]

What are you on about?

Remainers like to conflate the idea of "Europe" the group of independent nations of the continental landmass, with the European Union. Britain has no issue with our neighbours - I'm pro European and a regular visitor to our neighbours overseas - the only negotiation to be had is leaving the legal and monetary framework of the EU. It's important to separate the two lest ideologists blur national sovereignty into xenophobia. That's "WTF" I'm "on about".

 

[EM2]

...the only negotiation to be had is leaving the legal and monetary framework of the EU.

So in other words, the treaties that form our membership of the EU?

 

[meridian2]

So in other words, the treaties that form our membership of the EU?

The issue is withdrawing from the treaties in a mutually equitable way. The mechanisms for doing so are not clear because no major contributor has tried to previously.

 

[najaB]

Remainers like to conflate the idea of "Europe" the group of independent nations of the continental landmass, with the European Union.

Maybe the people you know, but nobody I know thinks we're going to up anchor and sail the country away to America. :roll:

 

[meridian2]

Maybe the people you know, but nobody I know thinks we're going to up anchor and sail the country away to America. :roll:

Not sure what your point is. Mine is that I'd like to see the power of the EU much reduced, and hope the UK can be an exemplar of how a nation can successfully extract itself from a union that has exceeded all its original intentions. Failing that, I'd like Brexit to be a warning to other European countries of how the EU deals with dissenters. I'm completely unapologetic about those views, and would like to return to a close relationship with neighbouring countries untethered by EU bureaucracy. Sailing away to America or anywhere else is pure rhetoric.

 

[najaB]

Not sure what your point is.

My point is that I don't know anyone who conflates leaving the European Union with somehow leaving the continent of Europe as you suggest most 'remainers' do.

 

[EM2]

...and would like to return to a close relationship with neighbouring countries untethered by EU bureaucracy.

But any negotiation will involve EU bureaucracy, as will any future relationship with any EU members, because they'll be subject to that settlement. Therefore, you'd surely be better just waiting out the two-year period, if no EU influence is what you want?

 

[Bromley boy]

My point is that I don't know anyone who conflates leaving the European Union with somehow leaving the continent of Europe as you suggest most 'remainers' do.

Quite a lot of remainers conflate being anti-EU with being anti-European, which I believe was the point being made.

 

[meridian2]

Quite a lot of remainers conflate being anti-EU with being anti-European, which I believe was the point being made.

Precisely, Europe is used as a synonym for a political union with a brief history and a strong ideology. That ignores what Europe meant for very much longer.

 

[EM2]

Record numbers of EU nurses quit NHS

The number of EU nationals registering as nurses in England has dropped by 92% since the Brexit referendum in June, and a record number are quitting the NHS, it can be revealed.

The shock figures have prompted warnings that Theresa May’s failure to offer assurances to foreigners living in the UK is exacerbating a staffing crisis in the health service.

Only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other European nations in December 2016 – a drop from 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum.

At the same time, freedom of information responses compiled by the Liberal Democrats from 80 of the 136 NHS acute trusts in England show that 2,700 EU nurses left the health service in 2016, compared to 1,600 EU nurses in 2014 – a 68% increase.

The haemorrhaging of foreign staff is being blamed by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on the failure of the government to provide EU nationals in the UK with any security about their future. May has claimed that Britain cannot act unilaterally to guarantee residency as it would weaken her hand in the coming article 50 negotiations over Brexit.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said the government’s tactic was backfiring, and now threatened the sustainability of the health service.

“The government risks turning off the supply of qualified nurses from around the world at the very moment the health service is in a staffing crisis like never before,” she said. “As she pulls the trigger to begin negotiations, the prime minister must tell EU nurses and those in other occupations that they are needed and welcome in the NHS. Sadly, it is no surprise that EU staff are leaving – they have been offered no security or reassurance that they will be able to keep their jobs. Few are able to live with such uncertainty.

“The government has failed to train enough British nurses and cannot afford to lose the international workforce on which the NHS so heavily relies.”

There are an estimated 57,000 EU nationals working for the NHS, including 10,000 doctors and 20,000 nurses. On Saturday the Liberal Democrats passed a motion at their spring conference in York calling for a guaranteed right to live and work in the UK for all EU citizens working in the NHS and care services.

The former Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb said that the government’s attitude to EU nationals in the UK was “deeply damaging”, and that the creation of a so-called “NHS passport” could be a vital step. “These shocking figures show you can’t have a strong NHS and a hard Brexit,” he said. “The government’s refusal to guarantee that nurses from the EU can stay here is not only morally unjustifiable, it is deeply damaging for the NHS.

“Theresa May must urgently give EU nationals the certainty they need before we see an even bigger exodus of nurses on whom our health service relies.”

Joan Pons Laplana, a Spanish national and a senior nurse at the James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth, who came to the UK 17 years ago, told the Observer that he had personally witnessed the collapse in morale of foreign nurses.

“Since Brexit, I feel like a second-class citizen,” he said. “My son asked me if I was going to be forced back to Spain and my daughter doesn’t want to visit her grandparents because she fears I will not be able to come back.

“The UK is no longer the first choice for EU nurses. The uncertain future means many they are starting to leave. We are people with feelings, not a commodity at the Brexit table.”

The NHS is already under pressure because of a long-term failure to hire enough people. Applications for nursing courses plummeted by almost a quarter in a year after the government axed bursaries for trainees in 2016. Numbers fell by 9,990 to 33,810 in 12 months, according to figures released in February by the university admissions service Ucas. Meanwhile, one in three nurses is due to retire in the next 10 years and there are 24,000 nurse jobs unfilled, RCN figures show.

The Department of Health said: “While the stock of nurses is broadly stable, some of the changes described are owing to the introduction of more rigorous language testing. The secretary of state has repeatedly said that overseas workers form a crucial part of our NHS and that we value their contribution immensely.

“We continue to invest in the frontline, with 13,400 more nurses on our wards since May 2010 and over 52,000 nurses in training.”

 

[Railops]

President Erdogan has today told muslim Turks living in Europe to "get revenge on the west"
have as many children as possible as "you are the future of Europe".

 

[EM2]

President Erdogan has today told muslim Turks living in Europe to "get revenge on the west"
have as many children as possible as "you are the future of Europe".

Turkey isn't a member of the EU and is unlikely to fulfil the criteria for joining the EU any time soon, so I'm not really sure how this is relevant.

 

[Railops]

Turkey isn't a member of the EU and is unlikely to fulfil the criteria for joining the EU any time soon, so I'm not really sure how this is relevant.

He's talking about the Turks already in Europe, his interior minister is also threatening to 'blow the mind' of Europe by sending 15,000 economic migrants every month directly to Europe.

 

[EM2]

He's talking about the Turks already in Europe, his interior minister is also threatening to 'blow the mind' of Europe by sending 15,000 economic migrants every month directly to Europe.

Yes, but they aren't in the EU. That means that they aren't EU migrants, so the UK leaving the EU has absolutely no bearing on this whatsoever.

 

[meridian2]

Turkey isn't a member of the EU and is unlikely to fulfil the criteria for joining the EU any time soon, so I'm not really sure how this is relevant.

"Following the Brexit, the strategy plans of the EU suggest deeper integration between member states and closer and deeper ties with Turkey, signaling an intent to press ahead with plans to provide Turks with visa-free travel which was evaluated as a signal that EU may give compromise to Turkey in remaining benchmarks for visa liberation, namely the anti-terror laws of Turkey, following the June 2016 Istanbul airport bombing".

Accession of Turkey to the European Union Wikipedia page.

 

[EM2]

'Suggest...intent...may give...'.
And even if all that comes to pass, we'll have left the EU, so how does it affect the UK?

 

[Railops]

Yes, but they aren't in the EU. That means that they aren't EU migrants, so the UK leaving the EU has absolutely no bearing on this whatsoever.

The UK leaving the EU has nothing to do with it.

 

[AlterEgo]

The UK leaving the EU has nothing to do with it.

So why mention it, if it is not relevant to Britain leaving the EU?

 

[EM2]

The UK leaving the EU has nothing to do with it.

So why mention it on a thread discussing the EU?

 

[Railops]

So why mention it on a thread discussing the EU?

I see, it's now forbidden to slightly deviate from the absolute and only subject of the thread - says you.
Sometimes rather than start a new thread on a related subject it's quite normal to mention it on an already running one - says me.

 

[EM2]

I see, it's now forbidden to slightly deviate from the absolute and only subject of the thread - says you.

Not at all, but it has no relevance. Turkey is not in the EU, so any migrants from Turkey are not affected by the free movement of people that is an EU principle, and if they do ever join the EU or are permitted free movement, the UK will have left, so their free movement will still not affect the UK.

 

[meridian2]

'Suggest...intent...may give...'.
And even if all that comes to pass, we'll have left the EU, so how does it affect the UK?

It won't, at least directly. However the population of Turkey has risen from 27m when its EU membership was first mooted, to 90m today, making it the biggest "European" country by some measure (ahead of Germany's 81m). Turkey's membership would change the EU's historic, cultural and religious powerbase in unprecedented ways, but its European Union status is still very much on the agenda, and unless something drastic happens within Brussels meantime, is inevitable.

 

[najaB]

...its European Union status is still very much on the agenda, and unless something drastic happens within Brussels meantime, is inevitable.

It's on the agenda, but exceedly unlikely to happen any time soon absent significant changes in the Turkish government.

 

[EM2]

...its European Union status is still very much on the agenda, and unless something drastic happens within Brussels meantime, is inevitable.

Really?
I notice you didn't quote this passage from the Wikipedia page you read:

On 24 November 2016 the European Parliament voted to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey over human rights and rule of law concerns, however this decision is not binding. On 13 December, the European Council (comprising the heads of state or government of the member states) resolved that it would open no new areas in Turkey's membership talks in the "prevailing circumstances", as Turkey’s path toward autocratic rule makes progress on EU accession impossible.

 

[Domh245]

It's on the agenda, but exceedly unlikely to happen any time soon absent significant changes in the Turkish government.

And with the current significant changes being pursued by the Turkish Government, it'll be double the changes to make.

 

[meridian2]

It's on the agenda, but exceedly unlikely to happen any time soon absent significant changes in the Turkish government.

Depends what you mean by soon. Negotiations to meet the acquis communautaire are very much live and continuing. Turkey's membership is far from a distant aspiration.

 

[Bromley boy]

'Suggest...intent...may give...'.
And even if all that comes to pass, we'll have left the EU, so how does it affect the UK?

The EU's direction of travel towards further integration with Turkey, including visa free travel to EU member states for Turkish citizens, is very worrying in itself. The EU's "positive agenda" towards Turkey makes it very obvious which way things are going.

Frankly, closer integration with Turkey sounds about as sensible as Merkel's approach to so called "refugees". Which has done so much good for Germany, I don't think.

It's one of the many reasons why I voted for Brexit.

 

[meridian2]

Really?
I notice you didn't quote this passage from the Wikipedia page you read:

Didn't miss it at all. A change of president could be all it takes.

 

[najaB]

Depends what you mean by soon. Negotiations to meet the acquis communautaire are very much live and continuing. Turkey's membership is far from a distant aspiration.

I suppose on geological scales it will be a blink of the eye, but given the trajectory of Turkish politics under Erdogan I doubt it will happen this side of 2025.