Brexit matters

[najaB]

Really? So you wouldn't count the UK away from the EU managing a far more efficient/faster initial Covid vaccine rollout that probably saved tens of thousands of lives and allowed us to open up when the rest of the EU was mostly still stuck in Covid-lockdowns as something 'gone right'?

There was no part of the vaccine rollout that could not have been done in exactly the same way if we had remained in the EU. We didn't leave the EU Medicines Agency until the Transition Agreement ended on December 31 2020, the first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was delivered almost a month before that.

So, having acknowledged that it's bad that many industries can't get the staff they need (and I think we both agree that is a bad thing), let's make sure we understand the other side: Roll back 7-8 years and look at the situation the UK was in prior to Brexit: Loads of desperate people in the UK unable to find a job because in many industries - and particularly low-skilled areas: Retail, etc., there were vastly more people looking for work than there were jobs available (and it's reasonably clear now that Freedom of Movement was contributing to that situation). Do you believe it was a good thing or a bad thing that so many people were unable to get jobs?

It's a bad thing. But here we have Schrodinger's Immigrants again - sitting around not doing anything because they've taken all the job.

FoM gave immigrants no advantage in the job market - if there was an immigrant in a job that a UK native didn't get then perhaps the problem was the UK native?

 

[reddragon]

Really? So you wouldn't count the UK away from the EU managing a far more efficient/faster initial Covid vaccine rollout that probably saved tens of thousands of lives and allowed us to open up when the rest of the EU was mostly still stuck in Covid-lockdowns as something 'gone right'?

People keep citing the disadvantages of ending freedom of movement - like the staff shortages in some industries. Yet no-one seems to mention the advantages: Less pressure on housing and services, lower unemployment, and higher wages. Do people being able to find jobs and getting higher wages not count as something 'gone right'?

Having said that, realistically, you're always going to mostly see things that have gone wrong because things that go right are generally not considered newsworthy, so we rarely hear about them. That's true in general, not just for Brexit. (Unrelated example that illustrates the point: Remember how the Elizabeth Line was always in the news when construction was was getting delayed. Have you noticed that now it's all running smoothly, it's almost never in the news - except on the days when something goes wrong!).

Sadly, the EU vaccine approval team was based in London and the EU lacked the technical capabilities to approve the vaccine in the way we did. If we had still been in the EU the vaccine would have been approved quicker across Europe at the same time so our 'gain' was at the cost of thousands of extra lives lost across Europe. I really do not see that as a gain, just selfishness.

I see no reduction of pressure on housing stock in the South East, the opposite in fact. The loss of labour dwarfs the reduction in demand for services, we already had very low unemployment now it's critically low and higher wages just have to be paid for by consumers. Higher wages do not address the imbalance of pay Tory policies created.

So what are these things that have gone right that were not working before Brexit?

 

[AlterEgo]

Private companies are telling tbe UK government to relax rules to let them fill vacancies too as they can't get the staff locally.

You mean they won't pay the staff what they're worth.

So no, the over availability of jobs that were once popular amoung EU citizens is not a good thing at all as so many people here simply aren't applying for those jobs, so we were worse off as a result.

You probably aren't a truck driver or a supermarket worker. Those industries have seen inflation-matching, and sometimes -busting pay rises.

If it was a win the country would not be screaming out for staff in these sectors.

"People should be able to come in as they please and do the jobs, a huge labour market is great!" - typical big business owner who wants cheap labour.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2022 ==

Sadly, the EU vaccine approval team was based in London and the EU lacked the technical capabilities to approve the vaccine in the way we did. If we had still been in the EU the vaccine would have been approved quicker across Europe at the same time so our 'gain' was at the cost of thousands of extra lives lost across Europe. I really do not see that as a gain, just selfishness.

How on earth you can possibly see our vaccine rollout as selfish is mind-boggling and typical of the mindset which makes Remain and Rejoin so unpalatable. We lost because of this sort of self-loathing.

 

[RT4038]

Clearly the ending of FOM has been a disaster for some industries. Airports, hospitality, care homes, Hauliers, farming and the NHS are crying out for staff and in some cases special visas had to be quickly offered to EU citizens to beg them to come back. Private companies are telling tbe UK government to relax rules to let them fill vacancies too as they can't get the staff locally.

So no, the over availability of jobs that were once popular amoung EU citizens is not a good thing at all as so many people here simply aren't applying for those jobs, so we were worse off as a result. If it was a win the country would not be screaming out for staff in these sectors.

The ending of FOM doesn't preclude the UK Government from issuing working visas - it merely allows for the control of the numbers, who they are, where they come from, skills, jobs and living locations (potentially). FoM only ended the unfettered 'right'.

 

[reddragon]

How on earth you can possibly see our vaccine rollout as selfish is mind-boggling and typical of the mindset which makes Remain and Rejoin so unpalatable. We lost because of this sort of self-loathing.

How does enabling the EU to roll out the vaccine faster = self loathing?

 

[najaB]

You probably aren't a truck driver or a supermarket worker. Those industries have seen inflation-matching, and sometimes -busting pay rises.

And the nurse who is having to work longer hours, on a wage that's gone up less than the rate of inflation is made up for them.

The ending of FOM doesn't preclude the UK Government from issuing working visas - it merely allows for the control of the numbers, who they are, where they come from, skills, jobs and living locations (potentially). FoM only ended the unfettered 'right'.

You do know that the UK had powers to require people to leave if they weren't actively working or engaged in the search for work, no?

 

[AlterEgo]

How does enabling the EU to roll out the vaccine faster = self loathing?

Why do you think the UK - which was not in the European Union - doing its rollout as fast as possible and with as many resources as possible, saving thousands of lives here, is selfish?

Are you actually blaming the UK for excess deaths in other EU countries, which had their own, very ample opportunities to do this? Many EU countries are wealthier than we are!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2022 ==

And the nurse who is having to work longer hours, on a wage that's gone up less than the rate of inflation is made up for them.

Nurses are deliberately paid like **** so people can use this line emotively. Don't fall into the trap.

 

[najaB]

Nurses are deliberately paid like **** so people can use this line emotively. Don't fall into the trap.

Teachers. Care workers. Cleaners. Hospitality staff. Shop workers. Clerical staff. Call centre workers....

 

[reddragon]

The ending of FOM doesn't preclude the UK Government from issuing working visas - it merely allows for the control of the numbers, who they are, where they come from, skills, jobs and living locations (potentially). FoM only ended the unfettered 'right'.

The numbers of British people moving from the North, cities like Liverpool, Glasgow & Sunderland to the South East dwarfs the immigration from the EU. Should we also control this too? Keep the Welsh / Northerners / Scottish or whoever else out? Why?

Maybe instead we should be investing in the north to help them grow instead of endless construction in London!

I do agree that immigration into the UK was a massive problem that had to be controlled but not as bad as the devastation caused in cities in eastern Europe devoid of young or skilled working people moving elsewhere in Europe.

We needed balance to solve the problem not the nuclear option!

 

[Cloud Strife]

Roll back 7-8 years and look at the situation the UK was in prior to Brexit: Loads of desperate people in the UK unable to find a job because in many industries - and particularly low-skilled areas: Retail, etc., there were vastly more people looking for work than there were jobs available (and it's reasonably clear now that Freedom of Movement was contributing to that situation). Do you believe it was a good thing or a bad thing that so many people were unable to get jobs?

The problem wasn't finding a job, the problem was finding a job that was actually worthwhile. The UK benefits system is and was set up in such a way that it didn't reward work, and the ridiculously complicated benefits system didn't/doesn't allow for people to work on an ad-hoc basis. Then there were the countless horror stories of people being denied benefits or having problems because their circumstances have changed, meaning that it didn't pay off to take on temporary work.

Then there was the cruel reality that people also didn't want to do the jobs out there. Let's take jobs such as being a hospital porter or caring. They're hard, difficult, thankless jobs where you're treated badly by almost everyone. If you were only going to be slightly better off by working a grueling 40 hours, well, I'd also rather stay at home and watch telly.

Take truck driving as an example. For years, employers have had real difficulties in finding people. It's not a physically demanding job anymore, there are low barriers to entry and it can be done by anyone irrespective of gender or strength. Yet, the working conditions were and are dire. People have to sleep in laybys or industrial estates, they don't have the means to cook and live properly in their cabs, they have problems accessing toilets and showers, they're often expected to sit in a dingy waiting room when waiting for loads to be dealt with, and so on. The jobs were there, but people rightfully refused to work in such conditions.

 

[AlterEgo]

Teachers. Care workers. Cleaners. Hospitality staff. Shop workers. Clerical staff. Call centre workers....

I've done every single one of those jobs apart from teaching while we were in the EU and got paid ****e and treated the same, often on zero hours contracts.

No, companies must treat and pay their existing staff better and a tight labour market for a while is fine by me. I'm supporting this summer's strikes and accepting the consequences of supply chain issues and airport/airline staffing even though they personally affect me negatively as something that's simply got to happen.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I do agree that immigration into the UK was a massive problem that had to be controlled but not as bad as the devastation caused in cities in eastern Europe devoid of young or skilled working people moving elsewhere in Europe.

This is a huge, huge issue in eastern Poland right now. There are multiple reasons for this, not only FoM, but it's very clear that FoM allowed for young skilled people to actually escape.

 

[RT4038]

FoM gave immigrants no advantage in the job market - if there was an immigrant in a job that a UK native didn't get then perhaps the problem was the UK native?

UK natives [those who have been here a long time, rather than any ethnic distinction] are not all created equal and there are always a proportion who are unable to compete that well in the job market. However, if there is a large influx of immigrants (as happened with FoM) who are better then them, they will be pushed out entirely.
I live in an area of large FoM influx. It is well known that there are places of employment where UK natives are not welcome because they do not speak the appropriate language.
It is not difficult to see why some people do not see FoM to their advantage.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I've done every single one of those jobs apart from teaching while we were in the EU and got paid ****e and treated the same, often on zero hours contracts.

Zero hour contracts and benefits also don't work very well together. I have zero experience personally with Universal Credit, but it's painfully obvious that it should have been designed to pay people weekly in accordance with their previous week's earnings, not monthly.

 

[najaB]

UK natives [those who have been here a long time, rather than any ethnic distinction] are not all created equal and there are always a proportion who are unable to compete that well in the job market. However, if there is a large influx of immigrants (as happened with FoM) who are better then them, they will be pushed out entirely.

So, given the choice between fixing the UK education system (both early and continuing) so that the UK workforce has the skills needed to compete on a global market or closing the door and pretending that everything is fine we chose the latter. That's going to work out well.

I live in an area of large FoM influx. It is well known that there are places of employment where UK natives are not welcome because they do not speak the appropriate language.

See above.

It is not difficult to see why some people do not see FoM to their advantage.

And it's not difficult to see why those in power find it easier to blame 'the outsider' rather than fixing things that are broken about our own society.

 

[dosxuk]

Really? So you wouldn't count the UK away from the EU managing a far more efficient/faster initial Covid vaccine rollout that probably saved tens of thousands of lives and allowed us to open up when the rest of the EU was mostly still stuck in Covid-lockdowns as something 'gone right'?

Absolutely not - firstly, we could have done things exactly the same anyway even as full members; secondly, if we were working together with the EU, maybe things would have been released even quicker.

That people are having to constantly parrot the "we got our jabs out first" as some sort of big win against the EU just reminds me of the "two world wars and one world cup" mentality. It's certainly nothing to be proud of, even if it does sound good when Boris uses it to avoid answering questions.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sadly, the EU vaccine approval team was based in London and the EU lacked the technical capabilities to approve the vaccine in the way we did. If we had still been in the EU the vaccine would have been approved quicker across Europe at the same time so our 'gain' was at the cost of thousands of extra lives lost across Europe. I really do not see that as a gain, just selfishness.

Riiight. So in other words, the EU fails to adequately to prepare the technical capabilities to do vaccine approval. And somehow, that's the fault of the UK being selfish?

So, just to confirm, if, hypothetically, the vaccine situation had been the reverse, and the EU had done spectacularly well at getting vaccines out while the UK had failed miserably, you would of course in that situation be blaming the UK's failure on the EU for being selfish, right? You wouldn't at all be saying that the fault was the UK Government being incompetent?

 

[SynthD]

Andrew Neil asked David Davis if there were any Brexit benefits, Davis couldn’t give one. Why is a discussion between them so fruitless?

The point about being able to control immigration (with the massive caveat given above) seems to be rewriting what many Leave voters cared about. I'm interested in how popular the reality is, where the people coming in look more different to us than before.

Why are nurses underpaid is a question for another thread. Maybe the ‘where will it go wrong for the Tories’.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The point about being able to control immigration (with the massive caveat given above) seems to be rewriting what many Leave voters cared about. I'm interested in how popular the reality is, where the people coming in look more different to us than before.

I suspect a lot of Leave voters didn't pay attention to the message in British Asian communities: vote for Leave and we'll give more visas to your families.

 

[najaB]

Riiight. So in other words, the EU fails to adequately to prepare the technical capabilities to do vaccine approval. And somehow, that's the fault of the UK being selfish?

Thing is, the EU did adequately prepare the technical capabilities to do vaccine approval. They based it in the EU's third-biggest country and the EU country that was best placed and had the best-skilled people to do the work.

We then decided to take the ball and go home.

 

[JamesT]

Thing is, the EU did adequately prepare the technical capabilities to do vaccine approval. They based it in the EU's third-biggest country and the EU country that was best placed and had the best-skilled people to do the work.

We then decided to take the ball and go home.

I'm rather confused by this. According to https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/annual-report-2020/brexit-and-relocation.html the EU Medicines Agency had already relocated out of the UK before the pandemic. Unless they had a huge number of staff that refused to move, the EU had the capability they had before for approvals. PLus, as we're repeatedly told, much of this was devolved to national health organisations within the EU so the UK being in or out makes no difference.
I'm also confused at the statement that it was a technical issue with approving the vaccines. My understanding was that the problem was with procurement. The EU leaders had made a political decision to procure vaccines centrally and it was at an EU level that they didn't have the experience to get that done rapidly. Whereas the UK was able to negotiate fast delivery of vaccines in volume. If we had remained in the EU, we would presumably have been under pressure to commit to the central procurement and wait for that.

 

[najaB]

I'm rather confused by this. According to https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/annual-report-2020/brexit-and-relocation.html the EU Medicines Agency had already relocated out of the UK before the pandemic. Unless they had a huge number of staff that refused to move, the EU had the capability they had before for approvals.

It takes time to build up competencies and rebuild organisational structures.

 

[edwin_m]

I suspect that many people who voted for Brexit didn't do so on economic grounds. They just wanted not to be bossed around by Berlin/Brussels, had had enough of too many foreigners, and/or wanted to put down the snobbish Cameron and his swarmy acolytes. I suspect that Cameron wouldn't have called the referendum, or would at least have set a higher bar for Brexit, if he had thought that there was even a remote possibility that he would lose it.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge, and Perfidious Albion is now as popular in the EU (particularly in the original 6 EEC founder states) as the other 2 European pariahs (Belarus/Russia), so there is no way back in the foreseeable future.

You spoil a good point with a ridiculous comparison. UK government may not exactly be popular with other countries, but as far as I'm aware none of them are supplying weapons to defend a country we've invaded.

So, having acknowledged that it's bad that many industries can't get the staff they need (and I think we both agree that is a bad thing), let's make sure we understand the other side: Roll back 7-8 years and look at the situation the UK was in prior to Brexit: Loads of desperate people in the UK unable to find a job because in many industries - and particularly low-skilled areas: Retail, etc., there were vastly more people looking for work than there were jobs available (and it's reasonably clear now that Freedom of Movement was contributing to that situation). Do you believe it was a good thing or a bad thing that so many people were unable to get jobs?

Employment in the UK - Office for National Statistics

Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK.

www.ons.gov.uk

The unemployment rate had generally been falling since late 2013 until the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There was no part of the vaccine rollout that could not have been done in exactly the same way if we had remained in the EU. We didn't leave the EU Medicines Agency until the Transition Agreement ended on December 31 2020, the first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was delivered almost a month before that.

But would we have gone our own way if we'd been in the EU? Suppose the referendum result had produced a Remain vote, which would probably have lead to a continuing pro-EU Cameron/Osborne Government? How likely is it that such a Government, still operating within the EU would have said, in effect, 'Stuff you guys! We're going to do all the vaccine stuff ourselves!'? Of course it's unknowable and speculative. But it seems pretty unlikely that we'd have gone our own way.

The reality is that Brexit has had all sorts of both good and bad consequences, which have got mingled up with all sorts of other political decisions and economic events, which makes interpretation of most things hard. And one consequence of Brexit is that the UK status, structures, and political environment changed in a way that meant that where we have a choice the default behaviour has become to do our own thing, whereas previously the default behaviour was to go along with what the EU agreed. In the case of vaccines, following the default behaviour lead to the UK being massively more successful at a prompt delivery than the EU was. It seems to me pretty churlish not to acknowledge that as a very likely success for Brexit.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2022 ==

It takes time to build up competencies and rebuild organisational structures.

That is of course very true.

But I find it curious how no-one on the Remain/Rejoin side in these debates ever acknowledges that is equally true on the other side, and that many of the problems the UK has experienced related to Brexit - the admin/bureaucratic hurdles etc. - probably arise from organisational structures etc. having not yet adapted, and can therefore be expected to be temporary problems.

 

[najaB]

Suppose the referendum result had produced a Remain vote, which would probably have lead to a continuing pro-EU Cameron/Osborne Government? How likely is it that such a Government, still operating within the EU would have said, in effect, 'Stuff you guys! We're going to do all the vaccine stuff ourselves!'? Of course it's unknowable and speculative. But it seems pretty unlikely that we'd have gone our own way.

That's all true. But you can't hold up the vaccine rollout as a benefit of Brexit given that we could have done exactly what we did even if we were still in the EU. For you to claim something as a Brexit win it has to be something that we could not have done if we were in the EU.

But I find it curious how no-one on the Remain/Rejoin side in these debates ever acknowledges that is equally true on the other side, and that many of the problems the UK has experienced related to Brexit - the admin/bureaucratic hurdles etc. - probably arise from organisational structures etc. having not yet adapted, and can therefore be expected to be temporary problems.

I have acknowledged several times in this very thread that we will, eventually, thrive outside the EU. However, using a railway analogy - if you have two stretches of track, both of which start and end with a PSR of 125, but one has a 40 TSR in the middle, which is going to result in the best overall journey times?

Now, maybe there is a very good reason for the TSR, maybe there's not. That, at it's essence, is the Brexit debate.

 

[RT4038]

You do know that the UK had powers to require people to leave if they weren't actively working or engaged in the search for work, no?

I don't think that FoMers that weren't actively working or engaged in the search for work was any particular problem, was it?. What the UK did not have powers to do was limit the total number of people coming full stop, or who they were.

So, given the choice between fixing the UK education system (both early and continuing) so that the UK workforce has the skills needed to compete on a global market or closing the door and pretending that everything is fine we chose the latter. That's going to work out well.

I think it pie in the sky to think that the UK education system can be fixed so that all the UK workforce can compete with an unlimited quantity of immigrants into their home country. As for preparing people to compete in a global market, so that they can leave their home country and find opportunities elsewhere, so that others can come here and take their jobs ...... seems a bit topsy turvy to me.

In the forum there has successive blaming of all sorts of things about our society (education, housing, health, benefits )- if only they had been fixed then FoM would not have been a problem. It is much simpler to give up FoM than to fix these things - after all the fix may cause all sots of other issues and also have made the UK an even more attractive place for FoMers to come to and cause even more social and economic upheaval.

See above.

Nonsense. The quantity of immigrants should not be causing this. There were too many, too quickly and too concentrated. Natives should not be having to learn new foreign languages in order to work in their home country.


When there was FoM with the original EU countries with similar economies there was little issue. Extending FoM to the Accession countries was a problem which ultimately was one of the causes of the Brexit vote. Blame who you like, but it doesn't alter the vote.

And it's not difficult to see why those in power find it easier to blame 'the outsider' rather than fixing things that are broken about our own society.

Why always 'those in power'. Those not in power can see and feel too.

 

[daodao]

You spoil a good point with a ridiculous comparison. UK government may not exactly be popular with other countries, but as far as I'm aware none of them are supplying weapons to defend a country we've invaded.

But the EU and its member states are backing to a hilt a country part of whose historic territory (the 6 counties) remains under British occupation.

 

[reddragon]

That's all true. But you can't hold up the vaccine rollout as a benefit of Brexit given that we could have done exactly what we did even if we were still in the EU. For you to claim something as a Brexit win it has to be something that we could not have done if we were in the EU.

I have acknowledged several times in this very thread that we will, eventually, thrive outside the EU. However, using a railway analogy - if you have two stretches of track, both of which start and end with a PSR of 125, but one has a 40 TSR in the middle, which is going to result in the best overall journey times?

Now, maybe there is a very good reason for the TSR, or maybe it's because someone living alongside the railway has complained about the noise...

Britain went independently with the vaccine roll out because it had the skills & former EU joint team to do so. If Covid had struck a year later that team would have been disbanded & unavailable because simply on 31/12/2019 it's role significantly diminished. No EU country had the skills to do it so at the time so had to share what they had,

If Brexit had been softer, a smoother joint operation would have happened will all of the EU able to roll out the vaccine quicker & in a more co-ordinated way when we did with ramped up production for all. Instead it was a hand bag fight that slowed roll out to Everyone including the UK

 

[najaB]

It is much simpler to give up FoM than to fix these things - after all the fix may cause all sots of other issues and also have made the UK an even more attractive place for FoMers to come to and cause even more social and economic upheaval.

Exactly! Do the easy thing, rather than the difficult one.

I think it pie in the sky to think that the UK education system can be fixed so that all the UK workforce can compete with an unlimited quantity of immigrants into their home country.

And to think there was a time, not that long ago, when the UK education system was - quite literally - the envy of countries around the world.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That's all true. But you can't hold up the vaccine rollout as a benefit of Brexit given that we could have done exactly what we did even if we were still in the EU. For you to claim something as a Brexit win it has to be something that we could not have done if we were in the EU.

I don't think that's a reasonable standard, and it's also very one-sided. Look at it the other way. Suppose we'd stayed in the EU and we were trying to assess whether staying in the EU had worked. Would you think it was reasonable to only count things as a success for staying in the EU if they could not have been achieved outside the EU?

A more reasonable and better balanced standard would be, on balance, did Brexit help the good things that have happened, and did it on balance ameliorate the bad things that have happened? Those would be the successes of Brexit. And equally, if you want to measure the failures of Brexit, the question to ask would be, did Brexit hinder the good things, and has it made the bad things worse?