No leading Brexiter has problems with goods, services, and capital flowing freely. They even want to leave the “protectionist club” EU, even though part of the leave-vote in deprived regions has been caused by the capital exodus that replaced local industry with imports. I will nevertheless focus on the leaver-“concern” people.
The borders of any island are “controlled” by the departure- and arrival- (in case of expulsion) approvals of countries across the water. In a rule-based order, e.g. the EU, other countries execute the UK’s wishes, and thereby underpin the widespread national border-controllability-illusion. The growing refugee-crisis should make the contingent nature of these conventions abundantly clear. Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, etc. will not absorb Millions of people forever. Ironically, an island-mentality impedes the realisation that the continent’s physically enforceable land borders are much less reliant on international rules than UK beaches.
Leaving this aside, border control has a pull and a push-aspect: attracting people you want and repelling the others. Brexit certainly has not helped the former, but let us focus on the latter which is widely regarded as the problem at hand.
To inspect the effectiveness of push-strategies, it is instructive to look at non-EU immigration: Despite official hostility, barbaric retentions, unjustifiable expulsions, inhumane income thresholds, asymmetric legal recourse, nonsensical student-counting, and arbitrary quotas, the Home Office has consistently missed its target. The absence of a civilised, sensible, and effective immigration policy where “full control” already exists, is quite remarkable. There must be strong economic and social forces at work that dwarf the means of a committed Government.
These deficiencies are mirrored in 20 months silence on the future EU immigration “control”-regime. Months after(!) the referendum, research into immigration was commissioned and, so far, not even a method to assess industry-requirements exists. Concerning the factual Schengen-country Northern Ireland, where no border infrastructure shall be installed, the EU is eagerly awaiting the UK’s electronic solution to preventing people from simply walking or driving in. It is becoming increasingly clear, that lacking skills cannot be homegrown within sensible timeframes and in the required numbers, and that, even if this overstretched Government succeeded in putting in place all prerequisites of EU-immigration-control, it would, at great administrative expense, allow the current natural flow largely to continue. I recommend the related “BBC Panorama”-program. The biggest losers, as an aside, will be landlocked UK citizens on the continent.
The two sources of immigration are profoundly different: non-EU immigration feeds itself from a growing pool of approx. 2 billion permanently disadvantaged people with no intention to ever turn back home. EU-immigration has two elements: skilled people from advanced Western countries, now rather representing a pull-problem, and low-skilled people from the South and East. The latter represent a shrinking pool of a few 10s of Millions, many of whom are now turning back. They “got the message”, their income in home-country-currency has fallen, and opportunities at home are improving rapidly. Freedom of movement has achieved its goal: match workers and work Europe-wide, generate growth where the opportunities lie and remittances to stagnant places. The tide is turning; Brexit is addressing a “problem” of the past.
* Arnold Kiel is a self-employed Management Consultant, father of two sons in British education, and very concerned about their future in this Europe
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30 Comments
The PM said today that our trade is not entirely frictionless now, but did not specify how and why not. She also said in answer to a different question, that there will be an Executive in Northern Ireland soon. The delay is shamefully long and continues to increase, bringing other problems with it. All those elected to the devolved assembly and their constituents, are losing the benefits of devolution and central government’s promise to consult with all the devolved administrations is continuing to be dishonoured.
The Northern Irish border with the Irish Republic continues to be an important and unsolved issue in Brexit. Previously the devolved assembly voted in favour of equal marriage, which is a devolved issue. When the Irish Republic’s referendum on abortion has been decided there are likely to be comparable issues in the north. The Republic’s previous referendum on this issue was on a Yes / No basis, which is too simplistic. A decision in the devolved assembly might be followed by a multi-choice referendum.
Spot on Arnold in both articles so far and the government and the Brexiteers have no answers.
This is a confused article. Currently the UK has total control over who it allows to live and work in the UK from non-EEA countries and after the transitional period it will have total control over who it allows in from the EEA countries too. This is what is meant by taking back control of our borders.
Then the British government could apply the five tier visa system to people from EEA countries and then give no Tier1, Tier 2, Tier 4 or Tier 5 visas to anyone. (Currently no Tier 3 visas are issued.) [https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas] This would reduce immigration to mainly family members etc., asylum seekers and students. Currently the British government only allows 1000 Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) and 20,700 Tier 2 (general) with no number limits on Tiers 4 and 5 and some Tier 1 and 2 visas. According to the ONS in the year ending December 2017 165,131 work related visas were issued of which 94,247 were Tier 2. I suppose the British government could limit Tier 2 (Intra-company Transfer) visas which must account for the bulk of work visas issued.
Abortion was excluded from David Steel’s private members bill in the 1960s because Northern Ireland MPs would not have voted for it.
The referendum on abortion in the Irish Republic will be on 25/3/2018.
Sorry, typo.
The referendum on abortion in the Irish Republic will be on 25/May/2018.
Michael B G: “Currently the UK has total control over who it allows to live and work in the UK from non-EEA countries and after the transitional period it will have total control over who it allows in from the EEA countries too. This is what is meant by taking back control of our borders.”
But if we have no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic (as all sides insist we won’t) how precisely will we exercise this “total control”?
“…from a growing pool of approx. 2 billion permanently disadvantaged people with no intention to ever turn back home. ”
There are millions of poor people in Thailand but if you think they are all heading West then you are mistaken. Most of them will remain in Thailand. Thailand has more of its fair share of refugees. Karen refugees from Burma have been living in camps on the Thai-Burma border for decades.
There are others here in Thailand such as Pakistani Christians who have fled religious persecution. These people have no means of self support and need to be resettled in third countries.
What makes people move is violence and conflict. A genuine foreign policy of Peace is needed to bring to an end the civil wars raging in other countries.
Allan Brame: And since people departing the UK for whatever reason and for however long are screened only by the carrier (to avoid financial penalties for disembarking prohibited passengers), how can we claim rely on government statistics about net migration when only those arriving are monitored at the point of entry, and only then if it’s an official entry point?
Free movement across the EU is a fine ideal. But if that free movement is highly asymmetric in its nature, inevitable social problems will arise. I think we’d all have to agree that, but for the migration issue, the result of the EUref would have been very different.
We’d nearly all, also, agree that the UK economy has been hamstrung by excessive levels of Govt imposed austerity in recent years. It’s been much worse in the EU. Therefore, even if things are bad here, people will move in this direction. Who can blame them?
Arnold Kiel claims that the introduction of the euro and asymmetric migration patterns are separate issues. I’d suggest they are closely related. The rules of the euro dictate high levels of economic austerity in all countries except the big net exporters. That creates the desire for migration. If the migration is to a country which is suffering, albeit to a lesser extent, from its own self imposed austerity there’s going to be social problems of the type we all know about only too well.
No amount hectoring, and Arnold Kiel is good at that, is going to change minds. What just possibly could work, and save the EU at the same time, was to change the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact to effectively abolish economic neoliberalism/ordoliberalism in the EU.
Peter Martin,
when did Poland and Romania, the biggest source of the most controversial EU-immigration introduce the euro? Have I missed something?
@ Allan Brame
Having no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is not necessary for the UK government to have what I called “total control” in the context of what I wrote. I stated that the UK government has total control over “who it allows to live and work in the UK from non-EEA countries”. There is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic at the moment. There are no border controls on every beach in the UK. However the UK government controls the rules which apply to people from non-EEA countries to ALLOW them to live and work here. If they are not allowed to live and work here and are found here they are breaking the law. The UK government is not allowed to restrict EU and EEA citizens from coming here to look for work, they can’t control the numbers, once we have left the EU and after the transitional period the UK can set the rules which apply to these people in the same way as it does currently towards people from non-EEA countries. The amount of control will be equal over both groups.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of these unaccounted for immigrants are from the eu. If most are, coming in under freedom of movement then regaining control will help the statistics. Will we have a re-run of Donald Trump’s forced eviction of “illegal immigrants” in due course? I don’t understand how people can remain in this country with no documentation with the myriad of forms everyone has to complete, certainly to gain benefit. Do they live in the unregulated market?
@Arnold Kiel,
I’m not sure how you could have missed it. I’ve explained it often enough. It’s the stability and growth pact rules which are the problem. Not the euro per se.
All EU countries, even the UK, have an obligation to abide by those austerity inducing rules. The UK is unique though. We don’t get penalised for breaking them.
Perter Hirst
Some work in the black economy but I doubt that the numbers are very high as it is not easy to enter the UK from outside the EU.
Labour will be needed for fruit picking etc. once Britain leaves the EU. Expect to see people from China doing this work.
Manfarang,
this is how also JRM responded to a challenge on unpicked and rotting produce.
So a poor rural Chinese (luckily in possession of a passport) applies for a temporary fruit-picking job and visa (the Chinese government helpfully and exceptionally allows access to these foreign sites), the home office, after careful consideration and background checks approves, the Chinese travels to Beijing or Shanghai and buys an intercontinental return ticket, arrives in LHR, is cleared by HM’s Border Force, and picked up by the British farmer that had requested his services. Somehow, he manages to convey to the Chinese, who does not speak a word of English, what to do, organises accommodation and food (which the Chinese would not term as such, but which is still to be subtracted from the minimum wage-based income), and, when the harvest is in, shuttles our Chinese back to LHR.
A Polish person, by contrast, gets on a night bus from Warsow, arrives in the morning, takes public transport to the farm, has accomodation sorted through his local countrymen/women, knows what to do, and goes back afterwards.
In order to avoid being perceived as insulting, I leave the evaluation of these options to you.
@Arnold Kiel
Erm I think you will find that there are plenty of polish people, Portugese and others that are recruited by UK Companies from their home country,
They then have their travel paid for, accommodation paid for (Often put up in shocking House of Multiple Occupancy At high rents) These costs are then deducted from their minimum wage and take for ever to pay off.
I know plenty of people that this has happened to
So to paint your rosie picture for the Polish Person and compare to that of someone travelling on a temporary visa travellers from China, is just nonsense.
By the way, there are plenty of Polish people who come to the UK to work and hardly talk a word of English either.
You really do need to take off those EU blinkered glasses for a a while and have a peek at the real world
matt,
your alternative logistical arrangements for the Polish worker might well exist, and they make the Chinese alternative even less plausible.
@ Matt @ Arnold Kiel,
Isn’t there an assumption that we’d all starve by letting the crops rot in the fields if we didn’t have Chinese and Polish workers?
However did we manage to feed ourselves in previous times? In the 19th century there would have been about 30% or so of the workforce engaged in agricultural production. By the late 20th century that had fallen to around 2%. So how is it that we suddenly need all these extra workers? I’d perhaps be tempted to have a maid and a butler if I could find people to do those jobs at next-to-nothing wages.
Put a gang of overseas workers, who are happy to work for 12 hours per day, and only be paid for 8 hours, at the disposal of the agricultural and horticultural sector and they’ll be given jobs at the same time as the local, and possibly unionised, workforce is being laid off. So by all means lets recruit overseas workers if we need them but they have to be paid at the same rate and be part of the same union.
This is an example of what can happen when we bow down to the forces of the so-called “free market”. Just a few miles from where I live, incidentally.
“David Anthony Eden Sr. and David Anthony Eden Jr., a father and son team from England, had unlawfully hired a group of Chinese workers to pick cockles; they were to be paid £5 per 25 kg of cockles, (9p per lb), far less than the typical local rate at the time. The Chinese had been imported unlawfully via containers into Liverpool and were hired out through local criminal agents of international Chinese Triads. The cockles to be collected are best found at low tide on sand flats at Warton Sands, near Hest Bank. The Chinese workers were unfamiliar with local geography, language, and custom. They were cut off by the incoming tide in the bay at around 9:30 pm.”
25 Chinese workers were drowned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster
@Arnold Kiel
I assumed the arguments you were making were that for Polish worker to come to the UK to fruit Pick everything was perfect and they were not taken advantage of in anyway by dodgy employers,
whereas a Chinese Worker has to endure terrible conditions just to get to the UK and were then exploited.
I assumed that was the point in you were making in your previous post, or did i misunderstand it?
@Peter Martin
I totally agree, we are perfectly capable of feeding ourselves, Growing and harvesting our own crops and manning our own factories,
We did it for decades before the EU and mass migration and we can do it again.
The thing that makes me laugh, every other day we have articles about how everything is heading for automation in the next decade, robots are going to take over everything from fruit picking to Warehousing, to filling sandwiches and flipping burgers, Driving lorries etc.
The people on this site make arguments for the urgency of a national citizen income because there will be such a lack of jobs, but then same people make the same arguments for more EU and Immigration, and how industry is going to collapse and we are all going to starve if we do not have access to these workers.
Britain will survive perfectly well with a controlled immigration scheme where it can dole out either temporary seasonal work visas or long term skilled visas.
The NHS will be staffed and the shops will be full of food and farm produce
Matt, I almost agreed with you when you said “Britain will survive perfectly well with a controlled immigration scheme …” and then I thought how long a human can survive without food and how long it is taking the Conservatives to implement Universal Credit.
It left me very worried indeed! 🙁
I was just challenging the wisdom of ending freedom of movement, and installing a temporary worker visa system for non-EU workers instead, as promoted by leading Brexiters. It is a simple fact that, at least at the moment, Britons do not do this work. I believe it is good if people have work (from an economical standpoint the closer the better, but this must remain an individual choice), and fruit makes it to the consumer. The UK Government’s inability (or unwillingness?) to ensure fair and safe working conditions is an entirely unrelated matter.
@ Arnold Kiel,
“It is a simple fact that, at least at the moment, Britons do not do this work.”
What work are we talking about here? Sure we have agricultural workers, hospitality workers, NHS staff etc recruited from overseas but the vast majority would still be of British origin.
“The UK Government’s inability (or unwillingness?) to ensure fair and safe working conditions is an entirely unrelated matter”.
Of course it’s all interrelated. The Labour movement has never totally relied on Government, whether it be nominally Socialist, Tory or Liberal, in the struggle to have equitable working conditions for all. It’s often a difficult task. It’s not made any easier if employers can undercut wages and undermine hard won worker rights by recruiting their workforce almost entirely from overseas.
@David Evans
I share your concerns about the Tories, Universal Credit etc.
But then I am hoping that at the 2022 election, The Tories will be booted out and we will have a Labour or a LAB / Lib Government, however, we would have left the EU by then. The Tories will have served their only purpose in my opinion and then we can have a new government that would concentrate on creating a fairer more social government OUTSIDE of the EU
A subsistence level of living is probably possible outside the EU. No man is an island. John Donne’s poem is even more relevant today than the time when it was written. Written in a rather different age.
A lot depends on the type of agreement they get with the EU.
@Arnold Kiel
It would be wise to end freedom of movement.
With controlled immigration we can issue long term visas for skilled migrants where we have a skills shortage, these people would then be able to apply for Permanent residency after a number of years as is the case now.
If and it is a big IF, we had a shortage of workers in other sectors, I.e Agriculture, we can issue temporary seasonal work visas. The point is however, there would be no access to Welfare or social housing and no rights to bring family members under this type of Visa.
I do however believe that people that are employed on a “temporary basis”, we should have a causal loading rate of 20% Above the Minimum Wage rate. This would stop employers cutting out British Workers in favour of Cheap Migrant Labour and it would also go towards stopping Migrant Workers from being exploited.
You say “It is a simple fact that, at least at the moment, Britons do not do this work.” I hear this said so many times and it is absolute nonsense in my opinion. It is a cheap argument made by some employers because they want to drive down wages with cheap migrant labour. Please tell me how out fields where harvested before the mass influx of EU Migration? who worked in our factories and who cared for the elderly?
I dont remember the UK being like North Korea prior to EU Migration, but the way some people talk thats what the UK is destined for if we leave the EU and we shall all starve
@ Arnold, Matt and Peter
According to the House of Commons Library Briefing Paper 7987 (4th July 2017) “Migrant workers in Agriculture” (sorry no link but will come up if you google it) states “During peak seasons, the agriculture sector is further dependent on a large temporary workforce – thought to be around 75,000 strong – to supplement regular, permanent staff in harvesting crops.”.
In 2005 58,423 working holidaymakers came to the UK (ONS figures).
In 2016-17 there were 1.76 million undergraduates of which about 80% were from the UK. I assume some of these students could be employed in agriculture during their summer holidays.
I was watching Country File a few months ago and they had a story on new machinery to pick fruit. I have seen other stories about machinery being available to harvest crops which are still hand-picked. UK farmers need to invest in new machinery and I hope we as a party would allocate £1.2 billion a year to lend to them after Brexit to invest in such machinery. However I think it will take time for every farmer to purchase this new machinery and so I advocate resurrecting the Seasonal Agricultural Workers scheme which we had for years after the Second World War. I suggest limiting it to 70,000 workers for the first year and reduce the number every year by 5000 to put pressure on farmers to invest to increase productivity.
@ Matt
I don’t think you can force employers to pay foreign workers more than UK workers but for many roles they have to pay the Immigration Skills Charge and I assume it would be possible to include in it a percentage levy on foreign workers wages to be paid by the employer on top of the wages and expand it to non-skilled workers.
Hi Michael
When I was talking about having a casual loading rate, I did not mean though that this should just apply to migrant workers only, I think it should be applied to any worker on a temporary or zero hour contract.
By making employers pay above the minimum wage rate for casual staff it puts an end to this incentive that is being exploited by many employers. It would benefit UK Employees as well as Migrant workers.
@ Matt
I am sorry I misunderstood you. I suppose it would be possible to set minimum and national living wage temporary rates for those taking a job which lasts less than say 10 months (based on your 20% extra). It would make temporary jobs more attractive.
@Michael
I have believed for a long time that Employers should have to pay a loading rate for Temporary or casual workers.
If employers do not want to pay the added costs afforded to permanent staff members with rights to sickpay and holiday etc, then they should at least pay a loading rate for casual staff who forgo these things.
It would be a start to putting an end to these exploitative practices and would benefit a lot of UK workers, seasonal workers and migrant workers alike.
I know Australia operates a minimum wage and a loading rate for casual workers, so I dont see why we could not make something similar work here.