Amber Rudd told us there would be a government White Paper on a new migration policy for the UK durng the first winter after the Brexit vote. Iain Duncan Smith did a lot of work on what one could look like and sent it to her. 2 years on from the decision to leave we still await the governmentās proposals. We are told they are coming soon. I would like them to be ready for our exit on 29 March 2019, the date the PM has promised again for us to leave in accordance with the legislation now passed.
Iainās ideas revolve around the current government policy of bringing net migration down to tens of thousands from the quarter of million level that has been common in recent years. That should not cause the PM problems as she has defended this target and repeated it in the 2017 election. He proposes in line with the official Leave campaign that the new policy should not give preference to people from the EU over people from the rest of the world. There should be common criteria for assessing eligibility.
Students coming to study at recognised universities and Colleges should be free to come. Anyone with their own means should be welcome. Anyone with high level qualifications or with skills we are short of should be permitted. Anyone coming to visit, to travel, to be a tourist would of course be welcome.The new controls would operate on anyone coming from the EU as well as elsewhere who wanted to come to look for a job or take up a low paid job, who would need benefit top ups and social housing. The UK would of course continue to offer asylum where appropriate.
We want a policy which is good for the UK economy and fair to all from around the world. We want people who come to settle here to have access to good affordable housing and decently paid employment. We also want that for all those already here and born here, at a time when lower wages have been kept down and when housing in many areas is in short supply. The sooner we have a fair and sensible migration policy, the sooner we can get on top of the housing and pay issues.
September 3, 2018
Good morning
He, he, he ! š
One has to laugh. The government could have easily brought down migration from non-EU countries and had a policy in place for that without Commission and ECJ involvement as non-EU immigration in not an EU competence. Of course despite saying over many years that we will bring it down, the UK Government has continually allowed it to rise especially from non-EU countries. Those here who voted Leave because they wanted to bring EU and non-EU immigration down are going to be very disappointed. Hence the delay š
September 3, 2018
I agree MarkB, I wonder if the people from non-EU countries get immediate NHS health-cover free (I suspect they do); tax credits; child tax credits they can novate back to their Country where their families live; help with housing if they fail to keep on payments on their private home rentals and priority over Social housing?
I honestly do not believe that British people are too concerned about migration without benefits, I believe from what I hear it is more benefits without responsibilities and time working in the Country prior to just giving out handouts and homes – this should have been sorted, David Cameron tried the EU said NO, now the papers say the Germans talk about wanting control over this same issue. The French just seem to leave people in underpasses and Calais in tents and don’t give them the same benefits we just appear to hand over.
September 3, 2018
Yes they are worried about immigration without benefits, especially when they are coming in with skills already in over supply, and all they are doing is depressing wages, and displacing locals from the workforce.
Also everyone here gets place for their kids in school, and access to NHS, so everyone is a burden whether they are here on student visa, supposedly temporary work visa, or whatever. There is no category of residency which does not get free schooling for their children, or free NHS, so there is nobody who is really here “without benefits”.
September 3, 2018
Article 79&80 TFEU: Regular immigration: the EU is competent to lay down the conditions governing entry into and legal residence in a Member State, including for the purposes of family reunification, for third-country nationals. Member States retain the right to determine volumes of admission for people coming from third countries to seek work.
September 3, 2018
”…..the EU is competent….” Oh yeah?
September 3, 2018
Osborn stated no one in private was serious to reduce immigration whEN May was the minister responsible for the policy. Tories in govt 8 years and the highest numbers on record, STILL NO ACCURATE WAY OF COUNTING PEOPLE IN AND OUT WHICH SHOULD BE A PRIMARY SECURITY AND SAFETY ISSUE FOR CITIZENS.
The false claim was to thwart UKIP with no intention whatsoever in delivering. A dishonest pledge that was never acted upon. May now promising to pay welfare to EU citizens not yet born and do not live here. IDS writing how it costs the U.K. Ā£4.1 billion in tax credits and housing benefits for immigrants. 56,000 illegal immigrants lost this year alone on top of your govts immigration figures!,your govt has been totally dishonest over this policy and those responsible should be sacked or resign, starting with May.
September 3, 2018
Hope, very well said.
September 3, 2018
There is no ommigration policy because May has yet to formulate words to continue FoM and tell us it’s not happening.
She said in the Telegraph yesterday she would only make concessions which were in the national interest and she is prepared to keep letting millions of unskilled jobs go to EU nationals.
September 3, 2018
Last time, remain thought they had enough support to win the referendum but they were mistaken. A remain Prime Minister found his miscalculation was a resigning issue.
Despite May consistently saying her government would bring annual immigration down to the tens of thousands, they clearly haven’t done so, and I suggest that is because they don’t yet feel they have stuffed enough immigrants in to swing the vote the other way when the inevitable sell-out happens.
Tad
September 3, 2018
May did not even try to bring it down to the tens of thousands yet still claims they have this target in her usual disingenuous manner.
I am generally in favour of immigration but only with some quality and self supporting thresholds attached.
Minimum wage immigration when they pay perhaps no net tax and need schools, housing, health care, police, roads, defence …. and perhaps even bring elderly parents who need care too is a huge net loss to the economy.
The BBC like to say immigration is a net benefit. The truth is that some is and some is not we need to be selective.
September 3, 2018
May and Rudd’s department admitted losing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, this is on top of the immigration figures! Where do they live, get health care or work. Moreover, what impact on crime such as human trafficking, sex crimes, slave trade etc. All imported third world crimes. 20,000 police officers cut, Lord Stevens wrote last week one in three officers lost from the beat in London where there is a serious crime epidemic. May is responsible for this policy there can be no doubt. May blocked a pay rise for police in contrast to all other public,sector workers. Rudd,told,the chiefs this year any request for money,would fall on deaf ears! The victims and families must be eager to support Tories! Not.
September 3, 2018
Everyone I know is saying this.
The Tories are now the party of crime and disorder.
September 4, 2018
All the police stations are gone, going or shut! Empty fire brigade headquarters still unused but paid for by the taxpayer under PFI at an estimated cost of Ā£500 million a year! This for the last 8 years. The pure incompetence is beyond words.
Highest taxation for fifty years, pisses Ā£14 billion down the drain on despots, and exotic fishing mating programmes, Lear jets for dictators etc, each year on overseas aid, another Ā£3.75 billion hidden off the books for the EDF equivalent overseas aid for EU! With NO input whatsoever from any UK politician! Presumably part of May’s dishonest Kitkat policy to hide true costs and ties to EU. Tory govt is fiscally incompetent especially when we add a chancellors acting against our own economy on cars etc.
September 3, 2018
Yup. And where workers do earn a living wage it cannot be allowed stand.
London now requires a Ā£100,000 salary to buy the average house. Even young people on Ā£50k are living with mum and dad.
September 3, 2018
If the Tory MP Nick Boles gets his way then the EU will continue to control our policy with respect to immigration from the EEA countries.
Nobody should be under the illusion that the EU might agree to the UK somehow staying in the EEA without unfettered freedom of movement of persons, one of its inseparable four freedoms; and in fact if continued membership of the EEA was achieved by a transfer of the UK from the EU to the EFTA group of parties to the EEA Agreement then the latter organisation is now also committed to free movement of persons:
http://www.efta.int/legal-texts/efta-convention/detailed-overview-of-the-efta-convention
“THE UPDATED EFTA CONVENTION, THE VADUZ CONVENTION, was signed on 21 June 2001 and entered into force on 1 June 2002, in parallel with the EU-Swiss Bilateral Agreements. It included several significant changes, of which the most important was the INTEGRATION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND RULES ESTABLISHED BETWEEN THE EU AND THE EEA EFTA STATES IN THE EEA AGREEMENT, and between the EU and Switzerland in the EU-Swiss Bilateral Agreements. Important new provisions included the FREE MOVEMENT OF PERSONS, trade in services, movement of capital and protection of intellectual property.”
September 3, 2018
Clearly Nick Boles is under that and several other illusions:
http://betterbrexit.org.uk/
including most importantly the illusion that we could unilaterally decide to remain in the EEA:
“Assert our Treaty right to remain part of the EEA after 29 March 2019 and negotiate recognition as an EFTA state”
Article 126 of the EEA Agreement:
http://www.efta.int/media/documents/legal-texts/eea/the-eea-agreement/Main%20Text%20of%20the%20Agreement/EEAagreement.pdf
“The Agreement shall apply to the territories to which the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (20) is applied and under the conditions laid down in that Treaty (21), and to the territories of Iceland (22), the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Kingdom of Norway”
Therefore it could not continue to apply to the UK after we had left the EU unless suitable amendments were made, which would require the unanimous consent of all the parties to the Agreement including the EU itself.
September 4, 2018
There is no harm in asking. And since it would give them as much without us having to negotiate an even worse deal, which would also require unanimous consent, I see no reason why they might no accept it. If it is OK for Norway then why not us, especially as we are still in it ?
September 3, 2018
As it is one of the four freedoms it will be Barnier that decides this however it is spun that we are taking back control as the contortions of the Chequers proposals demonstrated and highlighted by Boris in the DT today.
September 3, 2018
Here is a letter that I have sent to the editor of the Maidenhead Advertiser, with suitable supporting links:
“Dear Sir
It is a pity that it needed a trip to Africa for our Prime Minister Theresa May to belatedly distance herself from the absurd Treasury forecasts of economic doom if we left the EU without any special trade deal, simply defaulting to the WTO treaties which already exist and are already in force and so do not require the government to make any further concessions to the EU.
As she was on the Remain side during the referendum campaign it might have been too much to expect her to question the credibility of those forecasts before the vote, but after we had decided to leave the EU and the economy had not immediately collapsed as had been predicted she might have changed her tune then.
Instead she allowed civil servants to carry out further defective modelling and then leak the results of this new edition of George Osborne’s doom-mongering to the media in January, and it is notable that nobody has ever been disciplined for that leak while instead the then minister Steve Baker was reproved for a mild criticism of that abuse of public office.
My point on this has always been simple, that by the EU’s own estimates ā including a report issued in 2012 by the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier ā EU membership may have produced a gross one-off benefit of about 2 percent of GDP averaged across all of the member states, with the UK gaining perhaps half of that average, and there is no reason why reversing the process and leaving the EU in an orderly fashion should cost us 8 percent of GDP as the Treasury predicts.
Yours etc”
September 3, 2018
This would not be in accord with the May / Robbins sell-out and is far too sensible.
September 3, 2018
Boris is 100% correct saying the Chequers paper is a surrender document.
An alternative proposal must be tendered immediately and she must go.
September 3, 2018
āThe UK would of course continue to offer asylum where appropriateā
Why? It has been obvious for decades that asylum is a useful cover for all sorts of migrants to gain entry on dubious grants. Asylum should be extremely limited.
An Australian system would be better. Unwanted refugees held offshore and returned to their country or continent of origin. Points based entry requirements based on what the country needs.
It will not happen of course.
September 3, 2018
Of course it will not happen Peter. We are being made to pay for our own annihalation. Services cut, money diverted to fund the tsunami of people arriving with any story to get a free life on the UK taxpayer.
September 3, 2018
“Unwanted refugees held offshore” … on Guernsey for example, they might learn a few tricks from some UK non-dom residents there …
September 3, 2018
This week we have had to suffer the ignominious spectacle of this liberal left PM parading herself around the various nations of Africa. I know what her intentions are. Politicians of her ilk don’t speak openly and frankly. Rather they send out signals by their actions and then leave the voter to decide her next move. Well, it is obvious to me she’s preparing the country’s expectations for an increase in migration from the African nations she’s just visited.
Her virtue signalling is beyond nauseous. It is offensive in its blatancy, arrogance and shamelessness.
Labour pulled the same trick when they came to power in 1997. Tweaking the immigration rules as part of their population changing exercise to consolidate their electoral grip on certain regions.
The liberal left including PM May and Labour (who benefit electorally from mass immigration) have worked extremely hard to turn this issue into an issue that prevents reasoned discussion. Indeed by weaponising the issue of mass immigration they have managed to toxify it and thereby crush open debate and preventing opposition to the continued inflow of peoples
The Tories have been outflanked on this issue as they have been outflanked on many social issues. They have singularly failed to point out to the British people why Labour have weaponised and politicised issues surrounding immigration and race. Labour’s primary motivation is quite simply, electoral and political. Labour’s concern as never humanitarian. Labour is a pure, political animal as are their politicians and activists. While traditional Labour voters are utterly clueless to the fact that they are (going to get what they dont want ed)each and every time they put a cross next to a Labour candidate
We need a conservative PM to bring down immigration to manageable levels. If the liberal left play the race, xenophobe and hate-crime card then change the law to legislate to guarantee freedom of speech for each and every UK citizen
September 3, 2018
Whatever policy we want or are promised, itās not the one weāll get. We live in an age of great migrations unequalled since the sixth century. Desperate people will follow the money, legally if they can, illegally if they must.
Britain is especially attractive, apparently, because here one can be both anonymous and supported by the state. As a would-be immigrant at Calais told a reporter a year or so back: āWhy Britain? Free food! Free house! Money in your pocket!ā
Perhaps government should look again at identity cards and judge if public opinion has shifted enough to make them politically feasible.
September 4, 2018
Desperate people will follow the money, legally if they can, illegally if they must.
If these people think it is OK to break laws when they are desperate or indeed just hopeful of a better life why do we think they will observe our laws once they arrive if they become desperate or ever more hopeful?
September 4, 2018
Interestingly the numbers involved in the great migration of the sixth century(in Europe) were relatively small compared to the size of the indigenous populations.It was the effect that they had on the lands they moved to -and the effete populations that they came to rule over- that was huge.
September 3, 2018
Quote “Anyone with high level qualifications or with skills we are short of should be permitted.”
Why ?
We have students taking on Ā£50,000 of debt to invest in their future to cover these gaps in the market .
It seems you are suggesting HM Govt pulls the rug from under their feet by importing cheap labour from overseas .
Having had a lifetime in software development I’ve seen the effects on fast tracking cheap labour from overseas and it has virtually destroyed the U.K. software development industry .
If you are going to make people fund their education then at least allow the domestic job market to function please so they can get a job – and one which enables them to clear their student debt .
September 3, 2018
Correct the UK software jobs market has been destroyed by government policy, primarily allowing unlimited entry for intra company transfer entrants with skills already in oversupply, and allowing far too many of them to get indefinite leave to remain and often British passports simply for working here a few years.
And its a self fulfilling prophecy as if all the junior entrants are foreign workers after a few years there are no locals with the correct experience to do the senior jobs.
Its a disgrace.
And the large outsourcers have also been shipping in large numbers from (EU states ed) since their nations gained rights to work under EU nonsense.
September 3, 2018
I would love to go and live in Cairns, Qu with my grandchildren. Forbidden.
But the Australians have got their policy right.
It is a nice place, the schools and hospitals and doctors work, the roads are usable, the people homogenous and proud to be Australian, whatever their background.
Here, just turn up. No problems. No criticism.No policeā¦
September 3, 2018
I don’t buy the line that we need all this immigration to make up a shortage of skills in the NHS and elderly care. If the policy demands a net input of young people, they in turn will need yet more young people when they get old and the model is broken.
Solutions along the lines of healthy lifestyles and families taking responsibility for the care of the elderly are needed.
September 3, 2018
True. Indigenous families should be encouraged to have enough children.
Alarmists have been promoting childlessness for too long. The Third World offering Britain adults of working age is not a sensible solution.
Singapore now realises it has a problem with the low number of new babies. It is taking steps to address this. Even China is relenting on the infamous one child law. Neither is looking to import large numbers of foreigners.
September 4, 2018
Russia has a whole package of incentives to encourage families to have more children-and it seems to be working, the birth rate has been ticking up in recent years.
September 3, 2018
Importing young people to sustain a system is as awry as pyramid selling schemes, which increasingly recruit new members: rapidly leading to callous collapse.
September 3, 2018
Indeed. A giant Ponzi scheme and that didn’t end well either. Mass immigration is a con to show increases in GDP, but not per capita and also to reduce the feelings of a Nation State and patriotism. The globalist unpatriotic in Westminster needs a clear out. With May/Robbins betrayal that time is coming!
September 3, 2018
There are skills in the NHS – which do need filling. I heard that our medical schools/ universities only churn out 6K doctors a year. Apparently, some European counties – Rumania, Serbia put on medical courses in English(!) to try and address this requirement.
Might it not be better if the government were to withhold funds from those “seats of higher learning” which promote some really daft courses and instead double up on the output of trained doctors?
September 3, 2018
I see the police having given up on knife crime and burglaries are going to clamp down further on the soft underbelly of decent tax paying motorists. Three forces, and more yet to be announced, are going to do road side eye test on every single driver they stop for whatever reason.
The front line officers won’t be happy.
Cops are not opticians. Young drivers are in any case more dangerous than middle class drivers as the insurance stats prove. And of course the town’s where people go to retire and most of the population has poor basic car control will be left alone.
It stinks of more dogma driven nonsense from political police forces failing in their basic duty and failing to prioritise properly.
September 3, 2018
Should say middle aged not middle class.
September 3, 2018
The new policy needs to be zero immigration for ten years, to give time to clean up the mess uncontrolled immigration has created over the last twenty years.
September 3, 2018
Old Albion – If only that could be done. If the present more than 200,000 leave every year continues then after 10 years would see a population reduction of 2 million – if only that would continue for further decades to get back to a sane level.
September 3, 2018
Deja Vu and off topic š
Of Presidents, Prime Ministers and mice…
In relation to the French President, Monsieur Macron is elected by the majority of French electors, whereas Mrs May was only chosen by the people of Maidenhead [ sorry Denis] and was the last non gender specific person standing in the Conservative party headship election.
Is that the best we can do?
Is that really democracy?
September 3, 2018
Is that really democracy?
No, it’s a system that has, and still is evolving with the needs of the people.
It has seen us through two World Wars and countless minor ones.
It has seen us try to accommodate the whims of the EU and , hopefully , decline them.
Is that the best we can do – arguably no one has come up with a better plan.
To regain it is a prime motivation for Brexit.
September 3, 2018
Know-Dice – The PM is that person who can command a majority in the Commons. It took centuries of organic constitutional development, a civil war and a revolution to bring government under Commons control.
Should we really throw it all aside to follow the example of a country which, within living memory, was notorious for political instability?
September 3, 2018
No. Westminster doesn’t do democracy as fptp rigs the vote! A antiquated system not fit for the 21st Century, only suited for the legacies who must now go!
September 3, 2018
The first line of any immigration policy should read “Those arriving in the UK who have previously been citizens of other countries will have no recourse to public funds including provision of schooling and health.”
By all means come but only if you are not a burden on our already strained systems.
September 3, 2018
Including provision of housing, schooling and health
September 3, 2018
Some deliberately turn up in winter, young children in tow, then head for the housing office and start shouting at the staff to get them housed, saying children should not be out on the streets in the cold at night. Yet THEY have deliberately done it.
As for providing things for them, isn’t the law supposed to be that if they cannot support themselves after 3/6 months, then they are supposed to leave? Have any ever gone, just sit tight and watch the benefits roll in, use the Health service etc etc.
September 3, 2018
The 3 months rule has never been enforced by government – allegedly on compassionate grounds, but actually because they would find it too challenging to locate and remove the overstayers, and they have been advised they’d lose an ECJ appeal.
September 3, 2018
The thing is that if you turned up at the housing office they would say you had deliberately made yourself homeless and were not therefore entitled to anything. Foreigners turn up doing the same and immediately get twice what our old age pension pays, without ever having contributed a bean.
September 3, 2018
“Students coming to study at recognised universities and Colleges should be free to come.”
Yes, as long as they go home at the end of their course.
“Anyone with their own means should be welcome.”
Anyone? The “Russian gangster” visa? I don’t see why we should let just anyone live here as long as they have enough money to price another Brit out of the housing market.
“Anyone with high level qualifications or with skills we are short of should be permitted.”
The devil is in the detail. What do we mean by “high level”? My three university degrees wouldn’t be good enough to emigrate to Canada – funny how Justin Trudeau doesn’t get called a racist for having a tight immigration policy. And if we’re short of skills, why not train up some of the 1,000,000+ unemployed Brits?
September 3, 2018
Colin,
If they find matching position or invest suitably I would like the top Masters and PhDs in STEM and s one business disciplines to stay. They will have good skills and probably good global connections. It is the fact that these are the ones that don’t remain that worries me.
September 3, 2018
You are right to call for the publication of a new immigration policy, this should have already been published so that all can be in place for operation from end of March 2019. Since it isn’t published we can only expect systems are not in place. This needs to be transparent and public so that political parties, in-depth of the EU, can be held to account.
September 3, 2018
As part of a sensible policy I would like (i) international students completing 3 years HE to at least M level to be able to work to residence, (ii) strictly no immigration based on arranged marriages, (iii) work permits system rather than foreign aid (so people can come for a couple of years send remittances home and take skills back), (iv) equality of qualification and wage requirements for UK job irrespective of country of origin ( whether Africa, Asia or Europe), (v) shortage of skill decisions to also justify against capital alternative – AI will do accounting jobs, machines will do car washer jobs etc.
September 3, 2018
All very well but as is demonstrated by the lack of response to the plan your duplictious PM has no wish nor any intention of departing from FOM.
There will be no progress while she is in post. She is intent on subverting the referendum outcome and for her to say that a second vote would be a betrayal of democracy nearly made me physically sick.
September 3, 2018
The fact that no paper has been produced as promised is yet another reason to rid ourselves of this government. Another promise made, another promise broken. There must come a time when the majority of MPs across the HoP finally lose confidence in this woman and her dreadful record.
September 3, 2018
Re “the current government policy of bringing net migration down”.
Net migration does not necessarily measure the state of the nation. For example, if 500,000 people leave the country in one year, and 501,000 enter, you have net migration of only +1,000. You might, however, be interested to know why half a million people were dissatisfied with living in the UK.
September 3, 2018
Wanted Down Under gives you a clue and the usual answer is “I actually get to see my kids !”
The “Get on yer bike” model went too far in the UK. We went further and bought cars but all we did was drive down our own wages and make ourselves camera tax targets.
September 3, 2018
Exactly. Those leaving are generally highly qualified people sought after in other Nations and we get………………….wouldn’t be published so fill in the blanks!
This Government not fit for office!
September 3, 2018
Absolutely right, Kevin. The quality of those entering may not match that of those leaving. If we weren’t haemorrhaging so many doctors (at a loss to the taxpayer), engineers etc, we would not need to import so many. I would like to see government come up with a plan to retain good people and encourage those who have left, whose skills we need, to return.
September 3, 2018
The UK has already full control of non-EU immigration with the success we know. Brexit will not change that.
September 3, 2018
Except that the open border with the EU means non-EU immigration is much more restrictive than it should be. It is difficult to recruit even highly qualified highly paid non EU people.
September 3, 2018
It is meaningless to say the “UK” has full control if the people in actual control of UK policy and implementation are pro-EU types who want to flood the country.
If Brexit enables a transition away from the euphilic administration to a more pro-UK one then hopefully we may well see a more rational immigration and borders policy at the least.
September 3, 2018
JR.
As sensible migration policy absolutely, however is it realistic to think that we can get it down to tens of thousands most likely not.
Then there is your miscomprehension about the payment policy, it has been clearly shown that the EU migrants do not supress salaries of less qualified Brits, so ,why, do you keep bringing it up?
September 3, 2018
Try telling that to my builder neighbour. Day rate was Ā£100 per day 10 years ago and is now around Ā£70. The building industry is flooded with foreign labour earning 3 times they would make at home. That doesn’t even cover health, education and in some cases care home fees for their parents.
September 3, 2018
Ian,
We have had this conversation in the past and facts and statistics are stacked against you
September 4, 2018
Even the House of Lords committee on immigration conceded unskilled wages were depressed due to immigration and the local population was excluded from many areas of work.
September 4, 2018
Like GDP per head?
September 3, 2018
Why should people in the EU be given preference over family members from the Commonwealth?
September 3, 2018
David,
Because we are still members of the Eu and we signed up to it, fact
September 4, 2018
John’s article is about after we leave the EU and should no no longer be bound by such an agreement.
However, “we” never signed up to such an agreement (Maastricht) in the first place, the UK electorate were never given the option.
September 6, 2018
David,
As long as it is signed by the elected government we stick to our international agreements so just stop this after rationalisation after event rubbish
September 3, 2018
And what about all these proposals going hand in hand with requirements for health insurance for anyone coming here for ANY length of time? Including students. Perhaps employers of short-term workers should pay for their health insurance, as should universities welcoming overseas students. Or do they already do so?
September 3, 2018
M. Barnier has given an interview in the German press in which he has said if the U.K. wants to be in the single market itās all or nothing, not ācherry pickingā as Chequers seeks to do, which means a Norway type arrangement, including accepting laws and regs and paying money. Heās added that it would be best if the U.K. stays in the customs union also (to āsolveā the Irish border issue). So weāve had it laid out clearly again – the EU wants the U.K. in the single market and customs union, paying money, accepting laws and regs (like free movement), but having no votes. This would be an arrangement which is very clearly worse than full EU membership.
So now itās an FTA – or no FTA if the EU says no thanks, and trade under WTO – or Remain. Thatās the real choice.
September 3, 2018
Just as the hypocrisy is unravelling over climate change/Paris accord with coal resuming its place as a main energy provider e.g. China, Australia we can hope the same reality happens with immigration. Basically we are full, have been for some years, the social, medical, housing,transport, financial pressures are clearly visible and increasing . It is vastly worse in continental Europe with Merkel being prime culprit and if the deluded May and her followers prevail the UK’s situation will worsen too. I am alarmed by the number of highly qualified young people I know, who have emigrated and the UK seems to have multiple replacements, whose value is questionable.
Net immigration should be zero and limited to skilled people. I am circumspect about wealthy foreigners being allowed free rein to residency.
September 3, 2018
“That should not cause the PM problems as she has defended this target and repeated it in the 2017 election.”
Well, we all now know that whatever May says doesn’t mean a thing. She’s a wooden robotic politician who says what we want to hear without having any intention of delivering, “Brexit means Brexit” being a classic example.
“Students coming to study at recognised universities and Colleges should be free to come. Anyone with their own means should be welcome. Anyone with high level qualifications or with skills we are short of should be permitted.”
John, could you tell us, do these students pay up front to study at our universities? Your Government discriminates against English kids, them being the only ones clobbered by Ā£9,250 fees, Scottish kids paying nothing and Welsh & NI only paying a third of that. Does this largesse of English taxes extend to foreign students as well?
Also, we shouldn’t need their skills if this clueless Government encouraged home grown talent to stay. For example, how about offering to pay medical fees if English graduates worked for the NHS for a number of years?
September 3, 2018
OK I’ve got it- everyone is welcome here so long as they have money
and those that come to take the low skilled jobs will also be welcome
Am I missing something?
September 3, 2018
When the government does something about illegals smuggling themselves into this country, I might believe that they are doing something. Plans to search every lorry might be a good start.
What about those arriving in small boats or rubber dingies? Will they be sent back? How long before the ‘do-gooders’ who are collecting immigrants on boats in the Mediterranean will soon be operating in the English Channel, floating them ashore in inflatables?
At the moment only token attempt are made at deportation, we can’t even seem to get rid of convicted criminals. When they start mass-deportation of illegals, I might believe the government is doing something.
September 3, 2018
Not so sure about those needing social housing and benefit top ups unless they are coming to work on a temporary basis. Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA don’t welcome you with open arms in this case. Neither did Spain when we moved there. No social security for us or any other help.
September 3, 2018
There should be one criteria, and one criteria only. Does the person have the skills we really need, and would they be a benefit to this country?
I would suggest a rigorous interview, and Criminal Records check.
I am sick to death with being lectured as to our ‘ moral responsibility’! As far as I’m concerned, this country discharged its ‘moral responsibility’ to the World, some time ago.
September 3, 2018
BBC ” The Treasury and the Bank of England are in discussions about Mark Carney staying on as governor beyond his present departure date of June 2019.”
It is one thing for any State to impart fear into its citizens as with Brexit Fear, it is quite another thing to threaten them directly.
September 3, 2018
Having a new policy is worthless unless it is enacted.
The existing years’ policy of reduction might have had some useful effect if it was not repeatedly treated as a policy to increase.
Even now, a reduction in the rate of increase is regarded as a reduction, whereas the increase in new numbers & recent others continue to self-increase regardless.
September 3, 2018
Am afraid it’s all a load of hot air..we’ve been listening to IDS for years now and nothing he says carries weight anymore..same old same old..perhaps he might make special provision in his policy document for the hundreds of thousands of bavarian car workers that will be out of a job as he predicted..they might all want to come to UK to pick fruit..same old same old
September 3, 2018
‘…nothing he says carries weight anymore’. Sorry, when did he carry any weight on any issue! The worst Tory leader ever…enough said.
September 3, 2018
People commenting over at ToL have been discussing the May 2018 Marrakesh Political Declaration this morning, along with the fact none remembered it having been reported. Only Hungary refused to sign it; therefore the UK must have. The intention of the declaration is to increase immigration.
September 3, 2018
No 10 say Boris offered āno new ideasā on Brexit. Isn’t it time he did, put up or shut up Boris and keep ‘personalities’ out of it don’t play the person play the ball. If he has got a serious plan we want to hear it as all we’ve heard from prominent leavers like Johnson, Gove, Leadsome is a big flat nothing, it’s time we heard from more people than Jacob Rees Mogg who is doing all of the carrying on this, it’s time you brought Daniel Hannan into the fold too, he should have been offered a safe seat last time.
I’d also like to know how the Irish can call cheese sold into the UK ‘Cheddar cheese’ when that cheese should originate in Somerset, how did we get to a situation where 80% a locational cheese isn’t made in that location and people weren’t aware of that. I thought that was a good thing about the EU they were meant to protect regional produce that had created a name for that product and it does explain why the cheese doesn’t taste as good as the cheese I remember from my childhood as ‘Cheddar’.
September 3, 2018
Boris doesn’t have to have any ‘new’ ideas – that’s what got us into the mess we have. Boris wants the ‘old’ ideas, you know, the ones May said in her Lancaster House and Mansion House speeches. That’s the ‘plan’. The Chequers nonsense she foisted upon her ‘Cabinet’ is in direct contravention of everything she said then. She foolishly trusted a Remain Civil Servant who is obviously cleverer than she is and got sucked into his ridiculous ideas for keeping the UK in the EU and now can’t back out without resigning.
September 3, 2018
Offered no new ideas. What rubbish. Leave no was never central or the main theme to leave the EU. You do not need a new idea to leave and tradeon WTO terms or a Canadian style deal. What you do not definitely need is to to follow EU rules without a voice or veto on goods and agri products with ECJ oversight on any dispute and follow EU policy on environment, energy, social, security or defence! That is not leaving or taking back control to be a vassal state to pay vast sums of money without a voice or veto!
May needs to be medically assessed if she thinks this is keeping faith with Brexit, manifesto, vote or leaving the EU. Remaining in the eu by another name is not a new idea!
September 4, 2018
No. It is used to protect French Champagne producers from Australian and US producers.
September 3, 2018
I can’t believe that an immigration policy hasn’t been put in place…..
It should have been the 1st item on the agenda to do after the vote. After all that’s why a lot of people voted to leave
Government should take the moral high ground and state that all EU citizens who were here before the referendum can stay and apply for British citizenship
After the vote various restrictions should have been detailed as to what will happen ,applying to all immigrants so everyone knows where they stand after March 2019. Those without a job or financial support would have to go home . What have the civil servants been doing ……?
This is a complete disgrace and immigrants should not be used as a negotiating tool.
The EU can reciprocate if they want to but if they were to send British ex pats etc home it would cause huge I’ll feeling
September 3, 2018
If you’r been following the negotiations, you’d know
a) In 2017 the UK and EU agreed as a priority detailed and extremely generous terms for EU citizens in Britain, and
b) the EU has refused to make any general counter-provision for British citizens in the EU, and has delegated the matter to the 27 member states, who have (as the EU recently announced, in mock-sorrowful surprise) indolently taken absolutely no action in the matter, and have made little or no provision at all.
As usual, it will be down to local city and regional administrations, the discretion of their individual officials, and the anglophobia (or not) of their respective governments and electoral cycles.
Which is, frankly, the way things have always worked on the continent.
September 3, 2018
The sooner you guys come to the fore and we get booted out the sooner we’ll have time to reflect on all including migration..so diddley squat bring it on..can’t wait
September 3, 2018
Dan B
Have you seen the news ?
Barnier has said the Chequers plan is highly unacceptable to the EU, we [those who voted leave] say it’s unacceptable to the UK.
So the only way the PM can get her plan accepted by the EU is with yet more capitulation, which would enrage the electorate further.
This government is screwed and it knows it.
September 3, 2018
I think immigration is good for the country. I wish Scotland could have more immigrants then our population would grow, and we would get better sports results.
Also we should support freedom of people to move around, and travel the world, on principle.
I think we should get Australia , New Zealand, and Canada to join the EU. That way those nations could have more freedom of movement, in a more powerful union.
September 3, 2018
The last paragraph is full of we want this and we want that. I voted leave because I want a complete halt to immigration. Including claimants for asylum.
September 3, 2018
Well Mr Redwood, in my experience when a government drags it’s heels it’s a sure sign of intent to do something the electorate would not approve of. The delay usually means they haven’t yet devised a way to get it done without us noticing, or managed to bury it beneath some other issue, or blame someone else etc.
Taking one of your other points; No, I don’t think we should have a policy of being fair to all from around the world. Some clearly don’t deserve our hospitality, some would even like to kill us.
However, and you might find this ironic coming from a committed right winger, but, immigration needs to be specific to areas of the economy which benefit the country.
I work where the majority are Polish, and I have to say they are hard working, decent and pretty good at their jobs. I have no problem with them as immigrants because they put something back in which then benefits us all. They pay their taxes, and aspire to home ownership and good education for their kids. I have no problem with that whatsoever.
Compare it to the masses coming here because they think everything’s free, and that they’ll never have to work again.
We need to be very choosey as to whom we let in, and base the criteria on reputation, what we actually need, and compatibility with our ways and customs. Such is the case with most developed country’s immigration policy..
Why is ours so soft? after all we don’t owe any other country anything.
September 3, 2018
IEA: Institute of Economic Affairs, very much on the Brexit side, one would think. But on the iea.org.uk website on 08/02/2016 they had a guest with “The economic case for migration” and on 16/11/2016 the independent.co.uk was reporting “Immigration:good for your health and wealth, says IEA”.
I’m puzzled, puzzled, puzzled!
So, who do I believe, for migration the IEA or JR, and in terms of industrial policy JR ou Patrick Minford? Or are the Brexiters all over the place? which is what I think.
September 3, 2018
You miss the point hefner.
They call for a controlled immigration policy similar to many other non EU nations that carefully appraise applicants before they gain admission.
Nothing wrong with immigration.
And it can bring many benefits if a proper system is on place.
But open borders is a ridiculous policy.
September 3, 2018
Having different views is not all over the place. You have expressed different views or ideas which are eminently sensible but not every one of which is agreeable to all.
Hef, come on you can do better. I like reading your thoughtful views when your nose and is not so high up in the air.
September 3, 2018
I never believed anyone could be as incompetent as the British establishment have been over managing our immigration system, especially as many of the people who have created this chaos have come from the top universities. As such I have come to believe it is a manufactured chaos, they don’t want any immigration controls, but they know that they would lose any argument if they attempted to support this policy, so they achieve the same by having such a chaotic system that no one can determine the true level of immigration. The delay on issuing any White Paper on this stems from their unwillingness to establish any order to this chaos, or any desire to be honest about the level of immigration they want.
September 3, 2018
The web is a gold mine! Who had ever heard of the Marrakesh Political Declaration discussed ( signed ) on 2 May 2018 by most of the EU countries. And who the Foreign Secretary at that time?
September 3, 2018
Available from ec.europa.eu for anybody interested on questions related to immigration.
September 3, 2018
Gosh. Where to start.
So, Mr Redwood, our business is translation. We translate stuff. Not restaurant menus or tourists brochures but primarily legal documents. Ours is a service business. Services are not covered by any of your Brexit plans.
Most of our work is for EU countries – there is no guarantee we will have any access at all to their markets after your Brexit. Because legal documents are involved there are quite strict rules. There are a number of non-single market countries which we are not really able to do work for at all. Including the US. This is down to their laws, not ours.
After market access our second biggest concern is people. As we deal with legal papers we need the best possible translators. GCSE or A level languages skills are not good enough. We need native speakers. Itās almost impossible to find Britons who speak languages to the level we need. We get the odd candidate who can do French or Germany but thatās about it. I donāt recall us ever having a British canadidate who can speak, read and write three languages to the level of a native speaker. Most of our candidates from the EU can.
We pay good salaries – well above the national average – but our capacity to raise wages even further is very limited before we become uncompetitive. Our competitors are not based in London. They are based in Paris, Rome and Berlin.
Now, hereās the rub. Linguists are not routinely deemed to be highly skilled workers meaning they are not allowed to easily come here. They would most certainly not qualify under Mr Duncan Smithās plan. We have once, and only once, been through the bureaucratic nightmare of recruiting a non-EU citizen. The visa process is horrific and expensive. And this was for a skilled worker. The notion anyone can walk in is UKIP fiction.
I am currently recruiting for a linguists who is fluent in Romanian, English and one other Eastern European language – preferably Hungarian or Polish. We had around 100 CVs – there are, perhaps, 8 qualified candidates. Would you like to guess how many are British? Yeah – itās none.
So after your Brexit we wonāt be able to recruit at all. The jobs will not be done here, our competitors in Europe will do them instead. Our business will slowly die. What would you like to say to the 30 people you are putting out of work?
I expect you to be too gutless to punish this or a response.
September 4, 2018
The benefit of your business to the UK is marginal at best.
Open borders is a mad policy – especially with open welfare. With this your business becomes a total liability to us.
September 4, 2018
Agreed.
Mass imports of cheap workers with skills already in over supply displacing locals from the workforce, filling the schools and hospitals, is NOT good for the UK.
September 4, 2018
That’s quite a ridiculous comment. If the UK is serious after Brexit to open to the world, it will need linguists, maybe not with Polish or Hungarian, more likely with Asian, Middle-East, S.American Spanish and former peripheral USSR languages, specially for dealing with specifically sophisticated translations. The usual short-sighted argument is “but our future partners will all be speaking English”, yeah right but I can tell you from experience (in a scientific context) that outside the very official meetings your partners will go back to their language and not only to discuss the acridity of the coffee served. This is, I am afraid, one of the worst traits of the English people.
September 4, 2018
Close to a million pounds in business taxes, several hundred thousand in VST, half a million pounds in income tax. Thatās for starts. Our business contributes far more to the UK than narrow minded pensioners ever have or ever will.
September 5, 2018
You would be surprised how much I have contributed to the economy, and I am no pensioner.
Btw poor people and old people deserve an equal say.
September 4, 2018
I translate technical and legal documents from Thai to English and vice versa as a sideline. I do not need to live in Thailand to do this I just send an invoice from wherever I happen to be.
There is no single market I just needed to get certified by the Thai embassy.
More bluster
September 5, 2018
Exactly. My family has a language business and, in order to compete with international agencies in non Vat countries, has to incorporate abroad and uses linguists from all over the world, sometimes on the move. They work on their laptop and have meetings on Skype and other systems which cost nothing. The UK loses a lot of tax because it is difficult to have an office here.
It looks like Andy’s business is a typical EU protected out of date operation. He’s doomed. Better move somewhere cheap and take his EU staff with him, leaving houses for young people to buy.
September 4, 2018
You base your argument on these people you need not being allowed in.
Yet repeated statements from the Government (fully supported by opposition parties) have been saying that industry will not be stopped from recruiting the people they need.
Additionally the UK has said we will not be asking current EU people to return.
The EU has been very quiet in response.
September 4, 2018
Andy, are you assuming the EU won’t be trading with us at all? If they do trade then contracts will still need to be translated and jurisdiction agreed. If our laws are different doesn’t that give you an opportunity as your EU counterparts would be excluded from your new market?
Can’t you hire remote workers for translations ie. Romanians living in Romania who often have German, English and Romanian or Russian, English and Romanian to do the work, why do they have to live in the UK?
September 4, 2018
Andy, I think you are shooting at the wrong target. Please forgive, I don’t want to sound rude, but I also think that you want everything to be made very easy for you and stay that way, no matter what the cost to our nation.
I should say I have considerable knowledge of the translation business, as well as plain business. I spent years working inter alia as a translator, at a high level for blue-chip organisations, in multiple languages (not just European) and in multiple settings (including legal – very high value transactions, contract, litigation – , financial, technical – engineering, pharma, literary etc). I had loyal clients. Translation is a highly enjoyable activity. I still dabble.
Our school (in the UK) produced many linguists, now working with the languages we learnt and went on to use, in life and work, and the additional languages we have learnt and used since school and university. For instance, contemporaries now work in a big institution not far from Cheltenham, and have learnt and use African languages. Another is now a whizzo at Finnish and Hungarian as well, and compiles three-language dictionaries in his free time. I campaign for good language teaching in schools. ( Start with Latin, of course. Good for everything.)
It sounds as if your staff come to an office to work. Many translators I know work from home, for regulated industries, with high levels of security, physical and IT. For the employer/contractor, that saves on overheads. I used to translate from home for people thousands of miles away.
Secondly, in my experience, the key to a good translation is the translator’s understanding of the material to convert, and the purpose/context of the source and translated documents. This really comes before the linguistic capabilities. When I was a marker for the Inst of Linguists (a very long time ago), very few of those I marked passed, and the primary reason was failure to think about what they were translating (plus a high level of ignorance about a common subject area).
I appreciate that translation is one of the many things that people don’t want to pay for. So it is a difficult sell and margins aren’t usually large. It is often a cost that the contractors have not factored in and is an unwelcome surprise.; whether they have or not, the translation cost eats into their profit margins. It is something where people do not appreciate the skills (not just linguistic) that are required to do the work. However, a good translation for the contractor means low risk, better sales, and a lot more, and I have found that people do come to appreciate that. But still don’t want to pay much!
So, three points. 1) I would say that any business model that relies on one single thing, and even worse, no variation in that single thing – such as the EU freedom of movement, which makes life easy for you – is not a strong one.
(2) I don’t think you are shooting at the right target. You should be working to get translation qualifications better recognized, and the value of the activity/business of translation better appreciated, at multiple levels (including national strategic). That is the underlying issue. It is not the EU’s freedom of movement. (3) I am certain there are individuals in the UK with the skills you seek and who would be prepared to work at the salary you offer, but under your HR policy your recruiting hasn’t reached them.
The cost to a nation of the EU’s “freedom of movement” is extraordinarily high, particularly for a country such as ours, with its generous health, education, social security provision. (please don’t quote that flawed 2014 KCL study). I don’t mean to be rude, but I find it arrogant and selfish for people to insist on the continuation of something which is so deeply damaging and expensive, simply for their own convenience. It is you, Andy, who is paying in the short and the long term. And the rest of us.
It is up to you to get the activity of translation and translation qualifications better recognized by the authorities. In my opinion, if you are running a translation business of any size, that is what you should be doing as a core strategic activity.
September 3, 2018
According to Migration Watch 76% want immigration reduced.
Our free-at the-point-of-use institutions, our environment and our social cohesion are all suffering and will not survive if current levels are allowed to continue.
As a small country we cannot absorb all those who want to come to the UK, Africa alone has a population of 1,200 million increasing at 30 million each year.
But our politicians are taking absolutely no notice, even those who promise large reductions in immigration in their manifestos.
Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results and if voters continue to vote for candidates and parties who support continued immigration then they only have themselves to blame for the eventual outcome.
September 3, 2018
What we want is a cherry picking policy where we can have our cake and eat it and not alone about migration. There is no guarantee about a Canadadeal either. Its not hard to see the EU are out to cut us adtift we are heading for the rocks
September 3, 2018
So, have you anything reassuring to say to the British car industry?
September 3, 2018
First, I’ve just asked Bruno Waterfield (Times Brussels correspondent) to clarify a tweet of his (2:33 am, 2 Sept), which I read as indicating that Messrs Barnier and Selmayr had sight of the Chequers document before some UK cabinet ministers: “Sources have told me that Barnier/Selmayr had to be āhauled backā when trying to kill Chequers before the cabinet meeting and white paper āHis briefing at a 5 July meeting was so extreme that people were shocked,ā”
Just working through some interesting Swiss & German studies on longer-term costs of immigration, independently written, all finding that immigration is a net cost. Also interesting finding that the more highly educated immigrants are more likely to leave the country after time.
September 3, 2018
I suggest we sorely need a universal registration system. A modern society cannot survive on the basis of casual trust.
In France, even an EU citizen (who does not need a titre de sƩjour) must register at the local town hall for residence after three months.
Germany: immediate registration by all citizens at the Einwohnermeldeamt in any new local area.
Austria, Switzerland & Liechtenstein: the same
Spain: the same – including all EU citizens (who must also register at the Central Register).
And so on. And in each case, non-compliance is punishable by law.
We cannot carry on not knowing who is in the country, who is not, who is alive or dead, who has arrived here and where on earth they’ve all got to when they need to be contacted.
However regretfully, I suggest we need to bite on this bullet: registration and some secure form of ID/passport for all. And no fudging by local councils.
September 4, 2018
Can you imagine the gigantic cock-up Whitehall would make trying to introduce a national identity card?
September 4, 2018
BoaE, It should not be that difficult. There already exists a number of quasi-national databases in force in the UK (NIN, NHS, HMRC, multiple credit card agencies [at least four], …). The task (which could be given to one private company) would be to make a consistent dataset out of these. Each of the FANG can do it with international customers. Are you saying there does not exist a UK company able to carry out properly such a task?
September 4, 2018
Yup, the same as they always do. Next time we should tell them they’ll be personally surcharged for any hitch.
September 4, 2018
The problem is ‘people looking for a job’. Anyone can say they are looking for work. No official could deny entry on the grounds that they are not when they say they are. The rule has to be that they have accepted a job to be allowed a long term stay. That way the same rules on benefits and public services can apply to all citizens and long term residents. There would remain questions over people calling themselves self employed or with their own one-person or small partnership companies. But there would not be many of those and it would be relatively easy for the government to make checks on these few businesses since all must be registered.
There is no reason for UK to support or encourage self-classified self-employed immigrants not actually working by offering to enrol them in employment programs or by providing housing and medical care at public expense. Immediate family obviously should be allowed – but only one partners please not multiple wives each housed separately at public expense as Australia allows.
September 4, 2018
All prominent remainers are hell bent on delaying Brexit as long as is possible. They think the longer it’s delayed, the better the chance that it will never happen. It could well prove to be the case! There are no guarantees from the Gov that come March 2019 they will complete Art50 and we will have left. We then have the implementation period where remainers will continue to use this to abandon Brexit entirely!
September 5, 2018
I don’t worry about this – the French will make sure we leave!
September 4, 2018
Immigration control is necessary to defend our indigenous culture and not for economic reasons. Zero net migration will involve banning the importation of brides, bridegrooms and families. The ban should stay in place until ‘communities’ start to integrate and inter-marry with the indigenous population.
We can cope on the labour front by such measures as the introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence, reducing the hours that retail firms are obliged to open, and introducing demand management into geriatric medicine and pharmaceuticals.
Once again employers will be obliged to use labour more efficiently, necessity being the mother of invention.