5 ms·

Also, don't forget that: > It’s a peculiarity of this referendum that Commonwealth citizens may vote in it, whereas French, Italians and Germans who have lived

by mino 11y ago

Also, don't forget that: > It’s a peculiarity of this referendum that Commonwealth citizens may vote in it, whereas French, Italians and Germans who have lived here for many years, and are much more directly affected, may not. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/how-to-argue-against-brexit-eu-fate-europe-uk-at-stake http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/how-to-...

masklinn 11y ago
IIRC a fair few of those work in finance in the City, things are going to be… interesting.
- junto 11y ago
  Indeed. Border control policies end up being a tit for tat affair. The only reason EU countries have border controls on flights landing in their respective countries from the UK, is because the UK applies border controls on their citizens entering the United Kingdom. I can fly from Germany to Spain without ever showing my passport at my destination, but if I fly to and from the UK I need to show my passport on both sides. I expect this to become 100 fold worse in the UK tries to leave the EU.
  - aembleton 11y ago
    Maybe we will have to get visas to visit the EU. If the EU want to make it harder for us to visit, then that is their choice and they have every right to do so. I don't see why we should expect others to just let us into their country if they'd rather we weren't there.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > Maybe we will have to get visas to visit the EU. That's really unlikely, though that would be a hilarious hit to the "power" of the UK passport (in terms of countries you can enter visa-free).
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    If you are from the EU any EU ID is sufficient to enter the uk you do not need a passport.
    - junto 11y ago
      My point is that you have to present your ID at a British border control. Germany to Spain - nichts, nada, zilch. I just walk straight through.
antillean 11y ago
I'm one of those Commonwealth nationals resident in the UK with the right to vote in this referendum. I had thought the case for the UK staying in the EU was obvious until I started thinking about it and, in the process, stumbled upon a frustratingly alluring argument for me -- and other non-EU, British-resident Commonwealth nationals (that is, other Commonwealth nationals legally living in the UK who are not also nationals of an EU country) -- to vote for the UK to leave. The argument runs like this. The UK's current level of migration is seen as a problem by the current UK government, by a significant proportion of British citizens, and probably even by a good few in the left-leaning parties. While the UK's in the EU, there's almost nothing that can be done to curb skilled or unskilled migration from the EU. Any government of a UK in the EU that wants to curb migration has to do so by clamping down on non-EU migrants. There's already no legal unskilled migrant route to the UK, so that means cutting back on skilled migration. That clamping down is for me a personal pain, so much of a pain that it feels like every time I see Theresa May in the news it's because she wants to make it harder for me and other non-EU nationals to work in the UK. (I try really, really hard not to hate her.) If the UK left the EU, that'd allow the British government to apply the same rules across the board (to EU citizens as well as non-EU citizens) which'd probably lead to any UK government (from migration-hating UKIP to migration-loving Greens) having a more sensible approach to skilled migration. And not only is that in my own interest as a non-EU Commonwealth national, it's also in the UK's interest as far as having a sensible skilled migration policy goes. This argument is, of course, too narrow on something as broad as the UK's members in the EU to be enough: it doesn't deal with the host of other things around British EU membership (wealth, security, environment, international influence etc). But my working visa issues are so frustrating that I find it a very, very tempting argument.

by mino 11y ago

masklinn 11y ago

IIRC a fair few of those work in finance in the City, things are going to be… interesting.

junto 11y ago
Indeed. Border control policies end up being a tit for tat affair. The only reason EU countries have border controls on flights landing in their respective countries from the UK, is because the UK applies border controls on their citizens entering the United Kingdom. I can fly from Germany to Spain without ever showing my passport at my destination, but if I fly to and from the UK I need to show my passport on both sides. I expect this to become 100 fold worse in the UK tries to leave the EU.
- aembleton 11y ago
  Maybe we will have to get visas to visit the EU. If the EU want to make it harder for us to visit, then that is their choice and they have every right to do so. I don't see why we should expect others to just let us into their country if they'd rather we weren't there.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > Maybe we will have to get visas to visit the EU. That's really unlikely, though that would be a hilarious hit to the "power" of the UK passport (in terms of countries you can enter visa-free).
- dogma1138 11y ago
  If you are from the EU any EU ID is sufficient to enter the uk you do not need a passport.
  - junto 11y ago
    My point is that you have to present your ID at a British border control. Germany to Spain - nichts, nada, zilch. I just walk straight through.

antillean 11y ago

I'm one of those Commonwealth nationals resident in the UK with the right to vote in this referendum. I had thought the case for the UK staying in the EU was obvious until I started thinking about it and, in the process, stumbled upon a frustratingly alluring argument for me -- and other non-EU, British-resident Commonwealth nationals (that is, other Commonwealth nationals legally living in the UK who are not also nationals of an EU country) -- to vote for the UK to leave. The argument runs like this. The UK's current level of migration is seen as a problem by the current UK government, by a significant proportion of British citizens, and probably even by a good few in the left-leaning parties. While the UK's in the EU, there's almost nothing that can be done to curb skilled or unskilled migration from the EU. Any government of a UK in the EU that wants to curb migration has to do so by clamping down on non-EU migrants. There's already no legal unskilled migrant route to the UK, so that means cutting back on skilled migration. That clamping down is for me a personal pain, so much of a pain that it feels like every time I see Theresa May in the news it's because she wants to make it harder for me and other non-EU nationals to work in the UK. (I try really, really hard not to hate her.) If the UK left the EU, that'd allow the British government to apply the same rules across the board (to EU citizens as well as non-EU citizens) which'd probably lead to any UK government (from migration-hating UKIP to migration-loving Greens) having a more sensible approach to skilled migration. And not only is that in my own interest as a non-EU Commonwealth national, it's also in the UK's interest as far as having a sensible skilled migration policy goes. This argument is, of course, too narrow on something as broad as the UK's members in the EU to be enough: it doesn't deal with the host of other things around British EU membership (wealth, security, environment, international influence etc). But my working visa issues are so frustrating that I find it a very, very tempting argument.