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Opinion on Brexit. Hopefully of interest: I'm torn on Brexit. If Britain stays in the European Union, then it won't have a lot of power to manage her borders.
by man-and-laptop 8y ago
Opinion on Brexit. Hopefully of interest:
I'm torn on Brexit.
If Britain stays in the European Union, then it won't have a lot of power to manage her borders. The "liberalness" of Britain's immigration policy ends up being at minimum the liberalness of each of the other 27 EU countries. Germany could let in 1 million immigrants (good for them), all of them would get citizenship, all of them can go to the UK, the UK can't say to any of them "Hold on a minute. Are you even a fit?"
Also, this kind of unrestricted immigration is a historical anomaly. 100s of years ago, it took too long to travel from one place to another, and so people who lived far away were more different to each other. It's not clear whether throwing all the borders open will result in something stable that will last for centuries.
It's also a colossal experiment. If the experiment doesn't work out (see the above paragraph) then 28 countries pay the price. The UK will be deeply affected because it's an immigrant magnet, due to its high living standards, a lot of employment opportunities, and a widely spoken national language; something might happen to Romania and Poland, given that much of their population has apparently emigrated. If the experiment turns out bad, then multiply the impact by 28 for each of the 28 countries.
And there was a recent article on HN about an EU law that says newspaper headlines are going under copyright. Again, mistakes like this affect 500 million people (the citizens of the EU) and 28 different countries. This is a monoculture, which is bad in nature; why not in politics? The Ottoman monoculture might have been one of the things that set the Middle East / North Africa back. For instance, the Ottomans banned printing (in Arabic). How would that have been good for science? And China's another famous empire/union (monoculture), in which one emperor dissolved their fleet, which was the most advanced at the time, impacting their trade, and preventing them from settling elsewhere. How is a European, or even a globalised monoculture, any better?
On the other hand, I can see how the immediate economic impacts of Brexit might be bad.
- jcranmer 8y ago> If Britain stays in the European Union, then it won't have a lot of power to manage her borders. The "liberalness" of Britain's immigration policy ends up being at minimum the liberalness of each of the other 27 EU countries. Germany could let in 1 million immigrants (good for them), all of them would get citizenship, all of them can go to the UK, the UK can't say to any of them "Hold on a minute. Are you even a fit?" That's patently false. The EU doesn't prohibit (justified) immigration restrictions, and that sort of immigrant wave would be grounds for imposing restrictions.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoIt does prohibit them among the 28 member countries. They call it free movement. Each of those country's immigration policies is a loophole for the other 27. It's a loss of border sovereignty.
- SirHound 8y agoNo, you are arguing in bad faith (or ignorance). British immigration policy is British immigration policy because as per European law it has mechanisms to prevent benefit immigration that is isn’t exercising https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:... The fact is successive governments have rightly identified that both skilled and cheap labour from immigration is keeping our economy afloat. Otherwise we’d see them at least tap the brakes. But they haven’t.
- Apocryphon 8y agoSeems conceivable that post-Brexit Tory governments would not do a whit about immigration for the sake of access to labor.
- SirHound 8y agoThey couldn’t! Basic demographics mean this kind of approach would, like it or not, end us. Although given the global inverse correlation between financial prosperity and birth rates, we’ll be back on our feet within a generation!
- Apocryphon 8y agoI think you mean "shouldn't." Capital does all sorts of things that you might find self-destructive. Do you think they'll behave any differently when they're beholden only to Westminster instead of Brussels as well? That inverse property doesn't seem to be holding up for Japan.
- 8y ago
- Tomte 8y ago> This, by the way, is a real HN comment as I imagine it. Not just saying something short for peer approval. I know which way HN leans. Well, I was about to upvote you, because I thought it's unfair your reasonable comment is grayed out. Until I read this. Then I did the opposite. Downvote complaints become self-fulfilling prophecies.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoI was commenting on something above. A short comment which I interpreted as a short "I don't like this." which I thought was a bit echo-chamber and lacking in substance. I take your point though. Not great style.
- zero_iq 8y agoYou are talking nonsense. The UK has (and always has had) complete exemption from EU common immigration policy. The EU is not able to dictate immigration controls to the UK. If you have a problem with how the UK handles non-EU immigration then it is the fault of UK government policy, not the EU. The complete exception from common immigration policy of the UK (along with Ireland and in some matters Denmark) is laid out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2009). EDIT: to clarify -- I am referring to non-EU immigration here, not freedom-of-movement for EU citizens.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoReally? Because "freedom of movement" seems to be the sticking point in the Brexit negotiations. The UK can't go the Norway route because it doesn't want "free movement" into its territory.
- zero_iq 8y agoI'm referring to common immigration policy, i.e. from outside the EU into the EU. This is distinct from freedom-of-movement for EU citizens within the EU. Such freedom-of-movement does not apply to non-EU citizens.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoA person from country C can immigrate into the UK by immigrating into one of 27 different other countries, and then using free movement to get into the UK. This makes border control harder.
- zero_iq 8y agoIndeed. But to become an EU citizen you have to meet the citizenship requirements, the common standard for which the UK has previously negotiated and agreed along with the other members, PLUS additional requirements and limitations can be imposed by the UK for other kinds of long term residential statuses. It's not like one member state is allowed really lax citizenship laws, so people can choose to sneak in through there, and restrictions can be imposed even by the UK for a limited period. The UK manages to both have influence over EU immigration policies AND also have exemption to it for non-EU immigration, AND can apply its own limitations even for when immigrants get citizenship for a limited period. Yet many brexiters spout on about how the EU just dictates everything to us and it's all out of our control. Absolute rubbish.
- NLips 8y ago""" the UK can't say to any of them "Hold on a minute. Are you even a fit?" """ This only applies to workers, which roughly means that if they have a genuine job there. Historically, the UK has had more relaxed rules, I believe allowing pretty much indefinite leave to remain without work for EU citizens, but there is no requirement for the UK to allow that under the EU's "Freedom of movement".