The consequence thread (Brexit)

[ez8004]

One option would be to make it more or less self-financing. A skilled migrant visa for Australia for yourself, partner and two children will set you back around £1,500 at today's exchange rate. I believe you'll also be taxed much more heavily than the locals when you get there, though I'd need to double check that. Could do something similar here.

 

For another option, see the "Bank of England Madness" thread. Given the failure of monetary policy to stimulate the economy, the government needs to follow an expansionary fiscal policy if it doesn't want the economy to stagnate. [That said, the eurozone has been in desperate need of this for nearly a decade and hasn't done it, which shows that ideology could well get in the way.] This would involve some serious public spending (even "Economist for Brexit" Gerard Lyons says so), some of which could go on visa processing. If we are going to control our borders we'll need a massive increase in spending on border control anyway and, again, visa processing could be subsumed under that.

 

 

 

Well, quite. Though it might be a sign that they are starting to manage expectations in terms of public spending and, concomitantly, public debt.

 

May really needs to trigger Article 50 now. She can't leave it till 2019 it's too late given the EU elections are 2020 and it takes 2 years to negotiate because we'll have no idea who we'll be dealing with in a new EU parliament and most probably commission.

[I1L2T3]

May really needs to trigger Article 50 now. She can't leave it till 2019 it's too late given the EU elections are 2020 and it takes 2 years to negotiate because we'll have no idea who we'll be dealing with in a new EU parliament and most probably commission.

 

We all know that nobody really wants to be the one to pull the trigger.

 

It's all talk.

 

Only a handful of politicians are inclined enough and/or stupid enough to do it and May is not one of them.

 

Leadsom IMO if she had been elected in September would have moved quickly.

[El Cid]

This is a bit confusing, there was a thread on here a few days ago saying that the construction industry was in recession.

If that's the case surely there are plenty of tradespeople looking for work.

 

When employers say that they cannot get enough workers, what they really mean is that people do not respond to adds, at the wages they are offering.

We are still in the EU, pay the right money and people will come.

We do not have high unemployment, but perhaps training the UK population is also an issue.

Is it around 45% of kids that go to uni, how many jobs require that level of skill, certainly not 45%

I will gladly be corrected on the this

[I1L2T3]

Thought the attraction of the EU to remainers was that it was highly regulated (Make sure nothing goes wrong like) make your minds up.

 

I'm not sure why you thought that. People can be highly critical of the EU but on balance think staying in is best. I'm one of them.

 

The point though is that despite being in the EU the UK is still one of the most liberal and lightly regulated advanced economies.

[Justin Smith]

We actually have two Polish plumbers (and a Polish maths teacher) working for us on not much more than minimum wage. Apparently the demand for the legendary Polish plumber has never been what the media has us believe, not enough to trump a regular income anyway.

 

It does highlight my main objection to the EU's dogmatic stance on free movement of labour. Poland is down 2 skilled workers and a teacher, whilst 3 unknown UK residents are claiming benefits when they could be doing these unskilled jobs. Sure, our company benefits with these highly competent workers, as do they. But I fail to see how the societies of Poland or the UK benefit.

 

I'm also reminded about the protests against globalisation, of which this sort of free movement of labour was part of, that was prevalent on the left of politics 25/30 years ago. I would say part of the DNA of socialist thought over decades. How things have changed. At least Dennis Skinner and Jeremy Corbyn (secretly) have not forgotten.

 

I can only say that does NOT reflect my own experience. Take the example I`ve just quoted. I`m now onto my 4th plumber to get a quote for a job I need doing, and that`s unusual. There`s obviously a severe shortage of plumbers (and tradesmen generally) for that to be the case.

As for 3 UK residents claiming benefits, the implication that they could be plumbers instead is patently untrue, because they`re not doing that now. The fact is there are plenty of jobs out there anyway, they`re just not jobs which Joe "sign on" Bloggs wants to do, particularly for the wages they`re being offered. And I`m not talking about a 10 or 20% increase to make them attractive, there are people out there who have no particular skills who seem to think they should be paid £25K, or they`d rather not bother. It`s nothing to do with immigration, most British benefit claimants won`t do the jobs which are on offer and taken by immigrants now......

 

---------- Post added 18-08-2016 at 09:43 ----------

 

Why is this plumbing, which other professions do you think it applies to, and why?

 

Most tradesmen. Have you tried to get a builder (or joiner or similar) recently (particularly for a smaller job) ? I remember last year trying to get a landscape gardener, one didn`t even bother getting back to me with a quote, one quoted but (very annoyingly) didn`t turn up, and the last one, who got the job quoted very high and took twice as long to do it as I expected. It prompted this thread last September.

I`m going by my own experience here, not hearsay.

[El Cid]

I`m going by my own experience here, not hearsay.

 

There are around 8 million foreign born people in the UK, so if you think they are better, then go for it.

I got a message yesterday night for a bit of gardening work, replied this morning.

[Cyclone]

We actually have two Polish plumbers (and a Polish maths teacher) working for us on not much more than minimum wage. Apparently the demand for the legendary Polish plumber has never been what the media has us believe, not enough to trump a regular income anyway.

 

It does highlight my main objection to the EU's dogmatic stance on free movement of labour. Poland is down 2 skilled workers and a teacher, whilst 3 unknown UK residents are claiming benefits when they could be doing these unskilled jobs. Sure, our company benefits with these highly competent workers, as do they. But I fail to see how the societies of Poland or the UK benefit.

 

So lets extend your argument. Why allow someone from Yorkshire to work in Lancashire.

That just means that Yorkshire is down a skilled worker and someone in Lancashire is out of a job.

And then extend it further. Why allow someone from Sheffield to work in Leeds. Why allow freedom of movement from the village you were born in... How does that benefit society (if you can answer than, then extend your answer to freedom of movement around Europe).

 

Justin makes a good counter argument as well. Plumbers are often self employed. The amount they can charge depends partially on how easy it is to find a plumber to do some work. If there is a shortage then plumbers from elsewhere come here, they moderate prices in the market place, but they haven't put someone out of work. If work becomes more scarce then plumbers exit the local market and go elsewhere to work, to a place where plumbers are more in demand. Basic supply and demand reactions.

And also as Justin says, the people in the UK claiming benefits for the long term are generally not skilled, we don't have plumbers sat around wishing that there was work and signing on. Foreign plumbers are not coming over here and stealing our work.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Cyclone

[El Cid]

And then extend it further. Why allow someone from Sheffield to work in Leeds. Why allow freedom of movement from the village you were born in... How does that benefit society (if you can answer than, then extend your answer to freedom of movement around Europe).

 

 

If our society is organised correctly, there will be trained people to do most jobs, yes they maybe movement locally.

 

Our Bank of England boss is from another country, because it is thought no one in this country can do the role as good.

That may be correct, there maybe just a few hundred bankers in the UK, but surely there are thousands/millions of tradesmen?

 

It seems there is a shortage of bankers, nurses, teachers, doctors, plumbers, builders, toilet cleaners, veg pickers, cockle pickers; that is a long list, it does not make sense.

Employers and Government dont want to train and pay high enough wages, they just want the cheapest.

 

The cost of a flight to bring a worker to this country might be around £400(they will probably pay it themselves), the cost of training one plumber is £7,000 minimum.

Edited August 18, 2016 by El Cid

[milquetoast1]

So lets extend your argument. Why allow someone from Yorkshire to work in Lancashire.

That just means that Yorkshire is down a skilled worker and someone in Lancashire is out of a job.

And then extend it further. Why allow someone from Sheffield to work in Leeds. Why allow freedom of movement from the village you were born in... How does that benefit society (if you can answer than, then extend your answer to freedom of movement around Europe).

 

And then reverse that, and say we should allow free movement across the globe which is what the no borders movement would argue for. Is that what you would argue for?

 

Anyway, the fundamental difference between Sheffield/Leeds, Yorkshire/Lancashire and Poland/UK is that one is fundamentally supply discrepancy led whilst the other is income discrepancy led. You might want to argue that the difference is moot, but actually talking to the Eastern European staff we have employed tells me it's not. Many of them are unhappy that they are here for the money, wishing they were doing what they were trained for back home. Don't imagine there's no shortage of plumbers and teachers in Poland, far from it.

 

Free movement of labour is ultimately great for businesses themselves, great for capitalism, but less so for the workers themselves or society. Encouraging people to travel 1000's of miles to undercut the local workforce is globalism writ large.

[Cyclone]

Ultimately yes.

 

Clearly the Polish plumbers aren't so unhappy that they choose to stay at home... And if Poland had a shortage of plumbers then the local rates would go up and plumbers there would be well recompensed.

 

Pay might be higher in the UK, but so is the cost of living.