Brexit

[stayhigh]

Hey guys, brexit is just exiting the EU, which is political thing, not EEA (European Economic Area). Look at Switzerland or Norway, they are both doing great without EU membership, and you can live and work there without any issues.

[radamfi]

Hey guys, brexit is just exiting the EU, which is political thing, not EEA (European Economic Area). Look at Switzerland or Norway, they are both doing great without EU membership, and you can live and work there without any issues.

Yes, a Norway or Swiss style arrangement would be fine, but our government seems hell bent on leaving the EEA as well.

[radamfi]

If you are serious about retiring there I would put my money where my mouth is and head over before the inevitable working visa situation makes life more difficult, yet arguably still not impossible for the determined.

Don't you think I would have done that by now if it was feasible? Believe me, I would have left years ago if I could have.

[ducknalddon]

Yes, a Norway or Swiss style arrangement would be fine, but our government seems hell bent on leaving the EEA as well.

I suspect that will all change as we get closer to the reality of leaving. Until then I think a stoical approach is probably best.

[IlliniDave]

Don't you think I would have done that by now if it was feasible? Believe me, I would have left years ago if I could have.

You couldn't leave before, you (think you) can't leave in the future. Sounds like no change at all. Sometimes you have to dance with the one who brought you to the ball.

[jim234]

I can't believe that Brits are not more upset about loosing rights to live and work in Europe without restriction. It is a huge loss that will hurt the ability to retire, to arbitrage geographically, to have a say about where Europe is headed. When will they wake up that it is just plain bad for everyone.

[BRUTE]

maybe most Brits simply don't care much about Europe

[Jean]

I can't believe that Brits are not more upset about loosing rights to live and work in Europe without restriction. It is a huge loss that will hurt the ability to retire, to arbitrage geographically, to have a say about where Europe is headed. When will they wake up that it is just plain bad for everyone.

half the Brits voted for this, why would they be upset?

[Seppia]

Hey guys, brexit is just exiting the EU, which is political thing, not EEA (European Economic Area). Look at Switzerland or Norway, they are both doing great without EU membership, and you can live and work there without any issues.

For a European citizen (EEA) it's a lot harder to go work in Norway or Switzerland VS France or Spain.
I'm Italian and I need zero paperwork to move, live and work say in France. I just move there and start working.
In terms of residency and working/pension rights I'm exactly the same as a French citizen.
Not at all the case in Switzerland or Norway.

[radamfi]

half the Brits voted for this, why would they be upset?

A lot of Brits are ignorant and think there is no world outside the UK. Therefore it doesn't matter to them if they can't live abroad in the future. Some of them are only interested in living in places that speak English like Australia and New Zealand. But there are probably millions of my fellow citizens who were hoping to retire to France or Spain.

[chenda]

It's still possible Brexit, particularly a hard Brexit, won't happen. May is a weakened lightweight, the cabinet are at war with each other, no realistic strategy has emerged. If it continues like this the issue may be redetermined at another referedum or a general election. This could change, but from a Remain perspective this is all good news...

[slsdly]

A quick Google suggests there were 1-2M Brits living in other EU countries in 2011, compared to 63M in the UK. So at that moment in time, around 3% of people were taking advantage of the freedom to live anywhere in the EU. What I don't know is how many people took advantage of it for shorter periods of time (what part of that 3% is cycling so more people have at some point in time taken advantage of that right?). But it does suggest that the majority in the UK is unaffected.

[radamfi]

Even in the countries where the citizens have made most use of freedom of movement, only a minority actually use this right. But I bet that if free movement was removed from, say, Polish citizens, they wouldn't be too pleased.

[chenda]

Yes and the economic and other benefits of freedom of movement are arguably enormous and will impact everyone. And the option value of been able to move in the future is not insignificant, people don't like their rights been taken away, even if they never plan on exercising them.

[ducknalddon]

It's still possible Brexit, particularly a hard Brexit, won't happen. May is a weakened lightweight, the cabinet are at war with each other, no realistic strategy has emerged. If it continues like this the issue may be redetermined at another referedum or a general election. This could change, but from a Remain perspective this is all good news...

I suspect all the trouble the Conservatives are having will make a hard brexit more likely, if May had got a big majority she could have ignored the brexit fringe which I suspect was what the election was all about.

[slsdly]

I agree in general citizens don't like rights being taken away. But when I see the numbers are so low, I am no longer surprised enough voters didn't care about them such that they voted "yes" to Brexit. They were never going to leave, and might not even know anybody who has left depending on where these 3% come from (for example, maybe they predominantly come from London?). Exposure is really important for building empathy.

[radamfi]

There was a popular TV programme in the 80s called "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" where construction workers primarily from Newcastle went to work in Düsseldorf because there was high unemployment in England at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if that programme gave some people the same idea.

Earlier in this thread, a Brexit voter said he had worked in Europe before. He took advantage of the free movement but has decided to stop others doing the same.

[chenda]

@radamfi I think they brought it back in the late 90s ? Got some Eastern Europeans back to Newcastle to dismantle a bridge over the Tyne. Half of whom were Serbs and the other half Albanians, so they got them each working one end to stop them brawling. There's got to be a metaphor in their somewhere

[vexed87]

A lot of Brits are ignorant and think there is no world outside the UK.

It's been said before, but it doesn't seem to sink in for the remain camp. This very attitude has a lot to do with why the Remain campaign lost.

Freedom of movement is simply another aspect of the free movement of capital favoured by neoliberals, from the perspective of the majority of British unskilled labourers, it would appear that this means cheap foreign labourers are flooding the labour market because of wage arbitrage and displacing locals and/or suppressing wages. No one wants to clean toilets or pick vegetables, not because the jobs are horrible, but because they cannot feed their families on those wages without significant reduction in consumption of goods and services which are deemed to be essential in our culture. Remainers argue if these jobs are unfilled by EU migrants, wages raise and the cost of goods goes up. The UK therefore cannot export their goods and be competitive vs cheap EU imports. This is true, however it also ignores the fact that the capital that buys the imports also leaves the country, mostly likely permanently. Not only that, you lose the skills and resilience that comes with localised production, once skills and means of production are lost, they are sometimes very expensive, or impossible to replace, the country becomes totally dependent on imports*, they may be cheap in the short term, but what happens when supply lines or markets are disrupted by politics, war or climate change? Whilst it may not be cheaper to grow/produce locally with higher wages for the yokels, it's better for the reducing financial inequality, local economies, communities and therefore wider society. The wealthy lose out, because the cheap imports and their arbitrage are cut off. Remember, there's no hard feelings (except if you lose), politics is a game of serving one's own interests.

The remain camp love to jump through hoops to ignore this, instead they prefer to drag the Leavers through the ringer over the odd racist local yokel who gets asked for their opinion in the remain dominated media, funny that, how often did an intelligent 'leaver' get asked for their opinion? You show me 10 dozen 'ignorant' leavers, and I'll show you 10 dozen equally prejudiced remainers. Labeling the remain camp ignorant, or deplorable does nothing but villanise and dehumanise the other side. The remain campaign ignored the immediate interests of a massive subsection of the population at their peril and the outcome reflected that. Instead the focus was on international competitiveness and economic expansion as the basis of the vote remain, it's that or the economy goes full 'DOOM'. Pro Globalisation policy buys you cheap goods on an international market, but what good is that if you are part of a growing majority of unskilled labourers who are losing out on the economic prosperity enjoyed a shrinking and privileged minority (of which we are all likely part of). The party that recognises this will do better in the next election, sadly it was the Conservatives that worked it out last time. The Green Party are about the only party who recognise this, but they attract many system's thinkers unlike the other myopic partisan political organisations. Sadly their leadership we're on the 'wrong' side of the brexit vote , but I perceived their arguments as most logical of the remainers.

Looking at it in this light, it's no surprise that the majority of the public would vote against the free movement of human capital in order to protect their own interests. They are not ignorant, they are merely looking out for their own interests, much like you are @radamfi. Unfortunately for you, the general public are beginning to wake up to the fact that the EU isn't promoting capitalism in it's purest form, rather EU economic policy is now being perceived as the crony-neoliberal agenda that benefits the holders of productive capital at the expense of those who only have their hands to work with, the fallacy of rising tide that rises all boats is in actual fact boat load of BS and most of your so called ignorant Brexiteers see right through it. Humans are capital too, and so the freedom of movement must go with it. Baby out with the bathwater as it were.

I am under no illusion that protectionist stance or hard brexit is the best thing for international trade, or GDP, or my portfolio, but few directly benefit from GDP increases, actually, the majority are worse off as the bid for international competitiveness, further financialisation etc pushes more and more out of meaningful and well paid work, favouring efficiency and international trade over local economy and community, and social equity. Indeed, hard brexit and cutting the UK off from trade would be an end game for the economy as we know it. We might have to go back to producing things we actually need locally, rather than mostly selling services and financial products to the EU and rest of the world from the City. We'll also need to rethink our strategy of converting fossil fuels (imports) into consumer tat, seen as though we won't have a currency worth anything with which to buy it, gone will be the days when we buy things we need from far away places like China and Taiwan. It will be disruptive, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world. We might actually come out better prepared for what most of the forum here believe the future holds. We all know the UK cannot depend on fossil fuel driven economy for importing food and energy long term.

(*)Development of non-developed nations if often undertaken, not because of good will, but because the skills and means of production can be sold to unsuspecting nations, not realising that factories, power plants and other expensive infrastructure rely on skill sets that are not present in the domestic market, keeping them dependant and on the hook for support from foreign corporations for their needs indefinitely.

[ducknalddon]

A lot of Brits are ignorant and think there is no world outside the UK.

It's been said before, but it doesn't seem to sink in for the remain camp. This very attitude has a lot to do with why the Remain campaign lost.

The evidence is on the remain side, you might be an exception but there is evidence the strongest correlation for voting remain was intelligence. It's not surprising Cambridge voted remain but Peterborough voted leave.

Also if you think we are heading towards some socialist nirvana you are going to be disappointed, did you not notice the group lobbying hardest for leave were from the right. We will shift our economic model away from Europe and towards the US, those same people are itching to undo the environmental protections we inherited from the EU. You should have listened harder to what people like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Douglas Carswell were saying.

Also, we aren't going to suddenly become self-sufficient in food, we haven't been for two hundred years. There are too many people and not enough fertile land.