Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122990237#Comment_122990237

I'll give you this; you've managed to find evidence that China is a very populous country. But there's a bit of a leap from "the population of China is very big" to "the EU is increasingly seen as a backwater". I'm genuinely open to considering the argument that will fill that gap, if and when you decide to advance it.

yagan

Danial Hannan predictions from the referendum vote about what the UK will look like by 2025 are worth revisiting.

It is said tragedy + time = comedy. I don't see anyone in the UK laughing.

https://www.reaction.life/p/britain-looks-like-brexit

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123027009#Comment_123027009

One of the most hilarious pieces of political fan fiction I've ever read.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122974142#Comment_122974142

Nobody expects the Spanish Acquisition!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123027060#Comment_123027060

It'd be funny if it weren't for the millions of lives damaged by it.

j62

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/13/spain-proposes-100-tax-on-homes-bought-by-non-eu-residents

Oh dear, all them Brits in Spain who voted for Brexit now must be having a bad day

ancapailldorcha

Excellent idea. Should be replicated across the EU and the UK.

Seth Brundle

One challenge to that might be that presumably most of the properties owned by UK citizens was bought when the UK was a member of the EU.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054097#Comment_123054097

A capital gains tax would be an appropriate response to sales by non-EU owners. The rate can be adjusted to the period owned, the number of properties owned (not just the one being sold). Rental income could also be taxed at higher rates to non-EU landlords. Italy already operates some of these measures.

The purpose is to make house prices affordable for locals.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054097#Comment_123054097

They ought not to have voted for Brexit then.

Randycove

I would have thought they would be better off scrapping the golden visa that often goes with buying a property.

Not sure what difference it will make though, they really want to stop the Germans buying property, especially in Mallorca, but I guess they can’t.

Podge_irl

The tax is for holiday homes, not residential homes.

Randycove

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054481#Comment_123054481

that’s why I can’t see what this achieve, because the biggest problem seems to be people buying apartments to rent out on air bnb and I would imagine the majority of these are by Spanish or eu citizens.
It just sounds like a bit of blame the foreigner, except we can’t blame all foreigners, only non eu ones.

I visit Majorca a lot and since Covid, the Germans have been buying up anything they can and reducing property prices is going to benefit the Germans more than it is the locals.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054481#Comment_123054481

They're the same properties, though. The house that an overseas person buys as a holiday home is not available to provide a home for a Spanish resident. Presumably the thinking is to discourage overseas people from buying houses in Spain so that more houses will be available for sale to Spanish residents.

The newspaper report says that this is part of a package of measures to improve housing supply, another measure being "cracking down on seasonal rentals". Whether cracking down involves taxes or changes to the planning code or land use rules or something else is not stated. Presumably, then, this measure, the tax on buying a property, is aimed at overseas buyers who buy a property that they don't rent out, but just use as a holiday home for themselves and their family and friends.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123057310#Comment_123057310

Well no, they're not the same properties. It wouldn't impact the large contingent of those who move to Spain for retirement for example (though they face other obstacles post Brexit).

retalivity

Its Jasmine Harman and the 'Place in the Sun' crowd i feel sorry for, they'll be out of a job soon!

Leroy42

I see Badenknock has admitted thatbthe Tories had no plan for post EU trade. It seems to have passed almost unnoticed in the UK press.

They pushed on without any clue. We all knew it, but seemingly enough people in the UK believed Johnson had even the concept of a plan to continue to back him and the Tory party.

What an absolute disgrace this entire Brexit has been

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123069465#Comment_123069465

Stating the obvious isn't really news I suppose.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123069465#Comment_123069465

We're about a year and a half away from the ten year anniversary. Until quite recently, I used to have moments where I couldn't believe that this actually happened.

I'm reading about the trade negotiations now and despite the author's bias, it's clear that the whole thing is folly. They ditched the EU only to agree to maintain a level playing field and exit the single market while diminishing access for their main export, financial services.

yagan

Another year and a bit until the tenth anniversary of the vote that many claimed would take back control of immigration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05l9y56773o

The Home Office said the figures were based on historic net migration numbers over a decade and that "staggeringly high" levels of migration had been seen in recent years.

It had committed to reducing those numbers "substantially", it said, and would be setting out a "comprehensive plan" to "restore order to our broken immigration system".

Of course the party that were in power for this immigration explosion have totally forgotten it was them that increased the post Brexit immigration rate from which the estimate is based.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the projection was "shocking and unacceptable", and must be "stopped from materialising."

"We need a binding legal cap on visas issued each year which is very, very substantially lower than this in order to get the numbers down and under control."

Why didn't the Tory's cap it when they were in power?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123109739#Comment_123109739

That's some feat of logistics to have all them immigrants move to the UK in the 6 months Labour have been in charge.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123109739#Comment_123109739

Because that would have involved the one thing conservatives despise above all else: work. They'd have to dismantle the system, set up an alternative for returning refugees and asylyum claimants, negotiate deals with the EU and the relevant states, set up patrols and screening processes, establish funding, etc. All this would ultimately achieve is to deprive themselves of a cosh for attacking the Labour party with.

Peregrinus

Yagan:

Why didn't the Tory's cap it when they were in power?

ancapailldorcha:

They'd have to dismantle the system, set up an alternative for returning refugees and asylyum claimants, negotiate deals with the EU and the relevant states, set up patrols and screening processes, establish funding, etc.

Nope. In the context of net migration to the UK, refugees and asylum-seekers are not the main issue.

In the year ending June 2024, of non-EU nationals coming to the UK:

• 417,000 came for work-related reasons
• 375,000 came for study-related reasons
• 76,000 came for family reasons
• 84,000 came seeking asylum
• 67,000 came for humanitarian reasons

If you're looking at reducing overall migration, anything you do about refugees or asylum seekers could only make a minor difference.

It's true that the number seeking asylum or coming for humanitarian reasons have risen since Brexit; this is largely due to effects of the Ukraine war, and that bulge is already declining. But any movements, one way or the other, in refugee/asylum-seeker numbers are swamped by the huge rise in numbers coming for work- and study-related reasons.

Post-brexit, migration boomed in the UK mainly because (a) the Tories, as promised, operated a points-based migration system that reflected the needs of the UK economy; (b) the UK economy needed the migrants; and (c) the point-based migration system did what it was designed to do. The only way to significantly reduce migration to the UK is to accept signficant economic harm — and, it follows, for the government to accept signficant political harm.

yagan

Well the Tory voter wasn't happy with more immigration, even if it was points system.

It's been posted here before that the non EU immigrants bring more non working dependents than EU immigrants.

Plus there's a whole industry in Pakistan and India providing false testimony for such points regimes.

I don't think voters who voted for brexit and the Johnson government did so to increase immigration. I haven't seen any pro brexit voices call more increased immigration except for easier movement between oz, nz, Canada and the UK.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111059#Comment_123111059

Sure, Brexit voters were, by and large, expecting Brexit to reduce immigration, and they were encouraged to expect that by the Brexit campaigns. And, clearly, Brexit hasn't reduced immigration. But that's hardly the only expectation that Brexit failed to meet.

And, sure, voters may be unhappy with the increased levels of immigration that have prevailed since Brexit.

But here's the thing; voters would also be unhappy with the economic harm that would result from signficant restrictions on immigration levels. So acting effectively to reduce immigration was not a no-brainer for the Tories; they had maneouvred themselves into a position were all options open to them were politically damaging.

I don't know whether they carefully chose the option that they thought, or hoped, would be least damaging, or whether they were paralysed by horror and/or denial and failed to make any choice at all, and events just unfolded as they did.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111069#Comment_123111069

They were paralyzed mostly by incompetence.

Of course it was always doomed to fail to reduce numbers because the people who rely on all these immigrants most of all are the Tories that hire them in their businesses.

ancapailldorcha

It probably says something about debate here (in the UK) that nobody questioned why immigration was so high while unemployment has been low. I feel like it was quite obvious that putting up hurdles to people coming from the EU would always have resulted in more migration from southern and southeast Asia.

Akrasia

The entire immigration 'debate' is broken.

The UK birthrate is well below the replacement rate and has been for a while. If the current retirement age is retained, taxes on workers will have to increase massively to pay pensions in 20 years, or retirement ages will have to extend significantly.

The 20 somethings alt right anti immigrant brexiteers are campaigning for higher taxes on themselves and lower pensions when they're eventually allowed to retire.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111141#Comment_123111141

The debate is a way to placate the perennial dole sponges who need to have immigrants to blame so they don't have to face the reality of their own laziness in a time of consistently low unemployment.

yagan

Whatever way people want to interpret it, aside from maybe the aforementioned Canada/nz/oz easier movement, nobody who campaigned for brexit wanted more immigration.

Yet the governments that were elected to deliver brexit, first May with the DUP, and then the Johnson majority delivered more immigration.

The non EU immigrants brought more dependents than EU immigration so as a policy the Tory immigration only increased the dependency ratio rather than relieve it.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123111405#Comment_123111405

At let's be clear. The biggest problem from the point of view of Brexiters is the non EU immigrants are less white.