Brexit discussion thread III

Laura Kuenssberg has presumably been alerted by SF to a raft of documents leaked by its Eurogroup:

http://guengl-brexit.eu/index.php/leaked-documents/

ambro25 wrote: »

Networking around after the talks, I got to speak with the British ambassador in attendance for 15 mins or so. Charming typical Oxbridge type chap, quite personable, so I held back on asking him what it was like working for Boris...might need his help with the British Mrs in times to come, so I played nice

What was your take on the British ambassador? Was he full-on JRM/Davis/Bojo or was he somewhat sanguine and slightly embarrassed to be there on matters Brexit? i.e. when you get to the coal-face of the people who have to deal day in day out with their EU counterparts have you found many to be towing the insult-everyone-else-be-arrogant-claim-it-will-be-amazeballs line of the current cabinet & the media.

Double posted somehow, apologies

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

flatty wrote: »

I honestly think that the rump of the brexit wing are all a bit dim. This isn't a flippant remark. It is very relevant. I think honestly that they are too thick to nuance anything, too thick to steer any way through this, too thick to be negotiating with the eu, and too thick to realise it.
Unfortunately, I don't think the lady who sent them is any brighter.

No. Apart from the odd exception like Davis, they are all from privileged backgrounds. Boris is an old Etonian. Mogg is an old Etonian. May went to grammar school and Oxford as did Gove, Hague and Redmond. It isn't stupidity, it's arrogance.

That kind of arrogance can only be arrived at through stupidity. The lack of insight required is exclusive to someone not especially bright.

EdgeCase wrote: »

Karen Bradley also stands out as being educated in what seems to be a community school and then going on to do a B.Sc. in Maths in Imperial College.

And her reward... gets dispatched to act as a glorified childminder to the clowns in the North.

She has my sympathies, that is a truly thankless job.

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

No. Apart from the odd exception like Davis, they are all from privileged backgrounds. Boris is an old Etonian. Mogg is an old Etonian. May went to grammar school and Oxford as did Gove, Hague and Redmond. It isn't stupidity, it's arrogance.

Why would you imagine that because somebody is an old Etonian, or went to a grammar school, they cannot be stupid?

ambro25 wrote: »

Of course it’s possible, and far from me the notion that it couldn’t or shouldn’t be: the issue at hand here, is not one of sovereign capacity to amend immigration policies as time goes on and circumstances change, it is that such changes have been performed by the U.K. apparently in complete disregard of their multifarious impacts, turning hitherto-legal undocumented immigrants, some of them so for decades on end, into illegal undocumented immigrants overnight.

Reading between the lines, I gather that you are a legal practitioner, so I’m confident you’re aware of the long-settled principle of legitimate expectations, and it’s relevance in the above context.

Sure, I’m aware of the principle, but actually I don’t think it’s relevant here.

The Windrush generation are not illegal or irregular immigrants who have been led to believe that, because of their long connection with the country and their positive contribution to it, they would be left unmolested. The Windrush generation are, and always have been, completely legal. They are being victimised and even deported because of a change of procedures, under which the onus has suddenly been placed on them to prove their status, years after the circumstances and events which established it, if they are to avoid victimisation/deportation.

I think the problem here is that, historically, the UK has taken advantage of its status as an island nation to implement/police its migration policies at the borders. Because it’s an island (apart from the land border with us since 1922) there are a limited number of entry points. Entrances and exits can be checked at these points; this is relatively straightforward and efficient. Once you’re in, you’re in; it would be very difficult to apply further checks and they could not be very efficient, so not much would be achieved by trying.

This doesn’t work in continental countries with extensive land borders. Of course you can and will try to control entry and exit, but inevitably borders will be much more porous, so you can’t rely on this exclusively. Which is why most continental countries have long had systems of population registration, identity cards, etc. This goes back, I’m pretty sure, to the Napoleonic era, if not before.

(This, incidentally, is why the UK has a Common Travel Area with Ireland. It’s not just a be-nice-to-the-Irish measure; it leads to Ireland, another island nation, keeping its migration policies closely aligned with the UK, and means that people entering the UK from Ireland can generally be taken to be people entitled to enter the UK, so the integrity of the system isn’t threatened, and the UK doesn’t need internal migration controls.)

Right. What has been happening since 2014 is a move away from this approach to migration control. Island nation or not, for whatever reason - globalisation, cheap travel, sheer numbers - the UK’s borders have become more porous, and the UK’s experience - or perception, at any rate - is that implementing migration policy exclusively at the border isn’t as effective as it used to be, or as it needs to be.

So they start moving towards internal population controls. But, partly because they are in denial about the fact that they are doing this, and partly because they are Tories who believe in privatisation, a small state, etc, they don’t do this directly through state agencies; they outsource it to employers, landlords, GPs, schools, etc, etc. The police won’t ask you to produce your papers, but your doctor will; your employer will; your kids’ school will.

A couple of consequences flow from this, but a relevant one in this instance is that it’s entirely foreseeable that a policy implemented in this way will be badly implemented. Basically, you have outsourced implementation to a disconnected and disinterested bunch of people who have no stake in the policy, no overview of the policy and (mostly) haven’t bought into it. And the checks you want them to make are complex and tricky, because UK citizenship and migration law is insanely complicated. At best, they are going to apply a box-ticking, jobsworth approach which takes no account of policy objectives or rationale. So you should expect this policy to be implemented in a way which severely inconveniences (or worse) a lot of people who are not in any sense illegal or irregular migrants - in some cases, people who are not migrants at all. Which, lo, is exactly what has happened.

A second problem stems from the fact that this is such a radical change in the approach to implementing migration policy. Because of the old check-them-at-the-borders approach, the UK has a large number of migrants who are legal, but undocumented. Under the old approach, the very fact that you were in the UK was presumptive evidence of your right to be there; if you weren’t entitled, you wouldn’t have been admitted. So people mostly didn’t need to produce documentation to demonstrate their status and documentation wasn’t routinely generated or, if generated, wasn’t retained in the long term. And if you now switch to a policy of requiring regular demonstration of status, you have to address the fact that your old policy will created a large number of legitimate residents who can’t do that.

The only way to address this, I think, is with a “grandfather” clause; if you can show that you were in the UK for, say, the three years before the policy changed (2011-2014) then you are taken to be legitimate without further evidence. Sure, some illegal immigrants will benefit from this, but the overwhelming bulk of people who benefit from this will be entirely legitimate, and granting an incidental amnesty to a small cohort of illegal immigrants is a price you have to pay to avoid punishing a large number of people for the fact that you have decided to change your policy towards them.

I don’t think, as I say, that this is a matter of legitimate expectations; this is simply a matter of not trampling on established legal rights.

I await with interest the first cases taken against the Home Office by people who have been deported from the UK, despite being British citizens, or non-citizens with a right to remain. My guess, though, is that the cases will never come to trial; they will be settled at an early stage with large compensation payments.

Peregrinus wrote: »

There are several options for having satellites launched commercially (including the ESA itself). You don't need an independent launch capacity in order to put up a satellite array.

The point was they'd either be relying on the EU/ESA or selection of less friendly options.

Unpossible wrote: »

As someone else said, they probably didn't expect to win. They were just going to go against Sinn Fein and the UUP for a moral victory, and probably make some money or gain influence with groups that were pro-BREXIT.

Maybe some of them truely want a hard exit, it's been mentioned on here that their main hubs of support are not in border areas and don't see how it will affect them.

NI survives on huge subsidies paid to them by the EU. The NI economy is entirely dysfucntional and has a massively bloated public service. Aside from all the obvious trading issues, workers rights, movement etc. quite how any semi informed politican could possibly see leaving the EU to be in NI's interest is hard to fathom.

It's just the DUP and their essentially childish attachment to 'the mainland'. They really need go grow up and realise that they are a liability to Britain in every sense - political, economic, social - and that remaining in the EU in a bespoke arrangement kindly put in place for them, is the only logical choice.

It may only be symbolic, but when is the House of Commons voting on the customs amendment today? Will be interesting to see how many Tories move through the Yes lobbies.

Bizarrely, I dont think they can actually do anything about it though. May can just ram it through regardless.

i have watched the last hour of the debate in the commons, it has being overwhelming pro remain in the customs union and by and the large in the single market, with the honorable exception of ''crazy kate hoey''. mind you the house is only about a fifth full.

trellheim wrote: »

Essentially the Foreign Office/DExEu view is that by delaying and delaying till October they will get all they want - Trade agreement without CU or SM, implying a hard border for us.

No, that is the story they are telling the backbenchers.

In fact they will delay and delay until October and then fold and accept what is on offer from the EU when it is too late for the Brexiteers to stop them.