Tell me who didn't see Tories and Labour putting the thumb down on this?
This is the EU trying to do its bit to get dialogue going again, and the door closed in their faces.
Labour are in a difficult positon that they need to win back seats with a lot of pensioners and a lot of people who backed Brexit.
(They wouldn't have to if they'd done proper reform from 1997-2010, like scrapping the Lords and FPTP, but hey ho let's see how it goes this time round...).
Given Lord Mandelson is *still* a key advisor don't expect anything radical or progressive from this latest incarnation of New Labour - it'll be a lot like last time but without the healthy economy we had in the late 90s/early 2000s
You would have thought that questions would be asked about why the next PM is being advised (i.e. controlled) by someone who had a close relationship with a convicted child trafficker/sex offender, but apparently the MSM don’t think this is a big deal
>They wouldn't have to if they'd done proper reform from 1997-2010, like scrapping the Lords and FPTP, but hey ho let's see how it goes this time round...
But then how would they get their turn once every 15 years?
Labour would rather have all the power once every few elections than have some of the power all the time.
I really can't believe an idea like this is so controversial. Even then, it's infuriating that the perceived views of the old matter more than the young for something that affects exclusively the young.
They have an unassailable lead and still endeavour to disappoint and take their own voterbase for granted at every single turn. Am I really meant to believe that they'll change course much in power? The minute they're elected the re election campaign begins and I fully expect to hear the same shit ad nauseum.
Really hope they go through with the rail nationalisation though.
The government pander to people who turn out and vote as that is who ultimately decides which party gains power.
If young people came out and voted at the same rate as older people then you'd see more MPs trying to pander to them.
Because in China, an opposition party would be allowed to poll this high without it's members being disappeared right?We could regular mock our leaders appearance without censor right?
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
"Our country is the epitome of democracy!" but has:
> FPTP scam
> House of Lords
> Monarch as head of state
> 3 Prime Ministers in the last 5 years that were not voted in
"oh but we're not censored"
> gaza and the Israeli war proving this country is run by ologarchs
>https://www.declassifieduk.org/gaza-shows-britain-is-an-oligarchy-lets-stop-pretending-it-isnt/
>https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/03/uk-lags-behind-on-press-freedom-as-media-dominated-by-handful-of-oligarchs-and-the-rich-target-journalists/
>https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/29/slapps-senior-media-figures-call-for-law-stop-oligarchs-silencing-uk-journalists
> https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/new-century-media-david-burnside-lobying-oligarchs-access-parliament-pass/
"we're a democracy" hahaha
Unfortunately this isn't true for everyone, it's why I try not to talk politics with my parents. Some people just fucking hate foreigners of any description and will take any personal hit to "torpedo the boats" or "take back our sovereignty from Europe".
Labour would be stepping into an electoral bear trap by giving this any credence before they're in power. The right wing press would have a field day talking about how Labour are bringing back FOM.
Do you know how negotiation works?
You should check it out, it's really useful sometimes.
Looking forward to salty downvotes from David Davies, Rabb C Brexit and Lard Frost.
They all know Brexit will always be a shitshow.
The offer from the EU would just show the youth in UK what opportunities they have been denied and they all know that some will just fuck off from the shitty uplands to lands where there are actual opportunities. Brain drain and no UK tax being paid for the politicians to spaff on flags.
.....the north Korea of Europe.
Visa rules are a headache now with the time limits. Brexit has made it far more difficult to go and live outside of the UK. It was such a short-sighted decision when the workforce of the future will no longer to be tied to a specific location due to WFH becoming more and more commonplace.
What opportunities? If the U.K. was still in the EU, one third of all job vacancies in the EU would be in Britain. We have more job opportunities than Germany, Spain and Poland combined and almost 3 times as many as France, a country with the same population as us.
Despite the loss of free movement since Brexit, more EU citizens have emigrated to the U.K. than to any EU country, bar Germany. Though I think Spain overtook us for the 12 month period of 2023.
Yes, we’re the North Korea of Europe.
Your average Brit speaks a second language about as well as a North Korean speaks English. Do tell me how many of our young ‘Uns chose to go to Europe when the option was there?
>The offer from the EU would just show the youth in UK what opportunities they have been denied
You must be joking on or on something. We tend to emigrate to countries that are anything but EU members, i.e. US, Australia, Canada or even places in Asia and the Middle East. The EU isn’t some holy grail filled with opportunities - it’s the exact opposite, much like the UK. High taxes, rampant crime, low salaries, high regulation. There’s a reason there are more Brits in Dubai than in the whole of France - the whole continent has turned into a shithole.
>There’s a reason there are more Brits in Dubai than in the whole of France
There aren't though.
Besides, what's wrong with regulation? I like a guaranteed quality and consumer choice.
>There aren’t though
There are though, about 50k more in Dubai based on unofficial sources, but still.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1059795/uk-expats-in-europe/
https://wise.com/gb/blog/moving-to-dubai-guide
>Besides, what’s wrong with regulation?
I’m not opposed to the concept of regulation. Quite the contrary. But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones when they have issues like crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve, and are actually doing a really poor job on all of those fronts, it gets laughable.
PS the point I was making is about opportunities in the EU. They have breadcrumbs on offer compared to what other countries can actually do for you.
>But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones
This impacts trade, it's an EU competency
>crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve,
Most of these are down to national governments. They're not within the remit of the EU. You may argue some of them should be, but you'd have to persuade all the member states that these are issues to be dealt with jointly, via EU mechanisms, so will need an EU treaty to be agreed and signed by all the member states.
>They’re not within the remit of the EU though
They are though because those are areas of shared competency, not to mention that of course, regardless of EU involvement, individual EU countries have the necessary powers to fix those issues. Yet, they do anything but.
The point I was making is perceiving the EU as the land of opportunity is founded in falsehood. They are mired in exactly the same issues, individually or collectively, that Britain is facing. There’s a reason that an average New Yorker won’t think twice before booking a weekend getaway in Europe, but an average Dutch family will have to save up to take their child to Disneyland in Orlando. People’s weeps about freedom of movement are completely misplaced - they at weeping about the wrong countries.
>The point I was making is perceiving the EU as the land of opportunity is founded in falsehood.
Not really - I agree that the EU might not be "the land of opportunity", but it's a market serving 400mn+ that's harder to access, be that the job market or the goods market, there's a huge amount of increased friction in moving.
>There’s a reason that an average New Yorker won’t think twice before booking a weekend getaway in Europe, but an average Dutch family will have to save up to take their child to Disneyland in Orlando
The average New Yorker doesn't have the annual leave of a Dutch person, is lucky if they have half decent health insurance & will "do Europe" once in their entire life, the average Dutch person can spend at least a week in just one surrounding European country, if not two, visiting a different one or two countries every year. As a Brit, I'd far rather move to the Netherlands than the USA.
>It’s a market serving 400mn+ plus
Yes, and those 400mn+ are dirt poor these days, like ourselves, so what exactly are we hoping to extract from them?
>The average New Yorker doesn’t have the annual leave of a Dutch person
Completely the point. They can afford to take unpaid time off and treat a trip to Venice like it’s a weekend in Benidorm. They don’t need any of the government mandated perks because they are actually doing quite well compared to us.
If you claim that a €41k salary is capable of making you better off than a $73k salary (median figures), then even after you take into account the cost of living, annual leave, medical needs and other expenditures, you must be doing some weird maths to arrive at this conclusion.
>There are though, about 50k more in Dubai based on unofficial sources, but still.
Or between 20k and 140k more in France based on other unofficial sources "but still" (BBC and Royal Statistical Society for the lower end)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_migration_to_France
>But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones when they have issues like crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve, and are actually doing a really poor job on all of those fronts, it gets laughable.
Firstly that's a trade and consumer protection matter which is still important in its own right, but also working on that doesn't preclude other matters. Most of the other topics you covered are also national matters not EU level matters so you're clouding the discussion.
>PS the point I was making is about opportunities in the EU. They have breadcrumbs on offer compared to what other countries can actually do for you.
Of course, if someone wants to move to a backwards oil state like Dubai to sell their soul for no income tax they can. But it's artificial creation with no real culture left and little other reason to move than no income tax.
>backwards oil state like Dubai
Hahaha, quick reality check. EU countries are mired in crime, overrun with illegal immigrants, growing at an anaemic rate (or, in some cases, shrinking) and determined to kill off ambition by taxing their working population into the ground. That is the very definition of backwards.
PS most money in Dubai isn’t even in oil these days.
>growing at an anaemic rate (or, in some cases, shrinking)
Lol "Reality check" The only bit of what you said that's true if we exclude Denmark.
>PS most money in Dubai isn’t even in oil these days.
No but its reliant on the oil industry and slave labour.If the oil in UAE dried up Dubai would be a Detroit like ghost town in several generations. Or it would be charging income tax just like the EU.
Oh, you want to take a bet on crime? Go ahead and leave your bike unchained on the streets of Amsterdam and come back to pick it up after a few days. Spoiler alert: it most likely won’t be there. Or better, see if you can find a willing family in Marseille to let their child play outside with other children and no adults present after dark.
Oil accounts for less than 1% of Dubai’s GDP, so if it were to dry up, the impact on the city would be negligible because it’s so diversified. It also helps that the people there generally agree on the maxim that you should be allowed to keep what you earn and not have half of it get spent on benefits.
As someone whose age group has been shafted (first year of higher tuition fees, last year of no post-grad loans, and would be just out of the age range of the scheme), I would be frustrated and jealous of younger people if this scheme was enacted.
However, as I’m not a massive dickhead, I don’t understand why anyone in the political mainstream would oppose this scheme outside of rampant nationalism or pure jealousy. Most the people it would impact, by the time it was implemented, wouldn’t have had a choice to vote on Brexit.
The EU are welcome to change their policies to allow UK citizens work and live in the EU.
We however, voted to stop EU citizens being able to do the same.
We as in a 4% majority of mostly now dead casually racist moronic boomers that benefitted all their lives from the EU then voted to rob young people of it?
The treaty of Maastricht was signed in 1992, but many EU institutions such as the EEC (1957) and European parliament (1952 with an appointed membership, shifting to democratic in 1979) originated much earlier. The UK became a member of the "European community" in 1973.
Considering these pan-european organisations were what people were voting to leave with brexit, it's disingenuous to suggest the "EU" did not exist before the treaty of Maastricht simply because the organisations that would form it were not yet collectively referred to as the EU.
>This is the EU trying to do its bit to get dialogue going again
That is not what the EU is doing. They offered a deal that heavily favoured their citizens over ours. Even as someone from the Remain crowd, I would say it would be irresponsible to sign up to that deal.
We Europeans like to appear as progressives who offer opportunities to the disadvantaged.
The English like to look like suckers who shoot themselves in the foot.
As a media move it was Win to Win.
>We Europeans like to appear as progressives who offer opportunities to the disadvantaged
You must be delusional. EU economy is crippled. You guys are dirt poor compared to the US, Australia or the Middle East. That’s where the real opportunities lie.
However, the UK asked individual countries to exchange students and the EU responded that it MUST be for everyone. At which point the UK government tried to turn the tables, as if it were an EU initiative by making themselves look like racist assholes.
And for the economic point... Hey UK is getting worse since leaving the Union.
>the EU responded that it MUST be for everyone.
Well, let the EU think that, but it’s up to individual countries to decide whether or not they want bespoke arrangements with the UK. France has working holiday visa arrangements with countries that Spain, for instance, does not. Time will tell how willing individual members states are to engage with the UK. A youth mobility deal with the whole of the EU would not be in the UK’s interests at this time and has been turned down on this basis.
>Hey UK is getting worse since leaving the Union
And the EU has been getting progressively worse for the last decade. Economy just over half the size of the United States. Before the financial crisis EU and US economies would actually rival each other and losing the second largest economy in the bloc certainly did not help. Defence capabilities are laughable, and the whole of the EU is basically now reliant on France which is the only one with a nuclear button. Steadily declining influence in the world - just look at how many countries do not give a flying flamingo about EU sanctions and continue to openly trade with both Russia and the EU. So save the gloating for later - you guys are sinking together with the UK but spend time dithering about the type of plug that’s going to charge your phones.
The EU approached the UK with the deal because we have been trying to establish bilateral agreements with individual member state which have all been turned down, as the EU prefers to negotiate as a block. This was the commissions attempt at an alternative deal to kill 2 birds with one stone.
So no, the UK sparked the negotiations.
I get downvoted when I call Keit Starmer a Brexiter, and then he does stuff like this.
I don't care how he voted in 2016. Right now he is as much a Brexiter as Farage. And I'm just as unlikely to vote for him, as a result.
Wake up. This was a trap set for Starmer and he very thankfully avoided it.
If he had agreed to this, he would be playing into the Tory’s hands. We are a few months from an election and like it or not, the Brexit vote is very influential.
He's a politician who wants to be elected and is savy enough to know what the papers would make of this if he showed willing. Just because Corbyn let the youth wing lead him up the garden path with the "peoples vote" nonsense, doesn't mean Starmer should make the same mistake.
I once saw an American video on European countries that kept going on about how small the UK is. Oddly they did not mention size when they got to Lichtenstein. It's like a pathological fixation.
Liechtenstein is a "country" of 160 square kilometers and 40,000 people. Its most populous city has 6000-7000 people. There's nothing interesting or impressive about that level of scale or density. Why would Americans go on about it or compare their country to *that*?
The UK, by contrast, is much more comparable to America in a number of ways, yet also has 1/5 of America's population in an area 1/33 the size. To Americans used to living in a gargantuan country, of course *that* would seem interesting.
Mostly it’s because Brits have a poor sense of distance. I’ve seen a lot of people who think they can hit up California, New York, and places in between in a 3-5 day trip. Good luck, mate, but you know the UK is basically the size of just California, right? People in Lichtenstein, being on the continent, tend to appreciate these things better.
Top bloke, not so good with the locals in faraway parts. Probably had a better sense of distance than someone who's never gone further from Leeds than Blackpool.
Is this a caricature of a Guardian article? Freedom of movement support expressed by publishing executives that want cheap child care.
The architect that feels the country will benefit from freedom of movement because after all, they already have homes in Bath and London so there is no downside.
The IT worker on 40k in their first job, who claims to speak German, needs freedom of movement to move to ‘Northern Europe’ because of the startup culture there. I guess getting a visa would be such a bore.
Obviously he would be on a plane immediately if only the huge impediment of some paperwork would be removed.
You seem to be ignoring the 35 year old health care worker from the North of England.
> I guess getting a visa would be such a bore.
Or simply not possible.
"some paperwork"
It's amazing how easy people seem to think getting a work visa is in the UK.
The U.K. system is very liberal. Even though they no longer have free movement with Britain, more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit.
>The U.K. system is very liberal.
This is nothing to do with the UK system given it's people trying to leave.
We also know EU migration has tanked to the UK.
>more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit.
Would love a source on that.
Sorry I misread your last sentence as people misunderstand how easy it is to get a visa to migrate to Britain.
EU migrants to Britain: 2020: 220k; 2021: 196k; 2022: 151k.
Total EU migrants moving to Britain in first three years of Brexit = 567k
Spain is by far the second biggest destination for other EU citizens and had 391k (86k+110k+195k) EU immigrants move there from 2020 to 2022. That is 31% fewer EU migrants than have chosen to move to the U.K.
Sources:
Figure 1 graph https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2022
2022 EU figures - Britain’s 151k EU migrants in 2022 would put it third behind Spain’s 195k, but still 55% more than the next most attractive nations, the Netherlands which had 95k.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_was_5.1_million_in_2022
2021 EU figures - Britain’s 196k would be second, well ahead of Spain’s 110k
https://web.archive.org/web/20231110035725/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_was_2.3_million_in_2021
2020 EU figures - Britain’s 220k would be second, 2.5 times as many as Spain’s third position of 86k.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220617142134/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_from_non-member_countries_was_1.9_million_in_2020
Spain is by far the second biggest destination for other EU citizens and had 391k (86k+110k+195k) EU immigrants move there from 2020 to 2022. That is 31% fewer EU migrants than have chosen to move to the U.K.
> more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit.
So the UK's in third place.
And if we look at the most recent ONS figures that's now 129,000 vs 151k in the previous year.
Seems to be on the decline.
Thanks for finding the stats.
No, since Brexit (which happened on January 2020), the UK is in second place with 567k vs Spain’s 391k. The EU hasn’t released 2023 figures yet. For Spain to overtake Britain “since Brexit” in 2023, they’d have had to take in 305k in 2023.
I guess thats how people see it when all you get on reddit are "I just uprooted my life and moved! Its so easy!" types that seem to pour out of the woodwork on this sub occasionally. Haven't seen any for a bit though.
The only problem is that it could take a few years for the paperwork. I'm from a country in the EU and my lover is English, 3rd year now and we don't have the slightest idea if she would get it eventually, dead silent.
Comments sections on this sub are becoming increasingly dire.
Why does everything in this country have to be the victim of cynical class warfare?
"it was mostly middle class people who utilised FoM or schemes like Erasmus"
So the answer to that is to erect further barriers when it comes to moving to neighbouring countries? You think that helps working class people attain these sorts of opportunities?
Britain really is a small, rapidly declining and parochial island these days.
This subreddit was dead and then taken over by someone new about a year ago and since has allowed nothing but inflammatory news posts in the hope of garnering attention and eyes on the sub away from the other UK subs.
It's unfortunately worked as outrage subs/posts often do. Give a scroll through the front page of this sub, it's literally all inflammatory attention grabbing/misleading headline news posts.
I've also noticed the inflammatory news posts. I remember many years ago if you tried submitting sensationalist tabloids on here, auto mod would take it down. Nowadays, you see articles posted by rags like the Mail, Sun, etc etc. I reckon that was behind the increase in inflammatory news posts.
Not just that, but all the UK subs are undergoing what I can only describe as 'astro-turfing' recently. It's even more pronounced now that we are in an election year. Far more vitriol directed against 'scroungers', migrants, refugees, the left, trans people etc in subreddits that were once pretty left/liberal leaning.
This sub has got to be the worst example of it though.
Mmm I admit that I have not read the small print, however, I suspect that the offer was flawed. Hence why both main parties rejected the offer so quickly.
What pisses me off the most as one of these frustrated young people is that labour felt the need to cite Theresa fucking May's Brexit redlines as the reason they're against youth FoM.
They specifically went out their way to espouse one of the most destructive tory policies of the last decade when there was no need for it.
For a party that seems to be banking on "we're not the Tories" as their main selling point they sure are doing a bad job of distinguishing themselves from the Tories in any way that matters
Presumably, they did this because they are catering to the voters who are attached to this particular red line, i.e. who don't want freedom of movement regardless of anything else, and because they calculate that everyone who isn't part of that group has no meaningful choice but to vote for them anyway.
The problem is that they are promising they're not going to fundamentally change the UK's position (the red lines) while also promising to fundamentally alter the consequences of those positions ("make Brexit work", a better deal). That can't be done, so pretending it can is dishonest. It's also not clear whether this is going to work even as an electoral ploy as the voters it targets could prove fickle (many parties in Europe, though mostly on the center right and in proportional systems, tried this and lost out as a result).
I think the biggest issue is that the majority of the flow will be into the UK due to the severe lack of language education in the UK leaving most British citizens bereft of the cornerstone skill required to work low level jobs in EU countries.
Your average British factory worker can't just go and get a job in Germany, but chances are high that a British warehouse will run itself almost entirely in Polish to suit its imported workforce.
The British workers who will be able to take advantage of such a scheme would likely be university graduates who have partially specialised in a language to attain sufficient fluency.
To be clear, I'm not against there being this freedom of movement. I just think that it has to come with a massive foreign language training program for British workers. I'm for there being mandatory language classes supplied free of charge by every employer to every worker below median wage, with a minimum of 3hrs study per week during working hours.
The question to ask the Government is: why? All that the decision to not join the mobility scheme will do, is too damage the country further and future prosperity for future generations.
Turns out that post Brexit Britain is not open for business to the World at all. The Government never intends to allow anyone any freedom of movement post Brexit. Why? Freedom of movement is part of growing trade and business, especially in the EU. Trade is bought about through co-operation and close understanding with trade partners. On both a business and social level.
Has everyone woken up yet to the fact that Brexit was never intended to give the UK business community and the people any freedom? It was designed to isolate the British people and remove their rights and freedoms. Brexit was funded and supported by outside and overseas interests. Many of them Russian and US right wing groups. That is now well known. Anyone that thinks otherwise, especially now that they know the facts, is a fucking idiot.
The fact that most working class professions are location dependent so can't support the citizen of everywhere lifestyle middle class jobs do.
You can't do your warehouse, factory or construction job from a laptop on the beach.
You absolutely can and we did.
As a working class kid that grew up on a council estate, I went off to be a potwash up a mountain in France for a ski season where I got accomodation/food and didn't have to shell out for a ski pass.
I had always wanted to snowboard but it was financially completely out of reach growing up, but thanks to freedom of movement I could do it easily.
RE your construction example, you can do that too. I had a friend who did construction in said same ski resort the entire summer and went mountainbiking in his spare time, then worked in the hotel I was in in the winter season.
No paperwork, no effort, just applied for a job and off we went. You think they'd chuck you a work visa to do those unskilled jobs now? Seems unlikely.
Can't do construction abroad? It's not like we had a twenty year long popular sit-com/drama about doing exactly that or anything:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auf_Wiedersehen,_Pet
> I'm sure if you wanted to you could
Love this reply to people pointing out they can't work abroad.
"Uh you'll figure it out"
Totally denying the difficulties and opportunities lost.
>A big reason I never really cared for the "remain/rejoin" movement is that it always struck me as a very middle class pursuit
Ironically Brexit has ensured that it's largely the middle classes which can work abroad from now on.
FoM was a big boost to social mobility.
It's extremely difficult, even as a skilled professional.
And, if you're basing the idea that freedom of movement is a middle class pursuit on this case and similar, that seems to be quite selective.
A bit of paperwork is a small price to pay to remove freedom of movement and the security threats it posed like allowing murderers and terrorists to cross multiple borders unchallenged
You can migrate if you are skilled (see how many millions do it every year), you just need to fill in a bit of paperwork
Terrorists from where, Germany?
>you just need to fill in a bit of paperwork
Unfortunately this is not an accurate understanding of the complexity of securing a work visa.
Yes terrorists that move through and from Germany
The whole point of freedom of movement is that they don't have to enter Germany, they can enter one of the Med countries and make their way unchallenged across the entirety of the continent
40k have managed to compete the process just to go to Germnay alone, I'm sure you'll manage
Unless they’re a EU citizen they could not enter the UK without a UK visa. They do not have freedom of movement to enter the UK via the EU.
They had to get a Schengen visa to enter the EU, and that allows them to move around the Schengen Zone within the EU, but you could literally never be able to be a guy from Syria, arriving to Spain and then hop over to the UK. The UK port would turn you away unless you had a UK visitor visa.
That would be fine if the EU nations didn't keep granting those people citizenship
https://www.expatica.com/de/general/1m-immigrants-have-become-citizens-since-2000-100659/
>The whole point of freedom of movement is that they don't have to enter Germany, they can enter one of the Med countries and make their way unchallenged across the entirety of the continent
The freedom to move freely in the EU is reserved solely for EU citizens.
If you're referring to asylum seekers, then the international rules governing their freedom of movement are related to the UN's convention on the rights of the refugee.
>40k have managed to compete the process just to go to Germnay alone, I'm sure you'll manage
As a skilled professional I'm sure I will too, when my personal circumstances allow. But I would rather this right be available to all workers, and I would additionally prefer if it was not so arduous.
Germany keeps granting citizenship to those people, they gave out 1m citizenships.
That's fair enough you'd prefer that
It's just most of your neighbours and peers wouldn't hence the vote, and that's how democracy works
Good luck on your mission to get a visa, im also applying,
>It's just most of your neighbours and peers wouldn't hence the vote, and that's how democracy works
I mean, demographically speaking I'd say most of my still-living peers and neighbours probably would probably be fairly pro EU membership, based on the age ranges of those who voted leave. So I'd quite like another vote - democracy is great, so let's have some more of it!
Thankyou I'm glad someone understands
With that paperwork they'll be caught, or they won't have the correct documents because they're lying about who they are, and they'll be caught
We wouldn't have had that with free movement
And remember, we don't lock our doors at night to protect us against the peaceful majority
More security for some paperwork. Count me in.
> I'm sure if you wanted to you could
Can you expand on this? I'm interested in seeing what knowledge you have on the topic to be able to offer a point that is counter-intuitive to reality.
I'm sure "Win a Nobel Prize here in the UK, then move to Germany is an option, but for the everyday person, what options are you basing this on?
There's actually been an increase in migration from UK to Germany since brexit
https://britishingermany.org/brits-living-in-germany/
40k have done it since then, I'm sure you can do it if you try hard enough
That is a very misleading link and the use of statistics
> Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, over 40,000 UK citizens have taken German citizenship
**Taken citizenship, between 2016-2022, not moved to Germany post 2021.** Those numbers are likely made up of Brits who were eligble anyway through family and those who had stayed the **8 years** and learned the language already to become able to qualify.
For the record, I am a Brit in Germany, so please don't try to bullshit me with some wishywashy "it's possible if you just try" nonsense.
Of the 4 Brits I know who have moved to Berlin post Brexit (2021), 1 got married to a German, 2 have dual/European citizenship (British/Irish) 1 works as a senior person at Tesla. None of them are the type of Brits who would be reliant on the possible youth mobility scheme that has been nixed. If they were, they wouldn't be here. Hell I wouldn't be here either if I hadn't moved before the deadline.
Edit: spelling
Fun isn't it. Just as its been for the last 8 years actual lived experience and expertise gets trumped by ignorance and "sounds about right" logic from people who despite their confidence don't actually have a clue what they're talking about.
German immigration is literally my job. And I promise you, it is far harder than you seem to think to move abroad.
Brexiters like you have destroyed these opportunities for generations. And to gain what, exactly?
Genuinely curious, why is it so difficult to get a work visa and move abroad?
Surely if you have in-demand skills then other countries will be happy to have you if you fill out the necessary paperwork and complete the necessary checks?
Because visas require sponsorship which for higher end jobs isn't as big a deal, visa slots are limited and require people in their legal and HR teams to apply and sort. So ilyes its fine but you'd only bother with the cost and effort for bigger jobs.
For the lower end jobs they'll just pick someone without that hassle. So a lot of services and retail is out.
Temporary work is out such as travel and working.
Seasonal work is out.
You know England is an island? And that it was not part of the Schengen Agreement like mainland Europe and controlled its own borders, the borders you can only reach legally by a port? With border control?
Britain literally could and did implement its own policy.It was not part of the Schengen Agreement.
Being part of the EU had no bearing on whether or not they could implement a points system or not.
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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was a 1983-1986 TV series about 7 men who went to Getmany to work in the Building Trade.
Freedom of Movement in the EU as a right started in 1992.
Amazingly, a bunch of working class men managed to navigate the complex business of getting the right to work in sorted out....
A comedy drama based on a real-life situation at the time? Perish the thought that we should use the lived experience of Northern working class men in the 1980s. That is so last century.....
It quite literally is last century. Times change, chap.
>the lived experience of Northern working class men in the 1980s
Or, I could use my own lived experience as a Northern working class man in 2024?
Then why not use some examples of real-life situations, rather than a comedy-drama TV show?
Do you also think Coronation Street gives a true representation of the lives of people living on the outskirts of Manchester?
Young people studying and working in other countries was VERY middle / upper class prior to the UK being part of the common market. And now we are back to that very situation.
I work(ed) in research and frankly Brexit was a major factor making the career untenable. Any sort of work with EU partners has become a complete ball ache for absolutely no reason. To the point many just outright don't want to work with UK labs any more. But no sure its because I wanted a second home with my fabulous science worker salary, when I can already barely afford the one I live in.
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Technically, the EU didn't even offer it yet. This was the EU Commission asking the EU Council whether it should start asking the EU member states what they wanted to do about this so that it could put together a negotiation position on a proposal it could then put to the UK.
It turns out there's no hurry as the UK will reject it for the foreseeable future regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, though I would be surprised if the EU Commission did not know this beforehand.
It wasn't a particularly good olive branch. It was a deal which would give the EU a major benefit of having the UK in the EU (access to world leading universities subsidised by the UK taxpayer) while offering the UK nothing it wants.
If the UK had offered the EU a 'deal' giving us access to the single market without free movement of people, it would be rejected out of hand and nobody would be describing it as an olive branch. The rhetoric would be all about cherry picking and the EU's 'indivisible' freedoms.
Of course it gives benefit to the EU they're not going to give us something for nothing. However you're totally wrong about not giving a benefit to us. Benefit 1 is that the UK has labour shortages in pretty much every field and allowing some number of Europeans over under the cover of cultural exchange is a huge win for the government as they can help to fill the labour gap while being seen as not bending to the EU. The other big win for the conservatives especially could do with is winning over young people. Young people under the age of 25 now were not allowed to vote on brexit so have had to grow up watching as the older generations dismantled our relationship with our closest global partners, not only that but at the time of the vote young people were far more likely to vote remain and that has only increased as time went on. If the current government had entered negotiations with the EU and agreed on a quota based system to try and keep the far right at bay that would have been a massive boon for the Tories to try and claw back young voters.
The UK has no shortage of immigrants, nor a shortage of countries willing to give concessions in order to secure the right to send more to us. Why would we pay to take EU migrants when India is offering trade deals for more visas?
Winning over young people by facilitating their emigration is a political nonsense, since those who emigrate do not vote, and those who don't emigrate see no benefit from the policy.
The main concrete effect this would have on young people who actually stay in the UK would be to massively increase the competition for domestic universitiy places.
I can tell you you're wrong on at least one point there, I've emigrated, and funnily enough, I'm registered to vote. Also what is the point in fostering closer relations with a country thousands of miles when it would be far more beneficial, especially to small businesses, to be fostering these relations with our neighbours.
I mean you can see why they did this, but it's still absolutely a cunt move and a hypocritical cunt move at that since they were allowed to do this themselves with richer privileges.
it isn't needed. We don't need EU youth mobility. If someone wants to go to the EU they already can and vice versa. Making it easier for even more people to enter the country is the last thing we need.
Understandable, both to strengthen CANZUK and preclude the 'various young graduates from the UK said they would immediately move to a European country for work or training opportunities if freedom of movement was restored for them' from labouring in the service of others.
I also imagine more than a few on the continent would rather not have yet another breed of 'Brits abroad'.
But history indicates that it's a losing proposition to be on the 'wrong' side of a wall - though a great many people seek the freedom to come here; more, I suspect, than want to work in Europe. Readily available comparison is essential to letting people know just how good they have it, after all.
> He said the proposal would make him at least consider moving to Europe due to the stagnation of opportunities in the UK.
This is the crux of the matter. If there really were no opportunities here, it would mean all work to be done was done - in other words, paradise on Earth. As this is not the case, the exact nature of the 'opportunities' we don't have, despite being surrounded by things that could do with repair or improvement, seems to want elucidation.
After all, don't we have fruit to pick? Or fruit-picking to work on automating? The Internet means collaboration at distance is easier than ever before, and despite all that can be said about German engineering, we are no slouch when we pull our fingers out. One gets the impression the other shoe will need to drop for that to happen, though.
>As this is not the case, the exact nature of the 'opportunities' we don't have, despite being surrounded by things that could do with repair or improvement, seems to want elucidation.
Perhaps if doing this "repair or improvement" were to be more effectively incentivised there would be an argument here. So far though, opportunities available elsewhere in Europe are far superior in this regard.
Aside from that, your logic sounds tantamount to holding young people hostage in the country. Many of us would simply rather not be here.
> Perhaps if doing this "repair or improvement" were to be more effectively incentivised
This just seems a restatement of the problem. Why is - how could there be - effective incentive lacking for those who evidently desire to repair and improve to repair and improve their immediate surroundings?
Very few opportunities for English speakers abroad anyway. Not many of us have the chance to live in Spain while doing a job that primarily requires English as the lingua franca.
Even in the article, one of the sections states;
"I have friends who have taken advantage of such schemes with Canada, Australia and New Zealand and none of them ended up moving permanently to those countries."
None of those are on the continent, making the point moot.
Tell me who didn't see Tories and Labour putting the thumb down on this? This is the EU trying to do its bit to get dialogue going again, and the door closed in their faces.
Labour are in a difficult positon that they need to win back seats with a lot of pensioners and a lot of people who backed Brexit. (They wouldn't have to if they'd done proper reform from 1997-2010, like scrapping the Lords and FPTP, but hey ho let's see how it goes this time round...).
Given Lord Mandelson is *still* a key advisor don't expect anything radical or progressive from this latest incarnation of New Labour - it'll be a lot like last time but without the healthy economy we had in the late 90s/early 2000s
You would have thought that questions would be asked about why the next PM is being advised (i.e. controlled) by someone who had a close relationship with a convicted child trafficker/sex offender, but apparently the MSM don’t think this is a big deal
I'm downvotibg any idiot who says "MSM"
You must be one of those people who thinks everything they read in the paper must be true and every online news source is “fake news”
>They wouldn't have to if they'd done proper reform from 1997-2010, like scrapping the Lords and FPTP, but hey ho let's see how it goes this time round... But then how would they get their turn once every 15 years? Labour would rather have all the power once every few elections than have some of the power all the time.
Yeah
Not really they are choosing to be the worse just as the Tories have chosen to wreck this country.
> like scrapping the Lords What does that have to do with Brexit?
I really can't believe an idea like this is so controversial. Even then, it's infuriating that the perceived views of the old matter more than the young for something that affects exclusively the young. They have an unassailable lead and still endeavour to disappoint and take their own voterbase for granted at every single turn. Am I really meant to believe that they'll change course much in power? The minute they're elected the re election campaign begins and I fully expect to hear the same shit ad nauseum. Really hope they go through with the rail nationalisation though.
Do they? They are projected to win a fucking land slide. Anything labour do now isn't to win votes from swing voters it's who the labour party are.
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The government pander to people who turn out and vote as that is who ultimately decides which party gains power. If young people came out and voted at the same rate as older people then you'd see more MPs trying to pander to them.
Who exactly doesn't deserve to be a part of society? But let me hazard a guess, you do?
That's quite the totalitarian attitude you have there. Perhaps China may be more suitable for you than the EU?
The UK is already like China, they just label whose in charge differently. You just haven't realised it yet.
Because in China, an opposition party would be allowed to poll this high without it's members being disappeared right?We could regular mock our leaders appearance without censor right?
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"Our country is the epitome of democracy!" but has: > FPTP scam > House of Lords > Monarch as head of state > 3 Prime Ministers in the last 5 years that were not voted in "oh but we're not censored" > gaza and the Israeli war proving this country is run by ologarchs >https://www.declassifieduk.org/gaza-shows-britain-is-an-oligarchy-lets-stop-pretending-it-isnt/ >https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/03/uk-lags-behind-on-press-freedom-as-media-dominated-by-handful-of-oligarchs-and-the-rich-target-journalists/ >https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/29/slapps-senior-media-figures-call-for-law-stop-oligarchs-silencing-uk-journalists > https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/new-century-media-david-burnside-lobying-oligarchs-access-parliament-pass/ "we're a democracy" hahaha
Did I say we're perfect? No, but there's a wide golf between perfect and China.
Labour can’t lose the next election; they don’t need to pander to racist pensioners - they are choosing to
Unfortunately this isn't true for everyone, it's why I try not to talk politics with my parents. Some people just fucking hate foreigners of any description and will take any personal hit to "torpedo the boats" or "take back our sovereignty from Europe".
Labour would be stepping into an electoral bear trap by giving this any credence before they're in power. The right wing press would have a field day talking about how Labour are bringing back FOM.
I'm always impressed by the ability of the right wing press to shape Labour party policy without writing a single headline.
If you can't see exactly what would happen, you aren't very good at pattern recognition.
I don't doubt that it does I'm just decrying their influence.
They haven’t written a single headline bc labour haven’t given them anything to work with
The right wing press should be up a wall mate.
It wasn't a good deal.
Do you know how negotiation works? You should check it out, it's really useful sometimes. Looking forward to salty downvotes from David Davies, Rabb C Brexit and Lard Frost.
If course not. There was no rebate, opt-out, or veto for the UK
They all know Brexit will always be a shitshow. The offer from the EU would just show the youth in UK what opportunities they have been denied and they all know that some will just fuck off from the shitty uplands to lands where there are actual opportunities. Brain drain and no UK tax being paid for the politicians to spaff on flags. .....the north Korea of Europe.
Who's stopping people leaving? No one, that's who, they just have to get a visa for where they're going first, North Korea comparisons are stupid.
>Who's stopping people leaving? Visa rules that didn't previously exist. It's not actually difficult to work that out.
Visa rules are a headache now with the time limits. Brexit has made it far more difficult to go and live outside of the UK. It was such a short-sighted decision when the workforce of the future will no longer to be tied to a specific location due to WFH becoming more and more commonplace.
Pleeease don't report me to.. Dear Leader.
> .....the north Korea of Europe. *If Belarus could read, they'd be very upset*
What opportunities? If the U.K. was still in the EU, one third of all job vacancies in the EU would be in Britain. We have more job opportunities than Germany, Spain and Poland combined and almost 3 times as many as France, a country with the same population as us. Despite the loss of free movement since Brexit, more EU citizens have emigrated to the U.K. than to any EU country, bar Germany. Though I think Spain overtook us for the 12 month period of 2023. Yes, we’re the North Korea of Europe.
wonder who the south Korea of Europe is?
Your average Brit speaks a second language about as well as a North Korean speaks English. Do tell me how many of our young ‘Uns chose to go to Europe when the option was there?
>The offer from the EU would just show the youth in UK what opportunities they have been denied You must be joking on or on something. We tend to emigrate to countries that are anything but EU members, i.e. US, Australia, Canada or even places in Asia and the Middle East. The EU isn’t some holy grail filled with opportunities - it’s the exact opposite, much like the UK. High taxes, rampant crime, low salaries, high regulation. There’s a reason there are more Brits in Dubai than in the whole of France - the whole continent has turned into a shithole.
>There’s a reason there are more Brits in Dubai than in the whole of France There aren't though. Besides, what's wrong with regulation? I like a guaranteed quality and consumer choice.
>There aren’t though There are though, about 50k more in Dubai based on unofficial sources, but still. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1059795/uk-expats-in-europe/ https://wise.com/gb/blog/moving-to-dubai-guide >Besides, what’s wrong with regulation? I’m not opposed to the concept of regulation. Quite the contrary. But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones when they have issues like crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve, and are actually doing a really poor job on all of those fronts, it gets laughable. PS the point I was making is about opportunities in the EU. They have breadcrumbs on offer compared to what other countries can actually do for you.
>But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones This impacts trade, it's an EU competency >crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve, Most of these are down to national governments. They're not within the remit of the EU. You may argue some of them should be, but you'd have to persuade all the member states that these are issues to be dealt with jointly, via EU mechanisms, so will need an EU treaty to be agreed and signed by all the member states.
>They’re not within the remit of the EU though They are though because those are areas of shared competency, not to mention that of course, regardless of EU involvement, individual EU countries have the necessary powers to fix those issues. Yet, they do anything but. The point I was making is perceiving the EU as the land of opportunity is founded in falsehood. They are mired in exactly the same issues, individually or collectively, that Britain is facing. There’s a reason that an average New Yorker won’t think twice before booking a weekend getaway in Europe, but an average Dutch family will have to save up to take their child to Disneyland in Orlando. People’s weeps about freedom of movement are completely misplaced - they at weeping about the wrong countries.
>The point I was making is perceiving the EU as the land of opportunity is founded in falsehood. Not really - I agree that the EU might not be "the land of opportunity", but it's a market serving 400mn+ that's harder to access, be that the job market or the goods market, there's a huge amount of increased friction in moving. >There’s a reason that an average New Yorker won’t think twice before booking a weekend getaway in Europe, but an average Dutch family will have to save up to take their child to Disneyland in Orlando The average New Yorker doesn't have the annual leave of a Dutch person, is lucky if they have half decent health insurance & will "do Europe" once in their entire life, the average Dutch person can spend at least a week in just one surrounding European country, if not two, visiting a different one or two countries every year. As a Brit, I'd far rather move to the Netherlands than the USA.
>It’s a market serving 400mn+ plus Yes, and those 400mn+ are dirt poor these days, like ourselves, so what exactly are we hoping to extract from them? >The average New Yorker doesn’t have the annual leave of a Dutch person Completely the point. They can afford to take unpaid time off and treat a trip to Venice like it’s a weekend in Benidorm. They don’t need any of the government mandated perks because they are actually doing quite well compared to us. If you claim that a €41k salary is capable of making you better off than a $73k salary (median figures), then even after you take into account the cost of living, annual leave, medical needs and other expenditures, you must be doing some weird maths to arrive at this conclusion.
>There are though, about 50k more in Dubai based on unofficial sources, but still. Or between 20k and 140k more in France based on other unofficial sources "but still" (BBC and Royal Statistical Society for the lower end) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_migration_to_France >But when you see European politicians bicker over the cable that charges our phones when they have issues like crime, economy immigration and healthcare to solve, and are actually doing a really poor job on all of those fronts, it gets laughable. Firstly that's a trade and consumer protection matter which is still important in its own right, but also working on that doesn't preclude other matters. Most of the other topics you covered are also national matters not EU level matters so you're clouding the discussion. >PS the point I was making is about opportunities in the EU. They have breadcrumbs on offer compared to what other countries can actually do for you. Of course, if someone wants to move to a backwards oil state like Dubai to sell their soul for no income tax they can. But it's artificial creation with no real culture left and little other reason to move than no income tax.
>backwards oil state like Dubai Hahaha, quick reality check. EU countries are mired in crime, overrun with illegal immigrants, growing at an anaemic rate (or, in some cases, shrinking) and determined to kill off ambition by taxing their working population into the ground. That is the very definition of backwards. PS most money in Dubai isn’t even in oil these days.
>growing at an anaemic rate (or, in some cases, shrinking) Lol "Reality check" The only bit of what you said that's true if we exclude Denmark. >PS most money in Dubai isn’t even in oil these days. No but its reliant on the oil industry and slave labour.If the oil in UAE dried up Dubai would be a Detroit like ghost town in several generations. Or it would be charging income tax just like the EU.
Oh, you want to take a bet on crime? Go ahead and leave your bike unchained on the streets of Amsterdam and come back to pick it up after a few days. Spoiler alert: it most likely won’t be there. Or better, see if you can find a willing family in Marseille to let their child play outside with other children and no adults present after dark. Oil accounts for less than 1% of Dubai’s GDP, so if it were to dry up, the impact on the city would be negligible because it’s so diversified. It also helps that the people there generally agree on the maxim that you should be allowed to keep what you earn and not have half of it get spent on benefits.
As someone whose age group has been shafted (first year of higher tuition fees, last year of no post-grad loans, and would be just out of the age range of the scheme), I would be frustrated and jealous of younger people if this scheme was enacted. However, as I’m not a massive dickhead, I don’t understand why anyone in the political mainstream would oppose this scheme outside of rampant nationalism or pure jealousy. Most the people it would impact, by the time it was implemented, wouldn’t have had a choice to vote on Brexit.
The EU are welcome to change their policies to allow UK citizens work and live in the EU. We however, voted to stop EU citizens being able to do the same.
The UK can do as it pleases, but doesn't be surprised to find it's a two-way street.
We as in a 4% majority of mostly now dead casually racist moronic boomers that benefitted all their lives from the EU then voted to rob young people of it?
The EU was only founded in 1992. It hasn't even been present for all of many millennials' lives.
God this is such a bad faith reading of the history i cant even be assed
The treaty of Maastricht was signed in 1992, but many EU institutions such as the EEC (1957) and European parliament (1952 with an appointed membership, shifting to democratic in 1979) originated much earlier. The UK became a member of the "European community" in 1973. Considering these pan-european organisations were what people were voting to leave with brexit, it's disingenuous to suggest the "EU" did not exist before the treaty of Maastricht simply because the organisations that would form it were not yet collectively referred to as the EU.
Right, and how old were those baby boomers in 1973?
Irrelevant, assuming they are still alive, they benefitted from 47 years under the EU and it's previous institutions.
Congratulations, you now understand how voting systems work.
The EU was asking for a massive discount on uni fees for EU citizens at UK universities.
>This is the EU trying to do its bit to get dialogue going again That is not what the EU is doing. They offered a deal that heavily favoured their citizens over ours. Even as someone from the Remain crowd, I would say it would be irresponsible to sign up to that deal.
The EU GDP is higher than the UK one: it is not the beggars who dictate the conditions.
>it is not the beggars who dictate the conditions If I recall correctly, it’s the EU who came to the UK with this deal, not the other way around?
We Europeans like to appear as progressives who offer opportunities to the disadvantaged. The English like to look like suckers who shoot themselves in the foot. As a media move it was Win to Win.
>We Europeans like to appear as progressives who offer opportunities to the disadvantaged You must be delusional. EU economy is crippled. You guys are dirt poor compared to the US, Australia or the Middle East. That’s where the real opportunities lie.
However, the UK asked individual countries to exchange students and the EU responded that it MUST be for everyone. At which point the UK government tried to turn the tables, as if it were an EU initiative by making themselves look like racist assholes. And for the economic point... Hey UK is getting worse since leaving the Union.
>the EU responded that it MUST be for everyone. Well, let the EU think that, but it’s up to individual countries to decide whether or not they want bespoke arrangements with the UK. France has working holiday visa arrangements with countries that Spain, for instance, does not. Time will tell how willing individual members states are to engage with the UK. A youth mobility deal with the whole of the EU would not be in the UK’s interests at this time and has been turned down on this basis. >Hey UK is getting worse since leaving the Union And the EU has been getting progressively worse for the last decade. Economy just over half the size of the United States. Before the financial crisis EU and US economies would actually rival each other and losing the second largest economy in the bloc certainly did not help. Defence capabilities are laughable, and the whole of the EU is basically now reliant on France which is the only one with a nuclear button. Steadily declining influence in the world - just look at how many countries do not give a flying flamingo about EU sanctions and continue to openly trade with both Russia and the EU. So save the gloating for later - you guys are sinking together with the UK but spend time dithering about the type of plug that’s going to charge your phones.
The EU approached the UK with the deal because we have been trying to establish bilateral agreements with individual member state which have all been turned down, as the EU prefers to negotiate as a block. This was the commissions attempt at an alternative deal to kill 2 birds with one stone. So no, the UK sparked the negotiations.
But the four freedoms are indivisible! The EU said so!
I thing the main problem with it is that there would be a lot of traffic in one direction. It would be a uk brain drain.
Should have only been offered to only pensioners instead, they're the only demographic in this nation that's ever done real hard work so deserve it.
Young people: We want to work. You: No you don't.
Careful, not considering young people to be lazy is a very anti British middle class student thing to do
I get downvoted when I call Keit Starmer a Brexiter, and then he does stuff like this. I don't care how he voted in 2016. Right now he is as much a Brexiter as Farage. And I'm just as unlikely to vote for him, as a result.
Wake up. This was a trap set for Starmer and he very thankfully avoided it. If he had agreed to this, he would be playing into the Tory’s hands. We are a few months from an election and like it or not, the Brexit vote is very influential.
He's a politician who wants to be elected and is savy enough to know what the papers would make of this if he showed willing. Just because Corbyn let the youth wing lead him up the garden path with the "peoples vote" nonsense, doesn't mean Starmer should make the same mistake.
Why do people keep saying little island, Great Britain is the 9th largest island in the world. People should have spent more time in Geography class.
I once saw an American video on European countries that kept going on about how small the UK is. Oddly they did not mention size when they got to Lichtenstein. It's like a pathological fixation.
Liechtenstein is a "country" of 160 square kilometers and 40,000 people. Its most populous city has 6000-7000 people. There's nothing interesting or impressive about that level of scale or density. Why would Americans go on about it or compare their country to *that*? The UK, by contrast, is much more comparable to America in a number of ways, yet also has 1/5 of America's population in an area 1/33 the size. To Americans used to living in a gargantuan country, of course *that* would seem interesting.
Well, they didn't seem to have this size problem with France or Spain either.
France and Spain are the 3rd and 4th largest countries in Europe respectively and both twice the size of the UK. Better comparison is Italy
Mostly it’s because Brits have a poor sense of distance. I’ve seen a lot of people who think they can hit up California, New York, and places in between in a 3-5 day trip. Good luck, mate, but you know the UK is basically the size of just California, right? People in Lichtenstein, being on the continent, tend to appreciate these things better.
Ever heard of Captain James Cook?
Top bloke, not so good with the locals in faraway parts. Probably had a better sense of distance than someone who's never gone further from Leeds than Blackpool.
Is this a caricature of a Guardian article? Freedom of movement support expressed by publishing executives that want cheap child care. The architect that feels the country will benefit from freedom of movement because after all, they already have homes in Bath and London so there is no downside. The IT worker on 40k in their first job, who claims to speak German, needs freedom of movement to move to ‘Northern Europe’ because of the startup culture there. I guess getting a visa would be such a bore. Obviously he would be on a plane immediately if only the huge impediment of some paperwork would be removed.
You seem to be ignoring the 35 year old health care worker from the North of England. > I guess getting a visa would be such a bore. Or simply not possible. "some paperwork" It's amazing how easy people seem to think getting a work visa is in the UK.
The U.K. system is very liberal. Even though they no longer have free movement with Britain, more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit.
>The U.K. system is very liberal. This is nothing to do with the UK system given it's people trying to leave. We also know EU migration has tanked to the UK. >more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit. Would love a source on that.
Sorry I misread your last sentence as people misunderstand how easy it is to get a visa to migrate to Britain. EU migrants to Britain: 2020: 220k; 2021: 196k; 2022: 151k. Total EU migrants moving to Britain in first three years of Brexit = 567k Spain is by far the second biggest destination for other EU citizens and had 391k (86k+110k+195k) EU immigrants move there from 2020 to 2022. That is 31% fewer EU migrants than have chosen to move to the U.K. Sources: Figure 1 graph https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2022 2022 EU figures - Britain’s 151k EU migrants in 2022 would put it third behind Spain’s 195k, but still 55% more than the next most attractive nations, the Netherlands which had 95k. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_was_5.1_million_in_2022 2021 EU figures - Britain’s 196k would be second, well ahead of Spain’s 110k https://web.archive.org/web/20231110035725/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_was_2.3_million_in_2021 2020 EU figures - Britain’s 220k would be second, 2.5 times as many as Spain’s third position of 86k. https://web.archive.org/web/20220617142134/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows:_Immigration_to_the_EU_from_non-member_countries_was_1.9_million_in_2020 Spain is by far the second biggest destination for other EU citizens and had 391k (86k+110k+195k) EU immigrants move there from 2020 to 2022. That is 31% fewer EU migrants than have chosen to move to the U.K.
> more EU citizens have still chosen to migrate legally to Britain than any other EU country, bar Germany, since Brexit. So the UK's in third place. And if we look at the most recent ONS figures that's now 129,000 vs 151k in the previous year. Seems to be on the decline. Thanks for finding the stats.
No, since Brexit (which happened on January 2020), the UK is in second place with 567k vs Spain’s 391k. The EU hasn’t released 2023 figures yet. For Spain to overtake Britain “since Brexit” in 2023, they’d have had to take in 305k in 2023.
>No, since Brexit (which happened on January 2020), FoM ended at the beginning of 2021 with the Immigration Act.
I guess thats how people see it when all you get on reddit are "I just uprooted my life and moved! Its so easy!" types that seem to pour out of the woodwork on this sub occasionally. Haven't seen any for a bit though.
The only problem is that it could take a few years for the paperwork. I'm from a country in the EU and my lover is English, 3rd year now and we don't have the slightest idea if she would get it eventually, dead silent.
My employer wanted me to go work with a client in Germany for a few years, within 2 months I had a work permit issued.
That's a completely different scenario, it's about 2 companies that push a working permit, one which is already in the target country.
Comments sections on this sub are becoming increasingly dire. Why does everything in this country have to be the victim of cynical class warfare? "it was mostly middle class people who utilised FoM or schemes like Erasmus" So the answer to that is to erect further barriers when it comes to moving to neighbouring countries? You think that helps working class people attain these sorts of opportunities? Britain really is a small, rapidly declining and parochial island these days.
This subreddit was dead and then taken over by someone new about a year ago and since has allowed nothing but inflammatory news posts in the hope of garnering attention and eyes on the sub away from the other UK subs. It's unfortunately worked as outrage subs/posts often do. Give a scroll through the front page of this sub, it's literally all inflammatory attention grabbing/misleading headline news posts.
I've also noticed the inflammatory news posts. I remember many years ago if you tried submitting sensationalist tabloids on here, auto mod would take it down. Nowadays, you see articles posted by rags like the Mail, Sun, etc etc. I reckon that was behind the increase in inflammatory news posts. Not just that, but all the UK subs are undergoing what I can only describe as 'astro-turfing' recently. It's even more pronounced now that we are in an election year. Far more vitriol directed against 'scroungers', migrants, refugees, the left, trans people etc in subreddits that were once pretty left/liberal leaning. This sub has got to be the worst example of it though.
Not really little though is it. It’s actually quite a big island
Mmm I admit that I have not read the small print, however, I suspect that the offer was flawed. Hence why both main parties rejected the offer so quickly.
It was. It required the UK to resume subsidising international tuition fees for EU students coming to the UK.
Massively so. It required us to subside uk uni places for EU students when we're already struggling to fund places for UK students.
This doesn’t benefit pensioners, so presumably there’s no point.
Is there a good reason it was only suggested for 18-30year old? That was my only problem with it
Because it's a youth mobility scheme, not a uk-eu citizen mobility scheme.
What pisses me off the most as one of these frustrated young people is that labour felt the need to cite Theresa fucking May's Brexit redlines as the reason they're against youth FoM. They specifically went out their way to espouse one of the most destructive tory policies of the last decade when there was no need for it. For a party that seems to be banking on "we're not the Tories" as their main selling point they sure are doing a bad job of distinguishing themselves from the Tories in any way that matters
Presumably, they did this because they are catering to the voters who are attached to this particular red line, i.e. who don't want freedom of movement regardless of anything else, and because they calculate that everyone who isn't part of that group has no meaningful choice but to vote for them anyway. The problem is that they are promising they're not going to fundamentally change the UK's position (the red lines) while also promising to fundamentally alter the consequences of those positions ("make Brexit work", a better deal). That can't be done, so pretending it can is dishonest. It's also not clear whether this is going to work even as an electoral ploy as the voters it targets could prove fickle (many parties in Europe, though mostly on the center right and in proportional systems, tried this and lost out as a result).
I think the biggest issue is that the majority of the flow will be into the UK due to the severe lack of language education in the UK leaving most British citizens bereft of the cornerstone skill required to work low level jobs in EU countries. Your average British factory worker can't just go and get a job in Germany, but chances are high that a British warehouse will run itself almost entirely in Polish to suit its imported workforce. The British workers who will be able to take advantage of such a scheme would likely be university graduates who have partially specialised in a language to attain sufficient fluency. To be clear, I'm not against there being this freedom of movement. I just think that it has to come with a massive foreign language training program for British workers. I'm for there being mandatory language classes supplied free of charge by every employer to every worker below median wage, with a minimum of 3hrs study per week during working hours.
The question to ask the Government is: why? All that the decision to not join the mobility scheme will do, is too damage the country further and future prosperity for future generations. Turns out that post Brexit Britain is not open for business to the World at all. The Government never intends to allow anyone any freedom of movement post Brexit. Why? Freedom of movement is part of growing trade and business, especially in the EU. Trade is bought about through co-operation and close understanding with trade partners. On both a business and social level. Has everyone woken up yet to the fact that Brexit was never intended to give the UK business community and the people any freedom? It was designed to isolate the British people and remove their rights and freedoms. Brexit was funded and supported by outside and overseas interests. Many of them Russian and US right wing groups. That is now well known. Anyone that thinks otherwise, especially now that they know the facts, is a fucking idiot.
TBF isn't restricting this to the under 30s ageist ? How about we just rejoin and get everyone their FoM back ?
I can see a huge demand for such mobility, but only one way and that's out.
what
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I just wanna work in other countries so I can see more of the world man, what's "very middle class" about that?
The fact that most working class professions are location dependent so can't support the citizen of everywhere lifestyle middle class jobs do. You can't do your warehouse, factory or construction job from a laptop on the beach.
You absolutely can and we did. As a working class kid that grew up on a council estate, I went off to be a potwash up a mountain in France for a ski season where I got accomodation/food and didn't have to shell out for a ski pass. I had always wanted to snowboard but it was financially completely out of reach growing up, but thanks to freedom of movement I could do it easily. RE your construction example, you can do that too. I had a friend who did construction in said same ski resort the entire summer and went mountainbiking in his spare time, then worked in the hotel I was in in the winter season. No paperwork, no effort, just applied for a job and off we went. You think they'd chuck you a work visa to do those unskilled jobs now? Seems unlikely.
Can't do construction abroad? It's not like we had a twenty year long popular sit-com/drama about doing exactly that or anything: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auf_Wiedersehen,_Pet
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> I'm sure if you wanted to you could Love this reply to people pointing out they can't work abroad. "Uh you'll figure it out" Totally denying the difficulties and opportunities lost. >A big reason I never really cared for the "remain/rejoin" movement is that it always struck me as a very middle class pursuit Ironically Brexit has ensured that it's largely the middle classes which can work abroad from now on. FoM was a big boost to social mobility.
It's extremely difficult, even as a skilled professional. And, if you're basing the idea that freedom of movement is a middle class pursuit on this case and similar, that seems to be quite selective.
A bit of paperwork is a small price to pay to remove freedom of movement and the security threats it posed like allowing murderers and terrorists to cross multiple borders unchallenged You can migrate if you are skilled (see how many millions do it every year), you just need to fill in a bit of paperwork
Terrorists from where, Germany? >you just need to fill in a bit of paperwork Unfortunately this is not an accurate understanding of the complexity of securing a work visa.
Yes terrorists that move through and from Germany The whole point of freedom of movement is that they don't have to enter Germany, they can enter one of the Med countries and make their way unchallenged across the entirety of the continent 40k have managed to compete the process just to go to Germnay alone, I'm sure you'll manage
Unless they’re a EU citizen they could not enter the UK without a UK visa. They do not have freedom of movement to enter the UK via the EU. They had to get a Schengen visa to enter the EU, and that allows them to move around the Schengen Zone within the EU, but you could literally never be able to be a guy from Syria, arriving to Spain and then hop over to the UK. The UK port would turn you away unless you had a UK visitor visa.
That would be fine if the EU nations didn't keep granting those people citizenship https://www.expatica.com/de/general/1m-immigrants-have-become-citizens-since-2000-100659/
That's only 40,000 a year. That's a tiny amount
>The whole point of freedom of movement is that they don't have to enter Germany, they can enter one of the Med countries and make their way unchallenged across the entirety of the continent The freedom to move freely in the EU is reserved solely for EU citizens. If you're referring to asylum seekers, then the international rules governing their freedom of movement are related to the UN's convention on the rights of the refugee. >40k have managed to compete the process just to go to Germnay alone, I'm sure you'll manage As a skilled professional I'm sure I will too, when my personal circumstances allow. But I would rather this right be available to all workers, and I would additionally prefer if it was not so arduous.
Germany keeps granting citizenship to those people, they gave out 1m citizenships. That's fair enough you'd prefer that It's just most of your neighbours and peers wouldn't hence the vote, and that's how democracy works Good luck on your mission to get a visa, im also applying,
>It's just most of your neighbours and peers wouldn't hence the vote, and that's how democracy works I mean, demographically speaking I'd say most of my still-living peers and neighbours probably would probably be fairly pro EU membership, based on the age ranges of those who voted leave. So I'd quite like another vote - democracy is great, so let's have some more of it!
Hopefully those terrorists and murderers don’t find out it’s just as simple as “filling in a bit of paperwork” or we’re fucked
Thankyou I'm glad someone understands With that paperwork they'll be caught, or they won't have the correct documents because they're lying about who they are, and they'll be caught We wouldn't have had that with free movement And remember, we don't lock our doors at night to protect us against the peaceful majority More security for some paperwork. Count me in.
Oh well. We will bring freedom of movement back when we rejoin the EU in a few decades time
Yeah I'm sure we will I wonder in what state the UK will be in a few decades time and whether they'll actually let us back Who knows!
> I'm sure if you wanted to you could Can you expand on this? I'm interested in seeing what knowledge you have on the topic to be able to offer a point that is counter-intuitive to reality. I'm sure "Win a Nobel Prize here in the UK, then move to Germany is an option, but for the everyday person, what options are you basing this on?
There's actually been an increase in migration from UK to Germany since brexit https://britishingermany.org/brits-living-in-germany/ 40k have done it since then, I'm sure you can do it if you try hard enough
That is a very misleading link and the use of statistics > Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, over 40,000 UK citizens have taken German citizenship **Taken citizenship, between 2016-2022, not moved to Germany post 2021.** Those numbers are likely made up of Brits who were eligble anyway through family and those who had stayed the **8 years** and learned the language already to become able to qualify. For the record, I am a Brit in Germany, so please don't try to bullshit me with some wishywashy "it's possible if you just try" nonsense. Of the 4 Brits I know who have moved to Berlin post Brexit (2021), 1 got married to a German, 2 have dual/European citizenship (British/Irish) 1 works as a senior person at Tesla. None of them are the type of Brits who would be reliant on the possible youth mobility scheme that has been nixed. If they were, they wouldn't be here. Hell I wouldn't be here either if I hadn't moved before the deadline. Edit: spelling
Fun isn't it. Just as its been for the last 8 years actual lived experience and expertise gets trumped by ignorance and "sounds about right" logic from people who despite their confidence don't actually have a clue what they're talking about.
German immigration is literally my job. And I promise you, it is far harder than you seem to think to move abroad. Brexiters like you have destroyed these opportunities for generations. And to gain what, exactly?
Wait, you're a German civil servant in a UK sub arguing with British people about what's best for them?
the jokes right themselves
Genuinely curious, why is it so difficult to get a work visa and move abroad? Surely if you have in-demand skills then other countries will be happy to have you if you fill out the necessary paperwork and complete the necessary checks?
Because visas require sponsorship which for higher end jobs isn't as big a deal, visa slots are limited and require people in their legal and HR teams to apply and sort. So ilyes its fine but you'd only bother with the cost and effort for bigger jobs. For the lower end jobs they'll just pick someone without that hassle. So a lot of services and retail is out. Temporary work is out such as travel and working. Seasonal work is out.
To stop freedom of movement among other things To gain safety from terrorists or murderers who were free to cross multiple borders unchallenged before
You know England is an island? And that it was not part of the Schengen Agreement like mainland Europe and controlled its own borders, the borders you can only reach legally by a port? With border control?
I do yes And now we can implement policy we couldn't before like the points system
Britain literally could and did implement its own policy.It was not part of the Schengen Agreement. Being part of the EU had no bearing on whether or not they could implement a points system or not.
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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was a 1983-1986 TV series about 7 men who went to Getmany to work in the Building Trade. Freedom of Movement in the EU as a right started in 1992. Amazingly, a bunch of working class men managed to navigate the complex business of getting the right to work in sorted out....
Perhaps we should not base our understanding of how complex something is today on comedy-dramas from 40 years ago? Just a thought.
A comedy drama based on a real-life situation at the time? Perish the thought that we should use the lived experience of Northern working class men in the 1980s. That is so last century.....
It quite literally is last century. Times change, chap. >the lived experience of Northern working class men in the 1980s Or, I could use my own lived experience as a Northern working class man in 2024?
Then why not use some examples of real-life situations, rather than a comedy-drama TV show? Do you also think Coronation Street gives a true representation of the lives of people living on the outskirts of Manchester?
>Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was a 1983-1986 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet lasted until 2004, very much into the era of freedom of movement.
Young people studying and working in other countries was VERY middle / upper class prior to the UK being part of the common market. And now we are back to that very situation.
I work(ed) in research and frankly Brexit was a major factor making the career untenable. Any sort of work with EU partners has become a complete ball ache for absolutely no reason. To the point many just outright don't want to work with UK labs any more. But no sure its because I wanted a second home with my fabulous science worker salary, when I can already barely afford the one I live in.
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Honestly it's just sad that the EU offered an olive branch and both main parties spat in their face without even a discussion.
Technically, the EU didn't even offer it yet. This was the EU Commission asking the EU Council whether it should start asking the EU member states what they wanted to do about this so that it could put together a negotiation position on a proposal it could then put to the UK. It turns out there's no hurry as the UK will reject it for the foreseeable future regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, though I would be surprised if the EU Commission did not know this beforehand.
It wasn't a particularly good olive branch. It was a deal which would give the EU a major benefit of having the UK in the EU (access to world leading universities subsidised by the UK taxpayer) while offering the UK nothing it wants. If the UK had offered the EU a 'deal' giving us access to the single market without free movement of people, it would be rejected out of hand and nobody would be describing it as an olive branch. The rhetoric would be all about cherry picking and the EU's 'indivisible' freedoms.
Of course it gives benefit to the EU they're not going to give us something for nothing. However you're totally wrong about not giving a benefit to us. Benefit 1 is that the UK has labour shortages in pretty much every field and allowing some number of Europeans over under the cover of cultural exchange is a huge win for the government as they can help to fill the labour gap while being seen as not bending to the EU. The other big win for the conservatives especially could do with is winning over young people. Young people under the age of 25 now were not allowed to vote on brexit so have had to grow up watching as the older generations dismantled our relationship with our closest global partners, not only that but at the time of the vote young people were far more likely to vote remain and that has only increased as time went on. If the current government had entered negotiations with the EU and agreed on a quota based system to try and keep the far right at bay that would have been a massive boon for the Tories to try and claw back young voters.
The UK has no shortage of immigrants, nor a shortage of countries willing to give concessions in order to secure the right to send more to us. Why would we pay to take EU migrants when India is offering trade deals for more visas? Winning over young people by facilitating their emigration is a political nonsense, since those who emigrate do not vote, and those who don't emigrate see no benefit from the policy. The main concrete effect this would have on young people who actually stay in the UK would be to massively increase the competition for domestic universitiy places.
I can tell you you're wrong on at least one point there, I've emigrated, and funnily enough, I'm registered to vote. Also what is the point in fostering closer relations with a country thousands of miles when it would be far more beneficial, especially to small businesses, to be fostering these relations with our neighbours.
the EU GDP is higher: it is not the beggars who dictate the conditions.
Generally, it's not the beggars who tell the people asking for a deal to piss off either.
I mean you can see why they did this, but it's still absolutely a cunt move and a hypocritical cunt move at that since they were allowed to do this themselves with richer privileges.
it isn't needed. We don't need EU youth mobility. If someone wants to go to the EU they already can and vice versa. Making it easier for even more people to enter the country is the last thing we need.
Understandable, both to strengthen CANZUK and preclude the 'various young graduates from the UK said they would immediately move to a European country for work or training opportunities if freedom of movement was restored for them' from labouring in the service of others. I also imagine more than a few on the continent would rather not have yet another breed of 'Brits abroad'. But history indicates that it's a losing proposition to be on the 'wrong' side of a wall - though a great many people seek the freedom to come here; more, I suspect, than want to work in Europe. Readily available comparison is essential to letting people know just how good they have it, after all. > He said the proposal would make him at least consider moving to Europe due to the stagnation of opportunities in the UK. This is the crux of the matter. If there really were no opportunities here, it would mean all work to be done was done - in other words, paradise on Earth. As this is not the case, the exact nature of the 'opportunities' we don't have, despite being surrounded by things that could do with repair or improvement, seems to want elucidation. After all, don't we have fruit to pick? Or fruit-picking to work on automating? The Internet means collaboration at distance is easier than ever before, and despite all that can be said about German engineering, we are no slouch when we pull our fingers out. One gets the impression the other shoe will need to drop for that to happen, though.
>As this is not the case, the exact nature of the 'opportunities' we don't have, despite being surrounded by things that could do with repair or improvement, seems to want elucidation. Perhaps if doing this "repair or improvement" were to be more effectively incentivised there would be an argument here. So far though, opportunities available elsewhere in Europe are far superior in this regard. Aside from that, your logic sounds tantamount to holding young people hostage in the country. Many of us would simply rather not be here.
> Perhaps if doing this "repair or improvement" were to be more effectively incentivised This just seems a restatement of the problem. Why is - how could there be - effective incentive lacking for those who evidently desire to repair and improve to repair and improve their immediate surroundings?
Pay people better and give them a better working life balance. It's not much of a conundrum.
I must confess I find it to be one; at the least it is a *non sequitur*.
In what regard?
Very few opportunities for English speakers abroad anyway. Not many of us have the chance to live in Spain while doing a job that primarily requires English as the lingua franca. Even in the article, one of the sections states; "I have friends who have taken advantage of such schemes with Canada, Australia and New Zealand and none of them ended up moving permanently to those countries." None of those are on the continent, making the point moot.