[jcranmer]

> If Britain stays in the European Union, then it won't have a lot of power to manage her borders. The "liberalness" of Britain's immigration policy ends up being at minimum the liberalness of each of the other 27 EU countries. Germany could let in 1 million immigrants (good for them), all of them would get citizenship, all of them can go to the UK, the UK can't say to any of them "Hold on a minute. Are you even a fit?"

That's patently false. The EU doesn't prohibit (justified) immigration restrictions, and that sort of immigrant wave would be grounds for imposing restrictions.

[man-and-laptop]

It does prohibit them among the 28 member countries. They call it free movement. Each of those country's immigration policies is a loophole for the other 27. It's a loss of border sovereignty.

[jcranmer]

You are aware that the enlargement of the EU allowed existing countries to restrict migration from new countries, and that the UK government explicitly decided not to?

You are also aware that the EU specifically allows to limit the freedom of movement on "grounds of public policy, public security or public health"?

You are also aware that the recent migrant crisis of the past few years has caused these kinds of barriers to be raised in response? Proving that such restrictions are not just mere hypotheticals?

The European Union is, after all, not a suicide compact.

[man-and-laptop]

I'm talking about long term impact, not emergency measures. Everything you've mentioned is an emergency measure AFAICT.

For comparison, the impact of banning the printing presses only materialised quite a lot later than it happened. Remember that Europe used to be a lot of independent (and feuding) nations, rather than a union of any sort. There were unions of sorts under the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but England for instance was not part of those unions. it was in those times that Europe went through the scientific and industrial revolutions, while the empires I mentioned slowly stagnated.

[SirHound]

No, you are arguing in bad faith (or ignorance).

British immigration policy is British immigration policy because as per European law it has mechanisms to prevent benefit immigration that is isn’t exercising

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:...

The fact is successive governments have rightly identified that both skilled and cheap labour from immigration is keeping our economy afloat. Otherwise we’d see them at least tap the brakes. But they haven’t.

[man-and-laptop]

> The fact is successive governments have rightly identified that both skilled and cheap labour from immigration is keeping our economy afloat. Otherwise we’d see them at least tap the brakes. But they haven’t.

OK, so a politician living a comfortable life thinks one thing. Individual voters thought something else.

I believe the document above refers to emergency powers to stop immigration control under limited conditions. It doesn't solve any long-term impacts that an experiment like "free movement" between 28 countries can have.

[edit]

I can see why certain things are more nuanced. Somebody mentioned that immigration from outside the EU into the EU, and then into the UK, has certain restrictions. These exemptions seem to be in place for the UK and Ireland and some other countries.

By TPM:

> It can get into 27 countries depending on their terms for immigration, but then cannot simply use free movement to move to the UK. This is incorrect. As a non-EU national, your rights in this regard are severely restricted. After five years in the EU, with a means of support, you are entitled to move freely within EU with the exception of some countries, notably the UK. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_resident_(European_U....

[edit 20:40]

My comment wasn't just its first paragraph though. There's the problem that monocultures (like in crop species) might be better in the short-term, but can create long-term risk (combine your strengths together on the one hand, but make the same mistakes and have all the same weaknesses). I gave the copyright example. It's a lot easier for the copyright lobby to take over one entity, the EU, than over 28 countries each with disconnected regulatory systems. Even regulatory treaties don't result in monoculture, because somebody can leave a treaty much more easily than they can leave a superstate like the EU.

[makomk]

The EU Commission's position, if I remember correctly, is that all those mechanisms cease to apply as soon as the person gets so much as one temporary job of any length within the country they're moving to and that the host country must give them full benefits entitlement from that point forward.

[AstralStorm]

No, that requires full citizenship in one of the member states.

The only problem in preventing illegal immigration since internal border checks are reduced, but UK cash have the border restored to higher scrutiny without running afoul of Schengen.

What the Brexit move actually does is prevent influx of Polish, Czech, Greek, Spanish, Italian etc. citizens into UK... Move of German immigrants into UK is almost certainly of no concern.

[Apocryphon]

Seems conceivable that post-Brexit Tory governments would not do a whit about immigration for the sake of access to labor.

[SirHound]

They couldn’t! Basic demographics mean this kind of approach would, like it or not, end us.

Although given the global inverse correlation between financial prosperity and birth rates, we’ll be back on our feet within a generation!

[Apocryphon]

I think you mean "shouldn't." Capital does all sorts of things that you might find self-destructive. Do you think they'll behave any differently when they're beholden only to Westminster instead of Brussels as well?

That inverse property doesn't seem to be holding up for Japan.

[tkcins]

The current approach will end the native population.

[TomMarius]

As soon as one is a EU citizen, they can move anywhere they want, without any restrictions, because these restrictions apply to immigrants only - as soon as one is a citizen, they are no longer immigrants. EU is different in this regard to the USA.

[zmb_]

This is not true. In the EU there is a freedom of movement of workers. EU citizens from another member state need to either have an employment contract or they can be told to leave the country after six months of stay.

[anticensor]

> they can be told to leave the country after six months of stay.

Which countries practice this?

[TomMarius]

That is not true. The only thing they need to do is to register their permanent residence in the new country and they can't be forbidden. You're misunderstanding the law, this is done to stop people from not registering their real addresses for tax/avoiding legal action purposes.

EU nationals can even vote in municipal politics in their new place of residence even if they're not citizens of that country; another big argument of the opposing party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Free_mo...

[zmb_]

The right to movement of workers comes from the treaties and the ECJ decisions[0]. The basic outline is as follows:

1) You have a right to stay in another member state (host) for three months without any restrictions.

2) After three months, if you are not (self-)employed, restrictions can be placed on you. In particular, hosts will require you to prove sufficient resources to support yourself, including health insurance. If you are not employed and cannot prove sufficient means, you can be removed.

3) If you lose your job, you have a right to remain as a job seeker for six months. If you do not find a job within six months, you have to prove to the host that you are actively seeking a job, and that you have a realistic chance to get one. If you cannot prove that, you can be removed.

4) You get a right to permanent residence in the host after legally staying there for five years.

5) It is currently unclear if you have a right to the six months of job seeking before you've had an employment contract in the host state.

While I'm not a lawyer, I have used these rights myself three times now so I've read through them carefully as well as the local regulations in the countries I worked in.

[0]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/41/free-mo...

[makomk]

In theory host countries can require you to prove sufficient resources to support yourself, including health insurance. The problem is that this only really works for countries whose healthcare is structured as insurance in the first place, like the continental European states do; no-one has figured out a sensible way to apply this to the UK's single-payer, free at the point of use healthcare.

Non-EEA nationals who are here long term just pay a surcharge for the right to use the NHS, but that's not allowed by the EU rules. In fact, the European Commission's position is that since the NHS is free, this rule should be interpreted as allowing everyone who comes here from other EU states to use it for free even if they're not working and not paying into the NHS, and that this should fulfil the insurance requirement.

There was a bunch of press controversy over the UK enforcing the rule as written in some cases a year or so back too.

[AstralStorm]

What? UK cannot just ask for an income statement or the you live as a proof, that's what you're saying?

Moreover the migrant worker has to pay tax in the country they're living in, so tax statement may be good enough.

Most of EU has "single payer, free at point of use" healthcare rather than US model of insurance.

And if they're not working, they can be elected after three months. Is three months slip enough to even put a dent in NHS budget? I'd say not at all. It's not like people are migrating to UK to get temporarily better healthcare. (It sucks compared to almost every other EU country.)

Additionally, for temporary stays, UK can probably demand reimbursement from the member country of origin.

[PeterisP]

That "as soon as" is a high barrier to pass - there are many ways for temporary immigration to EU, but there's no mass granting of citizenships to unskilled immigrant workers, just as in USA.

[TomMarius]

The problem is that any EU country can set any rights for gaining a citizenship it wishes, even post facto, without getting any approval. A country could theoretically decide to give citizenship to people for free and other EU states would be forced to agree.

[anticensor]

You also have freedom of movement in the US. I am unaware of any border controls between US states.

[TomMarius]

Yes but the US is a federation. The EU people don't want that.

[anticensor]

EU is slowly progressing towards it anyway. Why else did European Army works start?

[TomMarius]

I'm not saying it's not - I'm saying that there is a certain non trivial amount of people that doesn't like it.