[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.