David Davis just significantly cut the odds on a 'no deal' Brexit

Brexit
81

Its exactly my point, future relationship as in what exactly? Trade, military, security? What exactly?

82

Exactly - everything, that’s why it’s such a massive topic and that’s why the plan was to have 12 months to talk about it.

83

Twelve months? Its going to take year’s. New treaties have to be drawn up to cover loads of stuff, trade is just a small part of it. The UK becomes a third country, everything related to their EU membership ends and has to be renegotiated. Renegotiated with the 27 members of the EU and all the members of the WTO, the UK can’t simply slot back into that club either. A new trade agreement alone will take years because every member of the EU will want a little nibble for themselves. The UK has a trade deficit with the EU as one trading unit, but the EU is not one trading unit and what the UK actually has is a major deficit with some members, a trivial deficit with some member’s and no deficit with some member’s. There will be no trade agreement between the UK and the EU when the UK leaves, all there will be is an agreement on the type of trade agreement that the UK hopes to negotiate after the UK has left. I’ve absolutely no idea what deal the UK Parliament is hoping to get a say on because its purely an agreement on Ireland, citizens rights and cash, everything else comes under treaties or trading agreements.
The idea is to hold a referendum when you have a good chance of getting the result you want, and I think Cameron’s plan was to hold a referendum, expect a very very close remain win, then go back to the EU with a few more demands, but Cameron badly miscalculated and it didn’t quite go to plan.

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84

Hi Trevor,

I would be interested to know what you mean by the “agreed rules on freedom of movement”. Are there rules which allow the restriction of freedom of movement then ? If so, I would really like to know what they are and where they can be found.
Robert.

85

Everything is listed on the EU’s own website. You can live and work in any member state. If you are unemployed, you can look for work in any member state, your home country covers your benefits for a period of three months, then if you haven’t got a job and cannot support yourself, you are supposed to leave. You can’t turn up in the UK, sign on and claim benefits. The problem as you know is the UK immigration department has been underfunded for years, understaffed and unable to cope. Its the same with people travelling into the UK from outside the EU, the immigration department has no idea whatsoever where these people are, whether they are still in the UK or not. The bulk of the people who voted leave, voted purely based on immigration, based on immigration figures plucked out of the air, and the false rumour that Turkey was being fast tracked into the EU.

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86

In the EU’s guide to Freedom of Movement http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/citizenship/docs/guide_free_movement_low.pdf in Chapter 6 it states that
"Workers and self-employed persons have the right to reside without any conditions other than being a worker or self-employed person…
EU citizens retain the status of workers and self-employed persons in the following
circumstances:
•
if they are unable to work as the result of an illness or accident; or
•
if they are in duly recorded involuntarily unemployment and have registered as job-seekers with the relevant employment office; or
•
if they have embarked on vocational training."

The important words in that first sentence are “without any conditions other than …” which means that they cannot be required to report their whereabouts to the police or immigration authorities for example.

Furthermore, in Chapter 10 it states
"Thanks to the principle of equal treatment you are entitled to most advantages and benefits (including notably all the social and tax advantages) that are granted by the host EU country to its own nationals. For example:
You are entitled to receive social assistance on the same grounds as nationals in the host EU country.
Does the host EU country provide for an extra benefit for low-income families to support their housing costs? If yes, you are entitled to apply for such benefit and you will be treated just as any national of that State."

Additionally in Chapter 5 it states that
"EU citizens benefit from the right to reside without any conditions and formalities for a period of six months and even longer, if they continue to seek employment in the host EU country and have a genuine chance of getting work."
Again it is important to note the words “without any conditions and formalities” as well as “and even longer”.

Effectively what this all means is that even if the UK Immigration Service had the resources, they would still not be allowed to do what would be necessary to keep track of these EU Freedom of Movement people as that would constitute ‘conditions and formalities’, and that also such people do in fact have the right to turn up, sign on, and claim benefits.

87

In the UK they have three month’s, three months is fairly standard throughout Europe. Some states have a statutory registration system, some do not. Even Brits returning to the UK after living abroad for a long period cannot drop straight back into the benefits system. The sticking point with Cameron and the EU over freedom of movement and benefits was Cameron wanted a five year waiting period on benefits, which obviously the EU were never going to agree to. There are over ten million Roma gypsies living in Europe, most live in squalor, and I’m 100% certain that if they could simply go to England, claim a ream of benefits, get housing, then ten million Roma Gypsies would all be heading off to the UK.
Only a very small percentage of mainland European citizens live in the UK on benefits, only a very very tiny percentage of those are long term claimant’s. I assume its another case of its our money and we are keeping it, its our NHS, its our housing and you are not having any of it.
I watched question time last night, with Mogg and the express woman both lying as usual about the benefits of free trade, Mogg with his we set the tariffs bit, his poor people will be able to buy cheaper clothes and shoes and the usual German car workers all lose their jobs piffle. Seems to me this whole lot is turning into a little game of I’m right and you ain’t, the sky didn’t fall in and the economies booming. Give it time.

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88

Unfortunately that is not what it says on the EU’s own website.
I reiterate that what it does say in Chapter 5 of the EU document I referenced is that “EU citizens benefit from the right to reside without any conditions and formalities for a period of six months and even longer, if they continue to seek employment in the host EU country and have a genuine chance of getting work.”

89

Nidirect.gov.UK, read what it says on there about right to reside, right to benefits for EEA nationals.

90

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32004L0038R(01)

Article seven of this puts the scaremongering into perspective. A completely different picture to the one implied above. Smoke and mirrors as normal. Pathetic.

91

Implied above? By me?
Sometimes people are victims of circumstances, some times grossly misled by unscrupulous people, sometimes the victims of their own governments failings. With brexit its all three.
The Americans wanted the eastern European countries fast tracked into the EU to try and deter them from joining some new Russian alliance, the British lobbied for this in the EU. The eastern European countries joined the EU. The original member states stated that it would be advisable to restrict access to their employment markets until 2011, the British chose to allow the eastern Europeans access to the UK employment markets from 2004. We invaded Iraq, banks crashed, every one went bust. We then decided to get rid of Gaddafi, create turmoil in Libya. Next step, Syria, shed loads of turmoil there.
Apparently all of it is the fault of the lefty liberal tree hugging undemocratic EU lot.
Apparently the lefty tree huggers are planning total integration of everyone, a Muslim dominated Europe, a German European empire and get the UK to pay for all of it. If a Cod is born in Norwegian waters, then swims into British waters, is it Norwegian or British? If Hake swim up the French side of the channel and into the English side of the north sea, are they French fish or English fish?
One worrying aspect of all this is the rise once again of nationalism in certain parts of Europe. Seems that once again certain unscrupulous people have managed to scare a percentage of their population into believing most of their current woes are down to immigration.

92

The link seems to relate to Northern Ireland only, and in any case I can find no reference on that page to either “right to reside” or “right to benefits for EEA nationals”.

By the way … From an Immigration Service enforcement point of view, it would seem that Article 14 4. (b) of Directive 2004/58/EC would make it very difficult to actually expel an EU citizen from the UK.
An additional difficulty regarding the payment of benefits is also imposed by Article 24 of said Directive which refers to the issue of Equal Treatment. From reading Item 16 of the pre-amble of intent of the Directive it would seem that there is certainly a right to access social security benefits as long as it does not become ‘unreasonable’.

93

That’s the main site address, various subjects are covered in other sections of the site. Try David Martins link, states it all on there.

94

Yes, Directive 2004/58/EC does make interesting reading, especially when one considers the various Articles in relation to each other from the viewpoint of an immigration enforcement agency in a member state that does not already have a system of ID cards for it’s own nationals.

95

Yes agreed it is difficult, but the UK government under Blair should have already seen possible future problems regarding free movement and taken steps to deal with it, they chose not to. The conservative government cut the immigration services budget to such an extent that it became unfit for purpose.
With unhindered free movement of goods and services, you must have unhindered free movement of people, system doesn’t work without it. Every citizen of the EU is required to carry proof of identity when moving about the Union, the UK has full border controls, won’t let someone in including me, without a passport or national identity card, and with the correct system in place its not all that difficult to track foreign nationals in your country. There has to be a will, and on the part of Blair’s government followed by Cameron’s government, there was absolutely no will to do anything whatsoever.

96

Part of the problem is a strong resistance in the UK to the idea of national identity cards - or the requirement to have ID on you at all times. ISTR it was even rejected when mooted for “volunteers and immigrants only” (presumably on a “thin end of the wedge” logic).

The rap for not implementing access controls following the A8 ascension does, indeed, lie with Blair’s government - or more squarely with whoever came up with the estimate of only a couple of 10’s of thousands of immigrants. Totally ignoring the fact that if all the other EU nations implemented quotas then the UK would be the only possible destination for a lot of people seeking to take up their free movement rights.

97

At last, someone who has tracked this back to the Cherie Blair government - I was beginning to think that I was the only one saw this start then. Thanks for this post.

98

Business is business, profit is profit, if you can’t make it here, you go elsewhere.
Recruitment agency’s set up in eastern European countries, shipped workers into the UK by the thousand, workers prepared to work all hours of the day and night, seven days a week, workers with a better work ethic, and workers you could ship to wherever they were needed. Not happening now though, recruitment agency’s have been reporting a 60% year on year drop in people registering for work in the UK.
Doesn’t bode well, construction is already showing signs of recession, buy to let landlords in some areas are already reporting a drop off in tenancy enquiries. Next thing will be small buy to let landlords not being able to service loans and thousands of repossessed properties appearing on the market. You don’t need to be an economics wizz to see how this could all pan out. With Macron on the other hand, all he needs to do is introduce zero hours contracts, let anyone pay a fixed NI contribution and go self employed doing whatever they like and he should be able to reduce unemployment by a minimum two million in less than a year.