Freedom of Movement

Re: Free Movement (of labour) not being as straight-forward as the Single Market Great Minds thought.

I seem to recall seeing in TV many moons back a complicated hydraulic model comprising many cisterns, pipes, valves and overflows through which water circulated. And that this was used to demonstrate how the market operates to students of economics, including, one imagines, the movement of capital, goods, labour etc.,and the processes by which ‘levelling out’ etc occur in market conditions. Cash flows like water etc.

Surely the Founding Fathers had some such model in mind when they created the Leviathen we call the EU, and would have anticipated a few gurgles, splashes, air-locks and wet patches on the carpet, like Polish plumbers or Estonian leek-puller-uppers?

And hoped it would all work out fine, if a bit damply, in the end? Cue “Ode to Joy”… :eu::indonesia::uk:

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My main concern is that it might be necessary for me to live with my daughter for reasons of poor health.
Our ideal is to live out our days in France, but if there is a hard Brexit it would affect our ability to move easily.

It’s not a distortion, it’s the way it’s supposed to work!!!

I understand your reasoning but you haven’t explained in any detail why FOM is bad for all of us.

Taking the democrat veiw of “for the many not the few” I accept some workers lose out but they also share in the benefits that accrue to EU citizens in general from FOM.

Current Gov are about to discover how disasterous “cakeism” can be - they are still talking about capping immigration from the EU whilst also pursuing a policy that promises 300,000 new homes next year.

Just where are all those building trade skills going to come from???

It will be a bureaucratic nightmare papertrail of delays and disruption that will create skills shortages across the UK and will push up the cost of building new homes for years. But maybe that’s what Farage and J.R-M and their disaster capitalist cronies and banking on :wink:

Ordinary Joe in the street screwed again because he failed to see hpw FOM mitigates against all this?

I was one of those students Peter, back in the early 70s, and I remember the lectures well - particularly the various “ballons” that would inflate and deflate at various times. it all really caught my imagination :slight_smile:

I’m sure you’re right about the EU model and it goes a long way to explain why the Council of Ministers et al are not prepared to compomise on those principles.

I work as a UN Volunteer helping with Economic Development projects, although it’s all a bit quiet at the moment, Mandy.

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I fail to see how the injection of a large pool of labour used to significantly lower rates of pay can do anything but distort the market.

In fact I rather assume the EU agree with me - otherwise why allow for restriction of FoM from the A8 nations for up to 7 years after they joined?

Well, I don’t have to do that because I actually think that FoM is of benefit - as I said I agree with your analysis and I have never said I think that FoM is bad.

I merely said that I have a little sympathy with the idea that we have absorbed slightly more than our fair share of migration.

Yes, but it is about perceptions, and also how likely a local worker displaced by a migrant1 is to make use of FoM to compensate.

As far as perceptions go - well, the Leave campaign very successfully tapped into a feeling that there were “too many” foreign workers though they didn’t differentiate nearly well enough between EU and non-EU workers for my linking.

As to the 2nd question my gut reaction is that Brits are probably slightly less likely to take advantage of FoM but I can’t find numbers to definitely back that point of view.

In fact what I can find might suggest the opposite. There were 2.3M EU workers in the UK according to government figures in March 2018 but the only figure I can come up with is about 1.3M (estimates vary) UK nationals living in the EU - and we know from previous posts that the profile of UK nationals living in the EU is very different to that of EU nationals living in the UK. However even if only 1/3 of UK ex-pats (probably a conservative estimate) are working in the EU that would imply we are more likely to be mobile.

Training them in the UK?

It takes time though and it takes someone to actually encourage and enable it - which is where the UK government has a poor track record.

1] I don’t think there is strong evidence this has actually happened.

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You couldn’t imagine the relief when I saw the “Freedom of Movement” topic, I thought you were all criticising my new M&S baggie boxer shorts!

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Hmmm, in fact I have realised that the above manages to compare apples & oranges so back to the drawing board.

However, I was trying to disprove my own hunch that Brits are less mobile. Failing to disprove myself I am left with my gut feeling that British workers, especially low skilled and semi-skilled trades are much less likely to take advantage of FoM than their A8 counterparts. Probably because we are so much worse at languages than our neighbours in the EU, plus - dare I say it, rather less enterprising than the national stereotype suggests - thus the UK does not derive as much benefit from FoM.

Not that this should be taken that I, personally1, think FoM is a bad thing - far from it. Nor is it the EU’s fault that we failed to impose restrictions when we could, nor that we continue to be more lax than regulations allow, nor that our workers fail to make good use of FoM - none of this is really their fault and while leaving will “fix” FoM unless we spend significant sums of money on home-grown talent (and all indications are that public money will be tighter post Brexit so that’s not likely to happen) we will simply replace Eu workers with non-EU workers.

In fact this can be seen in the ons figures from May - there were 28,000 fewer EU workers since the January figures but 20,000 more non-EU workers.

1] Pretty much I am exactly the sort of person who would benefit from FoM - and if I still worked in IT would be actively exploring my options. Unfortunately both my, and my wife’s job are essentially “UK only” so we’re stuck at present.

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A Free Market certainly relies on free movement / exchange of skilled labour - a good thing.

This is a separate issue surely to the free movement of ‘economic’ migrants and others who may not have the skills that are in demand to drive the market economy, rather than the demand on social services?

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It is indeed - but note that the term “economic migrant” refers to those trying to enter from outside the EU. Those moving around within the EU are just EU citizens exercising their rights.

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Sorry about the delay in replying Paul. The restriction on the A8 nations wasn’t about economics - it was simply to allow EU nations to adjust their bureau procedures to cope. Only A2 nationals were resticted on economic grounds and only, effectively, for 12 months.

This summary from ILPA explains the legal position - “The key difference for A8 and A2 nationals, as compared to other EEA nationals, is that access to the UK labour market is restricted. However, the restrictions for A8 nationals are no more than a requirement that the A8 national register (as described in this information sheet). The restrictions for A2 nationals are more substantial. In either case, however, on completing 12 months continuous and lawful employment, the A8 and A2 national will have unrestricted access to the UK labour market”.

Agreed.

Perhaps Brexit was much about the unrestricted movement of non EU economic migrants / the unskilled entering the UK due to the failures of Schengen to police the EU borders?

Paul Flinders “However, I was trying to disprove my own hunch that Brits are less mobile. Failing to disprove myself I am left with my gut feeling that British workers, especially low skilled and semi-skilled trades are much less likely to take advantage of FoM than their A8 counterparts. Probably because we are so much worse at languages than our neighbours in the EU, plus - dare I say it, rather less enterprising than the national stereotype suggests - thus the UK does not derive as much benefit from FoM.”

From my perspective as a low or semi-skilled worker the big issue was not having any money in the bank to fund a move to any other country or even region of UK in the hopes of finding work.

Fair enough.

This “displacement” is, I think, another myth. How is the process of “displacement” supposed to take place (except in the minds of those not equiped for rational thinking - Nigel Farage again :smile: ) ???

All the usual laws apply - you cannot just make someone redundant and replace them with a cheaper version of the same, whereever they come from.

Equally, you cannot sack someone on the grounds that you have access to someone who is cheaper.

If there is a job vacancy then the law says all those eligible to work in the UK and suitably qualified have equal access to that job.

The gig economy and seasonality should have an impact on the local workforce but in practice there is always a shortage of gig workers at times of increased demand for labour.

If employers choose to cheat then it’s not the fault of the system - it’s a failure to apply domestic laws.

That too but why do so many from the EU manage to make the trip?

Agree - I noted that I wasn’t sure there was any evidence that this actually happened.

True but you can choose an EU worker over a Brit for a new hire. In fact I doubt that it would be legal to offer someone less than a UK hire - but for some types of work the EU workers have a definite reputation for being harder workers than the UK candidates.

The gig economy is something of a separate issue I think.

True

Jane W’s post raises wider questions and rightly. Jane and Paul’s discussion has been interesting and informative, but also points to the fact that so much of the debate has been conducted around economic rather than social and cultural issues. The more intangible issues around identity and a sense of belonging - things we have long taken for granted - now need definition and value in terms of human needs. Such values might be based on communities of interest across the continent of Europe, whether linking coal miners, chess players or cheese afficianados. None of us is an island and the loss of a sense of belonging to a diverse cultural community forged in histories of friendship and conflict over centuries should be heard.

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@John_Adams yours is a welcome and thought-provoking comment that I am still wrestling with over a cup of coffee, because I’m not at all sure that I have a reliable sense of belonging in the terms you set out in your last paragraph, and - if I can conjure it up for inspection - how I acquired it.

In particular, I’m concerned to understand how much of it has been forced upon me, by subtly coercive influences like schooling and family, and how much has been through my own inherent scepticism about what I’m told is ‘true’ about history, about conflict, and about friendship.

As you might infer, I’m sceptical about the value of a community of sceptics, even a sub-group of sceptic coal-mining fromards. :thinking::yum:

People who have lived in one community for all their lives and look down on others as traitors because they have dared to move leave Britain and enjoy living in another country should never have had the vote.

I do not want to live in their narrowly defined Britain and am ashamed of my own country.

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