If we didn’t have freedom of movement of labour, what would happen? Assuming all current EU workers in the UK could stay?

Let’s say Polish tradespeople can’t come over and undercut British ones – the British ones get more work because the Poles aren’t undercutting them? Or would the increased cost of jobs deter people from commissioning them?

If Subway could not get EU workers to work in its shops, would that give more employment to UK workers? It would not depress wages because I’m sure Subway sandwich makers are on minimum wage anyway..? Are low paid service sector jobs actually hard to find for UK youth currently?

Is freedom of movement of services the same as that of labour? Otherwise, you could purchase building services from a ‘Polish’ one man company and he could then domicile himself in the UK anyway whilst delivering that service..?

Presumably any Brexiter would let in highly skilled workers that were needed, so we need not debate high skill jobs – but then again, if we need brickies, those are the people we’d have to let in anyway right? But then again, how would such a need be identified? If you pick up a phone book and call the local builders, and don’t get a response – you wouldn’t then log that on a website so the government knows to advertise for more brickies, would you?

There would be a labour gap and, more importantly, every reliable data source (i.e. not Migration Watch or anything that’s been near jambalaya) says it will result in greatly reduced tax revenue and a hole in the pension pot, and it’ll take much longer to bring the deficit down (if you care about that sort of thing).

Without the hypothetical Polish builders undercutting UK builders, wages would prob go up in the short term, and stabilize in the long term as others follow the money being earnt; supply & demand.

Contemporary capitalist society needs a healthy number of unemployed, because without the surplus of cheap labour, workers can demand higher wages and benefits. This means less profit at the top!

We’d take the people we need via a visa system. We’d see a rise in wages, we’d hopefully see a reduction (the end) of abuse of foreign workers by agencies who I would say themselves have to be licenced. If skills shortages appear we would know where to focus training on for our own people.

munro – sorry how will we have less tax revenues with higher wages and most likley loser unemployment ? Also Country will be much better off as I propose no visas issued for jobs leading to in work benefits unless in exceptional circumstances (would also expect no freedom of movement to be macthed with a no benefits for say 5 years for non-Brits rule). We have to find a way to get our unemployed into work. This would be a good start.

Let’s say Polish tradespeople can’t come over and undercut British ones – the British ones get more work because the Poles aren’t undercutting them? Or would the increased cost of jobs deter people from commissioning them?

It wouldn’t stop me hiring HARDWORKING Polish people, god only knows there are plenty of useless UK tradespeople who think they have some god given right to a living.

I quite like the wendyball analogy

Over recent years we have become so reliant on hiring in foreign football talent that many of our clubs have just given up on youth development and training, it it suddenly became harder to hire foreign footballers, then clubs would have to actually have to start growing and developing their own talent through the ranks.

Maybe we could see industry start doing the same post Brexit, when they can’t just hire foreign labour?

no visas issued for jobs leading to in work benefits

+1
To be fair, I’m not overly convinced we could not have done that within the existing EU free labour clauses (public burden and national policy clauses etc) but I think there was no political will to do it – we certainly could do it post Brexit, and it could potentially remain compatible with single market rules.

You assume they are all builders/making nutritious jumbo rolls for a £4:99 meal deal.
My Polish other half has a BA, Masters and has paid a shit load of tax for 15 years on a decent wage (creative director/London type income) a quick scan round her office of a multi national Ad agency shows the typical world mix of employees a big portion of them from Europe.

You also have to factor in the returning British immigrants currently stealing EU jobs from hard working EU natives that will be reciprocately kicked out.

Nice bit of generilisation there phil.

Not all uk trademen are useless and not all imported tradesmen are good.

Both uk nationals and imported staff have been run off my dads work sites over the years for being lazy or crap at their jobs.

Yes, you would see a rise in wages, but you would also notice that everything costs more.
Would subway still be able to sell you a sub and coffee for 3 quid if the person making it is on £10+ p/h ?

You also have to factor in the returning British immigrants currently stealing EU jobs from hard working EU natives that will be reciprocately kicked out.

Well, he predicated the discussion on repatriation not being part of it, and I haven’t heard anyone on either side of the recent discussion actually think that there is even the slightest chance of this happening, so being alarmist isn’t going to help anyone, is it?

the racists would be happy the economy would be in turmoil and lazy UK folk would still be lazy either that or joy and rapture would spread to all area of albion as johnny foreigner really was the author of all our woes and not right wing capitalist bastards …one of the two.

being alarmist isn’t going to help anyone, is it?

Jesus wept this EU debate has lead to some absolute belting gems coming from the keyboards of some our brethren. That is amongst my favourites though . If we need a voice of moderate calm ninfan is indeed the direction we all look 😆

This place is going to the dogs faster than the economy

We’d take the people we need via a visa system.

But Jam, how does that work with the tradesperson analogy I mentioned? If there aren’t enough local traders, how does the Home Office ever find out? And if they are cheaper, that very fact would encourage more business..?

You assume they are all builders/making nutritious jumbo rolls for a £4:99 meal deal.

No, I mentioned skilled workers but specifically excluded them from this exercise because the Brexiteer plan is to allow the highly skilled workers anyway.

However even that has its problems. Finding employees in many skilled instances is very specific – so you want that particular person. They may not be able to wait 6 months for the red tape – and neither may you. Resulting in an opportunity being missed. And if the visa is dependent on a job, that makes it less desirable for the potential immigrant because they know that if the job doesn’t work out they have to go home – instead of being able to look around for a better job or get something unskilled to tide them over.

I can see how not having free movement produces a lot of barriers and disadvantages to businesses, even if there is a ‘points’ system.

Did anyone ever see the documentary about the professor of astrophysics from one of those eastern bloc countries

He was picking potatoes in a field in Lincolnshire because there were no grants at home.

I wonder how long it will be before our university nitwits go cap in hand when the money runs out

I can see how not having free movement produces a lot of barriers and disadvantages to businesses, even if there is a ‘points’ system.

That depends how you do it.

It could be as simple as points/barriers to seek employment that were aimed at supporting the existing permitted EU restrictions. FReedom of labour is supposed to be conditional, for example:

The Treaty allows a Member State to refuse an EU national the right of entry or residence on the grounds of public policy, public security or public health. Such measures must be based on the personal conduct of the individual concerned, which must represent a sufficiently serious and present threat to the fundamental interests of the state.

Whereas:

for EU citizens who are not workers or self-employed, the right of residence depends on their having sufficient resources not to become a burden on the host Member State’s social assistance system, and having sickness insurance.

So, as an example – you could make a ‘points based system’ that took into account issues like long term health conditions, criminal record, etc. – I certainly don’t think it would be unreasonable for the UK to refuse rights of work/residence to anyone who had committed a serious crime, or along history of less serious ones.

The barrier to entry would not necessarily have to be high one in order for much of the population to feel like we were maintaining much better control of who was allowed to come and live and work here.

so being alarmist isn’t going to help anyone, is it?

Try telling that to somebody who’s worried about ever seeing their pension contributions, worried about the validity of an indefinite leave to remain stamp in her passport, worried about having to marry somebody who breaks wind a lot to stay in the country 😕 post brexit.
These are real concerns to a lot of EU nationals as nobody knows how the deal will work with Europe, but whatever happens we will not have our cake and be able to eat it.
There will also be an impact on English nationals working abroad plus retirees.
There will be small businesses that struggle due to losing valuable staff too.

I think the points system will be slow and restrictive which may not have much impact on headhunted talent but people who just fancy working abroad for a while (I know plenty who have done this) will probably struggle.

If we are saying Subway pay minimum wage, how can immigrant labour undercut indigenous labour?

These are real concerns to a lot of EU nationals as nobody knows how the deal will work with Europe,

Yep we have quite few Poles at work, all highly skilled, and our CEO is French, all now in ‘no mans lands’ for the foreseeable future….

if you stop free movement of labour, everyone gets a free helicopter, and we establish a space program with a regular passenger service to moonbase 1, get an intergalactic empire and become HYPER Britain.

This politics is easy. You just make stuff up.

Trouble is all I can see happening is we ship out the low paid workers then benefits are reduced to “enable” employers to find people. I can imagine certain industries and ministers are rubbing their hands in glee..

If you can engineer the situation so that you have more jobs than people then the salaries might go up but then industries with enough lobbying will push for visa increases to keep the labour cost down…

Yep we have quite few Poles at work, all highly skilled, and our CEO is French, all now in ‘no mans lands’ for the foreseeable future….

Not really, government has made it clear they are welcome to remain. The whole idea of a points system is high skilled people (manual or executive) get a visa. What it also probably means is no coming unemployed to look for work, no criminal record (serious crimes) etc it doesn’t mean no unskilled as if as a country we deckde we need that we grant more visas

MrSmith Indefinite Leave to Remain means exactly that, stay as long as you like. Many non-EU citizens have that status

@slow becasue perhaps previously the job paid better than that

Easy to say that the government has made it clear they can remain (the same people said we could spend the 350 million a week on the NHS), but when your business partner and better half of 25 years is still on a German passport it does make you twitchy.

I checked yesterday, I would only need to go back out and live in Germany for a further 2 years (assuming they will count years already spent there) to get a German Passport. Our plan was always to retire out there so I may need to take that option now, presumably before article 50 is invoked. Hmm, that isn’t going to happen though, it takes a bit of time to tie up a farm business.

MrSmith Indefinite Leave to Remain means exactly that, stay as long as you like. Many non-EU citizens have that status

No guarantee of state pension (NI paid for 35years estimated on retirement) though as that could well change if they decide the reciprocal agreement currently in place is not part of a deal.
We are still unclear about being able to have 2 passports and/or not relinquish her citizenship, there is a 200page PDF to read on that!

It’s easy for me as I can get an Irish passport if it will make it easy to travel but I will not have to relinquish my British nationality.

We could just do what Australia does and issue over 200,000 visa’s with no points requirements at all and a 99% approval rate and call the working holiday visa’s it how we get our low paid seasonal work done 😉

Member
You assume they are all builders/making nutritious jumbo rolls for a £4:99 meal deal.
My Polish other half has a BA, Masters and has paid a shit load of tax for 15 years on a decent wage (creative director/London type income) a quick scan round her office of a multi national Ad agency shows the typical world mix of employees a big portion of them from Europe.

You also have to factor in the returning British immigrants currently stealing EU jobs from hard working EU natives that will be reciprocately kicked out.

Agree but very disagree, yes your wife is maybe paye and paying high tax to her earrings in which is correct but British people abroad aren’t working on average 25%less of the yearly national wage say of Spanish people. where I have employed Spanish and British persons to work on my place and infact I find the British to charge even more than the Spanish of the same trade!
Very unlike to what is happening here.

government has made it clear they are welcome to remain

No, the government is ripping itself to shreds.

wannabe prime ministers are saying that, with no idea if it’s true or not.

If Subway could not get EU workers to work in its shops, would that give more employment to UK workers? It would not depress wages because I’m sure Subway sandwich makers are on minimum wage anyway..? Are low paid service sector jobs actually hard to find for UK youth currently?

My memory is that for many years these subway type jobs, bar work, hotel staff, low paid jobs (@Jamba before minimum wage these kinds of places paid even less so the state subsidised their wage bill) l, these jobs were always done by foreigners,rarely British. They used to be Out African, Australians, Nzerz, all sorts, not often British. There was a time when you would be hard pushed to find an English barman in a pub other than a local. So no one is taking jobs, these were jobs that Brits traditionally didn’t want

if it suddenly became harder to hire foreign footballers, then clubs would have to actually have to start growing and developing their own talent through the ranks.

It’s very hard to hire software engineers. Maybe if the government sorted out the education system we might start seeing some more come through in about twenty years time, but meantime I’m not sure what we’re going to do.

We have about 10% of our staff come from the EU. I’m not sure what this will do, possibly it will encourage a lot more offshoring (India, we’re already using people in Ukraine of all places).

“Points-based visa system” sounds like an excuse for a ton of red tape to descend from on high from Whitehall.

If you are worried about an foreigner taking your job you’re not doing it properly.

It would reverse all the previous proven benefits including providing a mobile work force across EU, increasing the supply and demand for labour, reducing unemployment, increasing output and growth, increasing taxes and government revenue, reducing inequality etc. Bloody foreigners eh?

jamba – … I propose no visas issued for jobs leading to in work benefits unless in exceptional circumstances (would also expect no freedom of movement to be macthed with a no benefits for say 5 years for non-Brits rule). We have to find a way to get our unemployed into work. This would be a good start.

Out of interest, if you imagine a typical “English Terrace” with the following families living in the houses, which would you entitle to benefits?

1. An indigenous British couple in their 30’s, with two school age kids he works offshore (and carefully manages his tax to his best advantage!) and she has not had a job since the kids were born 12 years ago. A change in the O&G industry means his contract is not renewed.

2. A Polish women is married to a British man, they have two pre-school kids. He is made redundant from his job.

3. A Polish man lives with a British woman for 2 years, and she is expecting his child and about to start maternity leave. He is made redundant from his job.

4. An unmarried Polish couple with a child born in the UK, he’s been earning whilst she looked after the child. They have an argument, he assaults her and leaves, going back to Poland.

5. A married Polish couple who both work for the same firm, and have done for 9 months since they came here from Poland expecting to settle and raise a family. They’ve just bought a house. The company suddenly makes them both redundant. They are skilled but might take 3+ months to find a job and have no savings (because it went on the house deposit).

6. A Polish builder who lives alone in the UK for almost 2 years, He crashes his mountain bike and breaks his leg. He will be off work of 12 weeks. He has no income. His parents are no longer alive.

7. An 18 year old Polish girl, who arrived here with her Polish parents 3 years ago. Her parents have decided to go back to Poland. She wants to stay. She is studying an HND at a local college. She has cerebal palsy which causes her some mobility issues.

8. A British couple who have 3 kids, neither have worked in the last 10 years. He’s been signed off sick with depression for most of that time.

9. A Polish woman (been here for 4 yrs) who lives with a Latvian man (been here for 18 months) . They have a 2 month old baby born in the UK. She is on maternity leave. He gets disqualified from driving in the UK for 6 months and so loses his driving job.

10. A British couple who have been living in Australia for the last 10 years, return to the UK after having a child to be closer to family. They left the UK after university and have never paid any UK tax. Soon after returning they have an argument and she moves out. He’s devastated and distracted at work, which gets him his P45…

Now replace the word Polish with Irish in all the above and answer again!

If you are worried about an foreigner anyone taking your job you’re not doing it properly.

Fixed.

If you are worried about an foreigner taking your job you’re not doing it properly.

Or, you could be self employed, doing an excellent job & enjoying a reasonable lifestyle. Then you find your’e being undercut on prices by workers from other countries, so you have to lower your rates which would probably affect your standard of living eventually.
Anyone been affected by that?
I was forced out of business by local supermarkets selling petrol cheaper than I could buy it, but It’s a similar situation which happens all the time.

I was forced out of business by local supermarkets selling petrol cheaper than I could buy it, but It’s a similar situation which happens all the time.

And, of course, we, the customers are responsible for this as we constantly demand lower prices. We also seem quite happy to accept lower quality too.
I thought about this movement and increased wealth as the local, non-native, crowd were washing and valeting my car. the thought was that Sunday morning was the day thay every driveway had the man of the house out there with a bucket and sponge. Now, as we’ve got wealthier, we have been able to spread the wealth by paying others to do it for us. It’s brilliant, innit?

I was forced out of business by local supermarkets selling petrol cheaper than I could buy it, but It’s a similar situation which happens all the time.

so, not the same at all then?

you do realise all the brexitiers are arch-neoliberals with a low wage, low cost, let the market decide ethos?

Businesses will still get the cheap labour they want and need. The red tape will be removed from pesky things like the workers rights and the minimum wage, and festooned symbolically around “Freedom of movement”.

I believe all will get a #goodimmigrant #badimmigrant label and we will decide from there…
One man’s undercutting is anothers overcharging.

you do realise all the brexitiers are arch-neoliberals with a low wage, low cost, let the market decide ethos

You have spoken to all 17.4 million of us, chapeau (although I don’t remember you asking)

Controlled points based immigration is NOT free market. It is the EU which is free-market-lowest-cost-what-the-hell

I believe all will get a #goodimmigrant #badimmigrant label and we will decide from there…

@mile could we have a photo of you wearing your badge in Australia ? Or are the “labels” more discrete ?

But Jam, how does that work with the tradesperson analogy I mentioned? If there aren’t enough local traders, how does the Home Office ever find out? And if they are cheaper, that very fact would encourage more business..?

@molgrips younwon’t be surprised to hear I have an opinion 😉 However, we could just ask the rest of the world what they do, the EU is the outlier, the exception.

I have a non skills based visa, but being white and having a anglo-saxon type name I blend in better 😉