Yeah. The solution is coupling managed immigration with resource planning. Not possible with freedom of movement tho, is it.


The best you can do with free movement is reactive planning... which would still be better than what we have now. It's a thorny thing to do though, especially if the locals see immigrants rock up and get housed straight away (I'm massively simplifying, but you see what I mean... you need a very sensitive hand to manage stuff so that there's not a perception that immigrants get preferential treatment, right?)

This is just more anti-immigration nonsense from you.

If you accept that with a birth rate of less than 2 a growing economy needs immigration you should also be able to understand that it's not immigration per se that's caused problems in some areas of the UK but other factors, usually economic but also related to how well the indigenous population reacts to change.

Compare Leicester and Halifax: both towns/cities with a large population of people with Indian heritage, and in Leicester's case little to note of in way of racial tension and segregation, while Halifax has had terrible problems with racial divides and conflict.

Good. Let's see more of this reasonable bitter than the 'everything is the EU's fault' Faragesque bitter.

I hate quoting myself but I should have added the reason for this which is, according to an old friend of mine born and bred in Yorkshire, educated in Leicester...

I live near Leicester, and have lived in or around it since 1990. I really like it the way it is. I think it's a happy place cos everyone's busy and working tbh.

Before that, I was raised and lived in South London (and a bit in East London), so was used to a large Indian population anyway, but it was a shock that there was so few West Indians around when I moved...

And yeah, Yorkshire people are ****s

Of course it's possible with free movement. The mess isn't down to movement creating a problem, the mess is down to people living in and moving to areas which are already unable to cope because they have been neglected.

The catastrophic housing situation in this country is not a problem caused by immigration, it is a problem which the economic benefits of immigration helps solve - plus we need them to help do the work.

There's no thorny issue at all. Just a huge political failure by the tories and new labour

And we already have a bus-worthy made up number. That tax take is not incremental revenue.

First we should deduct that populations' marginal cost of consuming public services, and then account for externalities of displacing other workers and the increased competition reducing wages, and then account for any costs of EU nationals with no tax take.

Free movement, the social chapter, human rights, employment rights, common defence (against terrorism and the Kremlin and US vulture-capitalists and China), the European Arrest Warrant, environmental regs, trading standards, food hygiene standards, consumer protection, countless EU funding projects for local interests...

shame your fellow remainers seem too shy to argue a positive case for barely any of the above (and a shame that some of them seem to be unable to comprehend some things like human rights aren't 'lost' if we don't accept EU command and control of them...)

What have the Romans ever done for us?

more money
better public services
bigger voice in world affairs

cliffs
more like london, less like bolton (no offense bolton)

EU is good because it made the Brits rich and made it unnecessary for UK to even think about the possibility of fighting another war in Europe in our life times. This is in addition to all the visible benefits people have talked about earlier in the thread.

Is this really so hard? The problem is EU has been so successful people has been taking its benefits for granted.

And because you already have all the benefits, anything sounds like project fear.

It is a shame but the shame has been building for decades and it cant be turned easily. Young people better get the idea of being European with all the benefits of free movement, being treated equally and the general feeling of mixing together as one group - that's one of the principle reasons young people tend to be more pro-EU. The other benefits of being stronger together (in a good way) are a hard sell but those of us who believe it, have to argue it. The economic case is the one that is focused on and it's far better to be explaining the economic benefits of being in the EU (and how we need to distribute wealth far better) rather than the catastrophe that will befall is if we leave.

Also you're right that the argument that leaving the EU means choosing to be a horrible country is an awful one. Not only is it totally untrue but it plays into the narrative that the EU is imposing laws on us. It's basically saying the EU is stopping us from having what we really want.

lol wut

The EU needs to (and I think will) go down the parliamentary democracy route. Any popular type vote president should have very limited powers. The PM type role should have the confidence of the parliament. I'd also like to see the CofE performing some upper chamber role.

Nothing like the USA system which is obviously completely ****ed up.

Mine is:
The EU needs to return almost all powers to national parliamentary democracies and be there for things that needs supranational oversight and coordination - environment, security, transport infrastructure.

Anything else will eventually mean EU will eventually destroy itself and create even more misery than it does now. Look at France. Internal discontent in Italy will be the next big thing. Then where else?

And cos it probably won't return a single thing, leaving is only rational option, and setting up trade with other parts of the world ASAP is only way we can mitigate the damage that being associated with it will cause.

European Court of Justice rules UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 and halt Brexit

https://news.sky.com/story/european-...rexit-11576865

Just to be clear, that post is under the assumption that the eU does become some sort of superstate. I dont think it should or would go down the usa route

By "France" you mean the country where riots are currently happening because of a policy instituted by the government of France independent of the EU, right?

And furthermore, the policy people are rioting over is one specifically about the environment, one of the areas you think the EU should have power over, yeah?

That's evidence of the failure of the EU?

Been a couple years since I read much of your posting ITT, shame you haven't gotten any smarter in the meantime

And, contrary to what silly old Gove tried to pretend, the court specifies that we keep our existing terms of membership. (The pound, the rebate, the Schengen opt-out and so on.)

The UK unilaterally revoking A50 in the last minute to avoid a no-deal Brexit has to be close to the worst case outcome for the EU, this seems incredibly toxic for the European project.

When UK remainers hope to cancel Brexit at this point, what constructive path forward do you see for the UK inside the EU, after it just spent two years burning down its inner-EU alliances? Contrary to what diebitter always claims, the UK used to enjoy a very significant sway in EU decision making, and it's hard to imagine how an UK with diminished influence would suddenly manage to become more pro-EU going forward.

It seems there could be a path that involves continually giving notice and then revoking it and resubmitting, creating some kind of rolling tenancy contract with a more effective negotiating lever.

Yeah seems to make a mockery of the actual Article 50, which states

Looks like no agreement with Member states needed for an extension, we can just revoke and re notify, thus extending the deadline as the ruling today stated if we revoked.