They still don’t get it… September 28, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
According to modelling by the charities, a scenario which closed off all migration would leave Britain with a social care workforce shortfall of more than a million by 2037. In a low-migration scenario this would still mean a 750,000 shortfall. Even under a high-migration scenario, the care sector would still face a workforce shortage of 350,000 because of the likely dramatic increase in the population needing care, the charities said.
London and the south-east would be worst hit by a post-Brexit shortage of care workers, with one in nine of the capital’s care workers at risk of losing their right to work in the UK.
But the response from the UK government?
A government spokesperson said: “The prime minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here, and the only circumstances in which that wouldn’t be possible is if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return.”
But that’s not the answer to the questions raised by the report. It’s not about who is in the UK today, but who will be in the UK in 2020, or 2025 or indeed 2037. And moreover:
Staff turnover and vacancy rates have risen sharply in the last decade, triggering fears that the safety and quality of social care would be affected. Ben Franklin, ILC-UK’s head of economics of ageing, said that as Britain’s population grew older, thousands more care workers were needed. “A continual failure to support and enhance the care workforce could result in thousands of frail and older people losing out on the proper care and support that they need.”
This is basic basic stuff about the care of a growing ageing population (I’m part of that in this state. Perhaps you are too. You may well be by 2037). Yet on something so basic, so obviously problematic there’s no real response.
How will those needs be met? Hard to tell when one reads the following:
The UK has become increasingly dependent on a European migrant workforce to provide services for its ageing population since 2012, when the coalition government changed immigration rules, making it more difficult for non-EEA people to enter the UK to work in social care.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Probably affect NHS staff recruitment as well.
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Why do you think they don’t get it?
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Largely because negotiations haven’t begun, and the Brexiteers can still live off fictions they have assiduously built for decades.
If and when Article 50 is triggered, then realities (including the relative negotiating strength of Little Britain) will swiftly dawn.
If I were May I would try to negotiate a meta-deal with something like:
1. we trigger Article 50
2. see what we get at the negotiating table
3. and then put that in a referendum to the people.
If the voters don’t like the deal we’ll rescind Article 50.
I suspect a number of European governments might go for that. I’ve no idea what the legal ramifications might be.
But getting such a meta-deal would be a hard sell and rescinding might come at a price.
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I’ve been pondering if that approach is feasible for the past few weeks.
Have the UK committed to a referendum on the deal? I thought I’d heard that but can’t find anything that commits them to it. Granted the thinking was more about triggering Article 50 followed by a rejection of the deal in a referendum followed by the UK leaving the EU w/o a deal.
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I do not think you can rescind your article 50 notification if you do not get the deal you like. The article in question provides that you either i) conclude a withdrawal agreement and leave or ii) two years from your notification the EU treaties cease to apply to you.
Given that there is a specific alternative to a negotiated exit, I think that the UK’s ability to rescind a notification could be challenged in CJEU.
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That would be my reading too.
If we are at the CJEU then the parliament has already accepted a withdrawal of the Article 50 trigger. In that case would the CJEU be able to resist the political pressure to go along? Especially as in the end, it really is better to keep the UK within the EU.
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“Germany and France brushed aside comments from British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson suggesting there was no link between the EU’s principle of free movement and access to its single market, saying they could send Johnson a copy of the Lisbon Treaty and even travel to London to explain it to him in English.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-britain-germany-france-idUSKCN11T1WY
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‘Germany and France’ – all of them 🙂
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they are pretending not to get it for the moment
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“According to modelling by the charities, a scenario which closed off all migration would …”
Sure. But surely the UK govt isn’t aiming to close off all migration? Maybe some Leave spoofers or racists might have said that during the referendum campaign. But I don’t think the UK govt is saying that they intend doing that. What they are saying is they intend to make their own rules about who they allow to immigrate rather than apply the EU’s rules. The details will be worked out in the negotiations.
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Brexit will be a great success because they will re-commission the Royal Yacht Britannia. One sight of the yacht and every country will give the UK the trade deals it wants.
Didn’t yous all know that?
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I can see the RYB sailing into Cobh in the near future in my mind’s eye. And the people of Cork smiling toothy smiles and waving dead fish at it in welcome. And the People’s Republic of Rebel Cork giving the UK a great trade deal for all the milk and yellow butter it could ever ask for. Up the Rebels.
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‘Dead fish’
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‘Fog in channel, Europe isolated’
When the Queen said goodbye to the royal yacht Britannia in 1997, she shed a tear….
Brexit, and the need to negotiate new trade deals, is calling the royal yacht back to service…
a royal yacht could serve as an embassy for trade talks and a floating promotion for British technology…
This is another example of the possibilities opened by Brexit. While the European leaders thrash about from crisis to crisis – bound by no clear sense of identity and increasingly aware that their voters are troubled by a loss of sovereignty – Britain has the chance to strengthen its global position….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/09/17/the-royal-yacht-should-sail-again/
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A government spokesperson said: “The prime minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here, and the only circumstances in which that wouldn’t be possible is if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return.”
This is such horseshit, not because it’s untrue as such but because it completely ignores who is responsible for the rights of EU nationals being put in question in the first place. Ireland, Spain and Slovenia did not hold referendums which endangers the rights of UK citizens: the Uk held a referendum that endangered other people´s. Manifestly it is incumbent on the UK government to make the first moves on this matter.
But the longer it is left, the more likely it is that tit-for-tat bargaining will begin.
RosencrantzisDead writes above:
I do not think you can rescind your article 50 notification if you do not get the deal you like. The article in question provides that you either i) conclude a withdrawal agreement and leave or ii) two years from your notification the EU treaties cease to apply to you.
I think this is right, and it’s a real problem fo the “second referendum” advocates, which otherwise would be a position I’d very much like leftists generally and the UK Labour Party specifically to adopt, i.e. that the terms of the UK’s withdrawal should be put to the electorate for their approval. I’d still like to see if something of the kind can be achieved, but the facts appear to be that negotiations can’t start until Article 50 is triggered, but once it’s triggered you’re out. (I guess it would be possible to petition all other 27 member states to rescind the UK’s resignation, but at a minimum, that’s what it would take.)
The whole thing is the most ludicrous of farces.
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