Starmer talking about immigration policy

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Nearholmer
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Nearholmer »

to force them to hire the British not the best, really make sense to you?
If you can point me to the bit where he said that he would cut off the entry routes for highly skilled migrants, I will be (a) grateful, and (b) surprised, because I don’t think he did say that.

I agree with him that industry (and the public services) need to get their act together on education and training, and I think that needs to be under proper government guidance/partnership, not the “farm it out to ‘providers’ of questionable quality” model that has applied in recent years.

Wanting to see young people in this country given far better opportunities to obtain skills is hardly xenophobic - most of us have been moaning for some time now about the damage done by a seemingly inexorable drift to a low-skills economy.

This is a problem that long pre-dates Brexit, and actually it was in government hands (all three main parties at different times) to solve, but they didn’t, any more than they recognised and tackled the North-South (too simplistic a description) Divide, or the corrosive effects of huge income disparities.

IMO in narrowly choosing Brexit the country made a self-defeating choice, but one thing that choice has done is bring to the surface important issues that simply weren’t being given the attention they needed (and, despite a lot of verbiage about levelling up, still aren’t).
Stevek76
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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Don't need to point to any such saying as it's not required for that outcome. Limiting to 'highly skilled' (particularly in the slow, difficult to demonstrate and very bureaucratic way it is in the UK) does just that and results in the protectionist issues that mjr describes

It is also of course reciprocal, brexit and the associated removal of FoM is perhaps the single biggest removal of opportunities from the young in recent history, that would apply no matter how good the UK's internal provision & opportunities are.
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roubaixtuesday
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Stevek76 wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 1:38pm Don't need to point to any such saying as it's not required for that outcome. Limiting to 'highly skilled' (particularly in the slow, difficult to demonstrate and very bureaucratic way it is in the UK) does just that and results in the protectionist issues that mjr describes

It is also of course reciprocal, brexit and the associated removal of FoM is perhaps the single biggest removal of opportunities from the young in recent history, that would apply no matter how good the UK's internal provision & opportunities are.
and indeed the not so young who might, just for instance, have a lifelong ambition of a months long European tour rendered near impossible.
Nearholmer
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Nearholmer »

brexit and the associated removal of FoM is perhaps the single biggest removal of opportunities from the young in recent history,
Couldn’t agree more. That was one of the reasons I was “gutted” on the morning the result of the referendum was announced.

But, if you think anyone, Starmer included, is going to launch a bid to put us back in the EU in short order, I honestly think you are dreaming. Taking the lid off that nest of vipers right now would start the whole blasted schism again - IMO it would be far better to get our own house much more in order, let the implications of the decision to leave sink in a bit further, and learn to have constructive conversations with the EU, then think about putting it to the country again in a few years time.

I do worry though that the Labour Party is, yet again, getting left behind by its potential voters, too stuck in the uncomfortable (and impossible for many to comprehend) place it was in back in 2016.
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 2:57pm But, if you think anyone, Starmer included, is going to launch a bid to put us back in the EU in short order, I honestly think you are dreaming. Taking the lid off that nest of vipers right now would start the whole blasted schism again - IMO it would be far better to get our own house much more in order, let the implications of the decision to leave sink in a bit further, and learn to have constructive conversations with the EU, then think about putting it to the country again in a few years time.

I do worry though that the Labour Party is, yet again, getting left behind by its potential voters, too stuck in the uncomfortable (and impossible for many to comprehend) place it was in back in 2016.
I agree completely, but Starmer is not talking about constructive conversations with the EU, not for rejoin but not even for just seeking a better deal for Britain than Boris's oven-ready albatross. He's still pandering to the remaining 20% of vipers who don't yet agree that the Leave lie of prosperity with protectionism will never happen. That elephant in the room is completely missing from his speech. His only mention of Brexit was literally "this isn't about Brexit" which, while pedantically accurate in the context, should have raised a hollow laugh from business leaders saddled with the costs of all the extra red tape to import materials and export goods, or simply to take exhibitions or even sales demonstration samples abroad.

Like you, I worry that Starmer is still fighting the last war, building a Maginot line to defend a 2016 red wall he's no longer got, instead of going on the offensive, making a positive internationalist case and winning it back.
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Nearholmer
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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Same old same old, in the sense that when you scratch below the surface both main parties are split over Brexit/EU.

I’m never sure whether Labour is split intellectually in the way that the Conservatives clearly are. Among Tories there is a hard core of people genuinely (if misguidedly IMO) convinced by some sort of ultra-libertarian or post-national-democracies view of the world, plus a wider group who fetishise national sovereignty. Is there an equivalent, possibly “socialism in one country”, strand of thinking within Labour? Or, is there no intellectual support for a separatist position within Labour, merely a want to do what their potential electors in some places think is a good idea, populism in short? Or is it that Starmer regards the possibility of reopening the debate, and the viper’s nest, as a distraction from more important things?
Stevek76
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 2:57pm But, if you think anyone, Starmer included, is going to launch a bid to put us back in the EU in short order, I honestly think you are dreaming. Taking the lid off that nest of vipers right now would start the whole blasted schism again - IMO it would be far better to get our own house much more in order, let the implications of the decision to leave sink in a bit further, and learn to have constructive conversations with the EU, then think about putting it to the country again in a few years time.

I do worry though that the Labour Party is, yet again, getting left behind by its potential voters, too stuck in the uncomfortable (and impossible for many to comprehend) place it was in back in 2016.
I don't think anyone will. They probably should though, also referendums are useless and unnecessary so I wouldn't bother putting anything to the country about it (same for PR), I expect representatives in a representative democracy to do some actual leading, not chuck awkward questions at a poorly informed public in an inevitably divisive referendum because they can't agree on it internally.

That said, when it comes to conversations with the EU improving the relationship and trade deal with do have, relaxed migration controls are inevitably going to be a consideration. Anything close to even a swiss deal is going to mean FoM, to think otherwise is just yet more double cakism.
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Nearholmer
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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so I wouldn't bother putting anything to the country
It would 100% have to go to the country. It’s been there twice already, and the ruckus that would flow if we rejoined without a further referendum doesn’t bear thinking about.
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

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While rejoining the EU would probably have to go to the country, trade deals never have.
Stevek76 wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 5:37pm That said, when it comes to conversations with the EU improving the relationship and trade deal with do have, relaxed migration controls are inevitably going to be a consideration. Anything close to even a swiss deal is going to mean FoM, to think otherwise is just yet more double cakism.
Trade deals meaning less control of migration applies to all deals, not only with the EU:
· Foreign Secretary Liz Truss's deal with Australia, the only post-Brexit deal so far, reduced controls. Unsurprisingly, that will have "limited economic effect" according to the official assessment.
· Prime Minister Truss's attempt to do a deal with India was derailed by Braverman over migration controls. It's not yet known whether Sunak will resurrect it.
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Nearholmer
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Nearholmer »

Yes, the India one is interesting. If I understand it correctly, what India wants is a right for their nationals to base themselves in the UK, where many have family, while employed by Indian firms and working remotely. It’s a kind of weird inverted variant of UK firms basing their call centres in India.
Stevek76
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Stevek76 »

Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 5:53pm It would 100% have to go to the country. It’s been there twice already, and the ruckus that would flow if we rejoined without a further referendum doesn’t bear thinking about.
Like the rukus of the march for brexit? Rather like opponents to active travel measures, those truly wedded to not being in the EU seem to be rather better at making themselves look far more numerous on social media than they are turning out in reality.
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pwa
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by pwa »

Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 4:11pm Same old same old, in the sense that when you scratch below the surface both main parties are split over Brexit/EU.

I’m never sure whether Labour is split intellectually in the way that the Conservatives clearly are. Among Tories there is a hard core of people genuinely (if misguidedly IMO) convinced by some sort of ultra-libertarian or post-national-democracies view of the world, plus a wider group who fetishise national sovereignty. Is there an equivalent, possibly “socialism in one country”, strand of thinking within Labour? Or, is there no intellectual support for a separatist position within Labour, merely a want to do what their potential electors in some places think is a good idea, populism in short? Or is it that Starmer regards the possibility of reopening the debate, and the viper’s nest, as a distraction from more important things?
Regardless of how Starmer and the other top Labour people feel about Brexit, they know that resurrecting it as an active topic would be the best way of missing the open goal that the next election should be. It would give the Tories a lifeline that they are unlikely to have otherwise. So Labour will limit themselves to tinkering around the edges of the UK being outside the EU. That is the political reality of the situation. They are doing really well in the polls right now, but they need to win an awful lot of seats after the utter disaster of the last General Election, and failing to get back Red Wall seats, or to make inroads into seats that have been Tory for ten years or more, will stop them winning power. They are not going to seriously question Brexit between now and then because they cannot afford to. That is true whether you are happy to be outside the EU or you wish we were back inside.
Ben@Forest
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Ben@Forest »

Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 4:11pmIs there an equivalent, possibly “socialism in one country”, strand of thinking within Labour? Or, is there no intellectual support for a separatist position within Labour, merely a want to do what their potential electors in some places think is a good idea, populism in short? Or is it that Starmer regards the possibility of reopening the debate, and the viper’s nest, as a distraction from more important things?
Corbyn was/is of course no supporter of the EU. He and those generally on the further left, seeing it as a neoliberal structure. All the way back when Syriza won an election in Greece the EU did not accept any radical or even moderate change and the settlement imposed upon Greece was brutal (for a long time afterwards youth unemployment in Greece ran at 25% or more).
Carlton green
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by Carlton green »

Stevek76 wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 5:37pm
Nearholmer wrote: 25 Nov 2022, 2:57pm But, if you think anyone, Starmer included, is going to launch a bid to put us back in the EU in short order, I honestly think you are dreaming. Taking the lid off that nest of vipers right now would start the whole blasted schism again - IMO it would be far better to get our own house much more in order, let the implications of the decision to leave sink in a bit further, and learn to have constructive conversations with the EU, then think about putting it to the country again in a few years time.

I do worry though that the Labour Party is, yet again, getting left behind by its potential voters, too stuck in the uncomfortable (and impossible for many to comprehend) place it was in back in 2016.
I don't think anyone will. They probably should though, also referendums are useless and unnecessary so I wouldn't bother putting anything to the country about it (same for PR), I expect representatives in a representative democracy to do some actual leading, not chuck awkward questions at a poorly informed public in an inevitably divisive referendum because they can't agree on it internally.

That said, when it comes to conversations with the EU improving the relationship and trade deal with do have, relaxed migration controls are inevitably going to be a consideration. Anything close to even a swiss deal is going to mean FoM, to think otherwise is just yet more double cakism.
I expect representatives in a representative democracy to do some actual leading
The history over recent decades is that our political classes aren’t up to the job, our governance is appalling and long term planning isn’t there - hence the mess that we’re in. Our expectations of representatives are somewhat short of being met … and many seem to be intent on abusing what power they have.

I would agree that Cameron should never have put the option to leave the EU to the people; IMHO it was pretty much an irresponsible party political manoeuvre and he had far too little idea of how separation (from the EU) would be successfully managed. That there was public dissatisfaction and a significant desire to leave is clear, but the reality is that our full route out of the EU simply didn’t exist and hence our exit has been far too problematic.

Article 20 might have been a good idea but only in theory, in practise the article needed to both allow and properly manage separation.

As regards Starmer the comments of PWA above pretty much hit the nail on the head - well said.
Regardless of how Starmer and the other top Labour people feel about Brexit, they know that resurrecting it as an active topic would be the best way of missing the open goal that the next election should be. It would give the Tories a lifeline that they are unlikely to have otherwise. So Labour will limit themselves to tinkering around the edges of the UK being outside the EU. That is the political reality of the situation.
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Re: Starmer talking about immigration policy

Post by mjr »

Carlton green wrote: 28 Nov 2022, 8:01am As regards Starmer the comments of PWA above pretty much hit the nail on the head - well said.
Regardless of how Starmer and the other top Labour people feel about Brexit, they know that resurrecting it as an active topic would be the best way of missing the open goal that the next election should be. It would give the Tories a lifeline that they are unlikely to have otherwise. So Labour will limit themselves to tinkering around the edges of the UK being outside the EU. That is the political reality of the situation.
I think few expect it reopened next election. Many hope there will be tinkering. So why is Starmer going on about how wonderful the current broken situation is? That is the second best way of demotivating more than half of Labour voters and losing the next election, assuming the Tories have finished imploding.
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