Straw poll: Do you want to retain FOM?

Graham_Devon

mwpt wrote: »

this is the first time I've added a poll so wasn't sure I was meant to end it. The results are viewable to all surely, or am I just ignorant on how these polls work?

The impression these forums gave me was that there were no leave voters around who wanted free movement. I was curious if it was just that there were some quieter people who didn't voice their opinions, and I wanted to challenge my own impressions.

So what I've learned is that roughly double the number of people LEAVE VOTERS just don't want free movement regardless of anything else.

But it is interesting to see that there are still a fair number of people who would prefer to keep free movement under the conditions I mentioned in the first post. This wasn't what I expected, so I'm happy to have learned this.

I'd suggest it's of no surprise that leave voters, by and large, want to see an end to free movement.

It's one of the biggest, visible, everyday aspects we see from being inside the EU. It's the thing that effects the everyday joe bloggs the most on a dayt to day basis. "Article 567, amendment 4.56" really doesn't impact people in the same way, or the mass of people.

It's akin to being surprised that people voted for Clinton in order to try and avoid Trump gaining presidency. I.e. not at all surprising.

antrobus

Carl31 wrote: »

.... Who is going to drive the economy of the country left behind? How is that country going to meet the demands of EU membership? Throw in the lack of harmonization with taxation and other economic factors and it just doesn't add up, which is why we are now starting to see problems in the weaker nations, ...

Looking at Eurostat tables for real GDP growth, would suggest that the likes of Poland and Bulgaria showed 3% GDP growth in 2015, above the EU 28 average of 2%. Presumably they do not count as "weaker nations".

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00115&plugin=1

Carl31 wrote: »

....their financial systems are not suitable for EU membership and when they fail, ...

The problems with "financial systems" in the EU have largely emerged in the likes of Greece and Italy. Those are the countries with the bust banks.

Carl31 wrote: »

...FOM will only serve to make their problems worse, hardly something a 'union' should allow

How does FOM make a nations's financial systems less suitable for EU membership?

coffeehound

antrobus wrote: »

Looking at Eurostat tables for real GDP growth, would suggest that the likes of Poland and Bulgaria showed 3% GDP growth in 2015, above the EU 28 average of 2%. Presumably they do not count as "weaker nations".

We paid towards that as well. E.g. "Since the CEE countries became EU Member States, EU co-financing has become an essential factor for their development. The EU Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund (SFC) accounting for 11% to 23% of these countries' GDP..."

HornetSaver

I'll respect the premise of the question and not vote - it is an interesting question to exclusively ask leave voters. But surely freedom of movement and freedom to live/work are two distinct things, which due to poor choice of language are now synonymous?

The one thing that is in least doubt about the outcome of the referendum is that a clear majority of the British people want Westminster to have the absolute say on precisely who is and is not allowed to live and/or work in this country. I'm not saying that's the only thing anyone has against the EU. Far from it. But it's undoubtedly the biggest single issue and the one on which the highest number of voters have a clearly informed and defined opinion on. The trend towards "Hard Brexit" is now associated with the belief that there will be no deal with the EU under which this will be achieved, therefore we must be prepared for a period after April 2019 in which we are out of the European Union without a formal deal.

(there's also a growing number of the most vocal who are rallying around the assertion that 100% of leave voters voted for Hard Brexit - that there was no suggestion from anyone on the leave side that we could have our cake and eat it - stop FOM and leave all EU political structures, but be completely involved in the parts of the single market and cross-border co-operation which have structures linked to the EU and serve our national interest. That's beyond the scope of this debate, and in any event I prefer to deal with people who are not dishonest).

There was a debate a while back about the EU and UK agreeing some sort of passport which UK citizens could apply for post-Brexit, much of it theoretical, much of the debate hyperbolic, but it was one of the very rare occasions thus far where people have significantly diverged from referendum voting lines (some leavers making the point that we're a Moneysaving site, and that they would pay for something with an EU logo on it if that saved them money on travel, some remainers asking why they should pay for something the EU believes should be universal).

In principle I think even a large majority of leave voters would support a two-way agreement between the UK and EU along the lines of the US Visa Waiver Programme (up to 90 days a year, no employment allowed) if there was a mechanism for recovering costs related to enforcement against people who broke the rules which the British public had confidence in. There would also need to be a mechanism for excluding an EU country from the visa waiver programme if too many of its citizens broke the rules. In practise it's unlikely to happen because that last point would never be accepted by the EU, and we would be negligent in agreeing to any deal which did not contain that safeguard.

antrobus

coffeehound wrote: »

We paid towards that as well. E.g. "Since the CEE countries became EU Member States, EU co-financing has become an essential factor for their development. The EU Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund (SFC) accounting for 11% to 23% of these countries' GDP..."

And? What does that matter? It's not as if that wasn't what we signed up to in 2004 and 2007. What do you think is the purpose of the EU?

The claim is that the Central and Eastern European Countries have somehow 'suffered' from FOM, and by implication we'd be doing them a favour by not letting their citizens come here to work. I'd like to see some actual economics behind that argument.


P.S. If you are going to quote something, you should really cite the source. Otherwise how does anyone know you haven't just made it up. As it happens, I think it's from KPMG report;
https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2016/06/EU-Funds-in-Central-and-Eastern-Europe.pdf

mwpt

Doshwaster wrote: »

So should people with talent, qualifications and ambition in Romania settle for a life of living there? Why shouldn't they move to Germany?

You can't help where you are born. If there are few career opportunities in your area then I don't sea why you should be disadvantaged against those who were lucky enough to grow up in a prosperous area. I'm from an ex-mining village in the North East. I like many others before (and since) moved away to seek our futures elsewhere.

The argument against FOM breaks down at this point imo. I asked a number of times where the right level was to impose rules against moving to a new location (town, county, country, union of countries, trade block, continent, planet) but didn't get a clear answer.

It seems to be a rather fuzzy concept. If the dice were rolled and you were born in a union of countries such as the UK, you're happy that you can go and work in Manchester, Leeds, Dublin, Cardiff, London, Edinburgh if the area you were born in was a bit poorer. But some people are against changing the imaginary lines in the sand allowing "outsiders" to come to work in the same locations.

IMO, the lines in the sand will continue to change, as they always have done.

Carl31

antrobus wrote: »

Looking at Eurostat tables for real GDP growth, would suggest that the likes of Poland and Bulgaria showed 3% GDP growth in 2015, above the EU 28 average of 2%. Presumably they do not count as "weaker nations".

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00115&plugin=1



The problems with "financial systems" in the EU have largely emerged in the likes of Greece and Italy. Those are the countries with the bust banks.



How does FOM make a nations's financial systems less suitable for EU membership?

What is their total GDP to begin with though? Its well known these areas are some of the poorest in the EU. If you only had a pound to your name, finding 10p on the floor, increasing your wealth by 10%, does not make you rich, % is only releative to your start point. And how is that growth achieved? through their own economy? or through EU funding?

Its a bit old, but there is a table here http://https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/22/eu-budget-spending-contributions-european-union

The table shows EU funding as a % of GDP, Bulgaria is listed at 2.95%, and Poland 4%, which is very similar to the numbers you quoted - so if EU funding equates to their growth, what is coming from their economy? not much by the looks of it

CLAPTON

mwpt wrote: »

The argument against FOM breaks down at this point imo. I asked a number of times where the right level was to impose rules against moving to a new location (town, county, country, union of countries, trade block, continent, planet) but didn't get a clear answer.

It seems to be a rather fuzzy concept. If the dice were rolled and you were born in a union of countries such as the UK, you're happy that you can go and work in Manchester, Leeds, Dublin, Cardiff, London, Edinburgh if the area you were born in was a bit poorer. But some people are against changing the imaginary lines in the sand allowing "outsiders" to come to work in the same locations.

IMO, the lines in the sand will continue to change, as they always have done.

its a very logical way to look at it, but the only logical conclusion is that you should support unlimitied and uncontrolled movement of people to and from all countries.
Apart from the inevitable wars and 100's of millions killed, it would not improve the welfare of the people of the UK : however that is not your objective.

kabayiri

mwpt wrote: »

The argument against FOM breaks down at this point imo. I asked a number of times where the right level was to impose rules against moving to a new location (town, county, country, union of countries, trade block, continent, planet) but didn't get a clear answer.
...

I gave you some very clear examples as to why FOM is basically a "crock". Okay, call it half baked if you wish.

There are very practical reasons why a family in numerous regional towns can not up sticks and move to Cambridge or Oxford or London for work. Logistics and money will always come in to it.

Here's a simple question. Why is the EU pumping hundreds of billions of Euros into a place like Poland when all the aspirational Polish people are moving to places like Germany and UK for work?

These are conflicting patterns.

Could it be that they see the UK as a stopgap measure, until Poland has caught up, by which time they would all move back to a prosperous Poland?

Doshwaster

kabayiri wrote: »

I gave you some very clear examples as to why FOM is basically a "crock". Okay, call it half baked if you wish.

There are very practical reasons why a family in numerous regional towns can not up sticks and move to Cambridge or Oxford or London for work. Logistics and money will always come in to it.

Yes, there are challenges - especially if you have a family in tow - but many people still do move to Oxford, Cambridge and London to work every year. AstraZeneca are in the process of moving a few thousands people from Cheshire to Cambridge for their new global R&D site.

However, an unemployed couple with 3 kids in Gateshead aren't going to move to Guildford to work in a Starbucks. With local unemployment in the SE so low (under 1% in many areas), the only place employers can find people is from abroad.

kabayiri wrote: »

Here's a simple question. Why is the EU pumping hundreds of billions of Euros into a place like Poland when all the aspirational Polish people are moving to places like Germany and UK for work?

These are conflicting patterns.

Could it be that they see the UK as a stopgap measure, until Poland has caught up, by which time they would all move back to a prosperous Poland?

Yes, from the Polish people (and other EU nationalities) I meet and work with most seem to be only interested in working in the UK for a few years to get experience they couldn't gain at home, build up some savings and to improve their English to full professional proficiency before returning home where they can get a good job, buy a house and start a family.