Brexit matters

[alex397]

Overheard someone in a cafe ranting on about how they are having to sell their villa in Spain and move back to the UK permanently.

Did he blame Brexit? Oh no, of course he blamed the EU ‘getting revenge’ (rather than Spain and their sovereignty). People just never cease to amaze me.

 

[RT4038]

I suppose but of course they didn't take a step to cause any of the issues that UK citizens resident aboard have faced. That was solely down to the decision by our electorate to vote to leave the EU and then to elect governments whose platform was for an extremely hard Brexit. Hence my question to those who voted in favour of a course of action and politicians who have led us to a situation where we have news articles such as those listed above.

Whilst this issue (foreign children brought into the country and subsequently having no proof of right of abode) has been exacerbated by Brexit, it is hardly anything new and is more down to our laissez-faire system of not having a proper Identity Document system. I don't think that this unresolved issue can be exclusively laid at the door of anyone who voted for Brexit. Any change of status in the relations between countries will cause anguish to some - we are well used to it from the time of dismantling our Empire. Sad, but inevitable.

 

[edwin_m]

Whilst this issue (foreign children brought into the country and subsequently having no proof of right of abode) has been exacerbated by Brexit, it is hardly anything new and is more down to our laissez-faire system of not having a proper Identity Document system. I don't think that this unresolved issue can be exclusively laid at the door of anyone who voted for Brexit. Any change of status in the relations between countries will cause anguish to some - we are well used to it from the time of dismantling our Empire. Sad, but inevitable.

But along with many other things, I don't recall this being mentioned by either side in the Brexit campaign.

 

[GusB]

From the Guardian article linked to above:

The government has come under fire after introducing a 69p-a-minute charge for a helpline for EU citizens who are trying to prove to landlords or employers their right to remain in the country after Brexit.

Callers to the “view and prove” immigration status telephone number, 0300-790 6268, must also preauthorise a potential £5 credit on a bank card before talking to an assistant.

Something doesn't sound quite right about this - aren't 0300 numbers supposed to be treated no differently in terms of charges to 01 and 02 numbers, ie the calls would only be chargeable if the caller didn't have inclusive minutes as part of their phone tariff?

Overheard someone in a cafe ranting on about how they are having to sell their villa in Spain and move back to the UK permanently.

Did he blame Brexit? Oh no, of course he blamed the EU ‘getting revenge’ (rather than Spain and their sovereignty). People just never cease to amaze me.

Of course it's not the fault of Brexit - don't be silly! It's always going to be the EU, the "monster under the bed", that's responsible for all this country's ills. You can't possibly expect those who voted for it to take responsibility.

 

[jon0844]

EE charges 50p a minute to call an 0300 number if you go outside your minutes. Now, while I'm sure a lot of people have plans with unlimited calls and texts, I guess not everyone does - and I can't imagine what some networks might charge prepay users.

Perhaps the Guardian could have clarified things better.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Overheard someone in a cafe ranting on about how they are having to sell their villa in Spain and move back to the UK permanently.

Did he blame Brexit? Oh no, of course he blamed the EU ‘getting revenge’ (rather than Spain and their sovereignty). People just never cease to amaze me.

The Guardian reports on completion of a monumental apartment block in Benidorm, 187 m high. Apartments have been sold to Russians and Germans, but apparently not to British people.

 

[RT4038]

But along with many other things, I don't recall this being mentioned by either side in the Brexit campaign.

Why would it? This is not really an issue of Brexit, as this problem has been surfacing for quite some time. I rather suspect that the employer was somewhat negligent in not having checked that their employee had legal status to work here long before Brexit had even been voted on.

 

[AlterEgo]

Why would it? This is not really an issue of Brexit, as this problem has been surfacing for quite some time. I rather suspect that the employer was somewhat negligent in not having checked that their employee had legal status to work here long before Brexit had even been voted on.

The scandal is that the Home Office has a 500K backlog of applications, and that the employer has never undertaken a right to work check before, not the policy. The employee is legally in the country and legally working but, for reasons known only to themselves, left it until literally the very last day to try to regularise their status as a Spanish person residing in the UK. I'm afraid I really can't get too exercised about that; I have a dozen or so friends who have had to apply for Settled Status and none of them see it as some sort of terrific hardship or inconvenience or ruse to get them to leave.

It shouldn't be taking months to clear applications; that's very bad indeed. But ensuring that foreigners who have come to the country have regularised their status is not a scandal. In the future, the authorities will know exactly who is coming and where they plan to work, which is profoundly sensible given the widespread modern slavery problems in some parts of the country. The car wash opposite my parents' house has been shut down twice because they were keeping Romanians prisoner in caravans, the second time I actually stumbled on a few living in a tent in the trees on the grass verge next to it.

 

[najaB]

I rather suspect that the employer was somewhat negligent in not having checked that their employee had legal status to work here long before Brexit had even been voted on.

But they did have the legal right to work here before Brexit. They still do now.

 

[JamesT]

But they did have the legal right to work here before Brexit. They still do now.

But they don’t have the documentation to show it. Since 2008 employers have been obliged to check their employees have the right to work in the UK or face a fine.
Unless the woman in this case was employed continuously from before that point, she should have been checked when starting. At which point her lack of documentation would have been exposed and something could have been done (for example she could have applied for a Spanish passport).

 

[najaB]

Unless the woman in this case was employed continuously from before that point, she should have been checked when starting.

Given her age, that is entirely possible.

 

[AlterEgo]

But they don’t have the documentation to show it. Since 2008 employers have been obliged to check their employees have the right to work in the UK or face a fine.
Unless the woman in this case was employed continuously from before that point, she should have been checked when starting. At which point her lack of documentation would have been exposed and something could have been done (for example she could have applied for a Spanish passport).

Even if you've employed the same person for 30 years, isn't there still the requirement for the employer to satisfy themselves that their employees have the right to work in the UK?

 

[JamesT]

Even if you've employed the same person for 30 years, isn't there still the requirement for the employer to satisfy themselves that their employees have the right to work in the UK?

The law is not retrospective, the employer would not be liable for a fine under the 2006 Act if the employee was found not to have the right to work if they’d been employed before 2008. I don’t know what the requirements before that were.
If the employer believes the prospective employee has a permanent right to work, (which an EU citizen before Brexit would have had), there’s no need to recheck their eligibility.
But that’s merely the minimum. You would expect most employer’s HR to keep records on whether a check has been made and to follow up where it’s missing. Especially after the settled status scheme was announced and eligibility stopped being as simple as holding an EU passport. My employer rechecked everyone a few years ago.

 

[najaB]

Even if you've employed the same person for 30 years, isn't there still the requirement for the employer to satisfy themselves that their employees have the right to work in the UK?

No. Employers have businesses to run. Right to work is a Home Office issue. It's bad enough that the government has tried to evade responsibility for their piss-poor job of knowing who is/is not in the country by pushing it onto employers and landlords at time of contract/lease signing.

If they want to have ongoing checks then employ more UK Border Agency staff instead of cutting their numbers.

 

[brad465]

Here we go, David Frosty cooking up more trouble over the NI protocol:

Brexit: UK wants to redraw Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Frost says the Northern Ireland Protocol is tearing the UK's "fabric" - but the EU won't renegotiate.

www.bbc.co.uk

UK ministers will outline how they want to overhaul trading arrangements between Britain and Northern Ireland that came into effect after Brexit.
The Northern Ireland Protocol helps prevent the need for checks on the island of Ireland's internal border.
But Lord Frost says the deal - which could mean a ban on exports of British chilled meat and sausages to Northern Ireland - is unfair and unsustainable.
The Brexit minister will explain the government's plans to Parliament later.
The protocol was negotiated with the EU by Lord Frost but he is expected to say its terms need to be radically changed.

At least we're free of unelected bureaucrats though, oh hang on...

 

[ainsworth74]

I tell you it's downright despicable that MPs voted in favour of an agreement and the Prime Minister then signed that agreement and now the EU are insisting that we abide by the agreement that we freely signed with them! Shocking behaviour.

 

[Senex]

Here we go, David Frosty cooking up more trouble over the NI protocol:

Brexit: UK wants to redraw Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Frost says the Northern Ireland Protocol is tearing the UK's "fabric" - but the EU won't renegotiate.

www.bbc.co.uk

At least we're free of unelected bureaucrats though, oh hang on...

Does Frost count as a bureaucrat? Certainly unelected to anything but appointed by the crown to the House of Peers and so a member of one house of our parliament in the feudal system we still live under (and, of course, our social superiod as Lord Frost).

There was a very reasonable interview on R4 Today this morning (see BBC Sounds) with Ireland's Europe minister who set things out very clearly, after we had heard a report from the chairman of Marks & Spencer rather stressing how difficult it was when they filled in one page of a long form in the wrong colour of ink. It all sounds as though Johnson's government and its cronies are intent on having another trhy at stirring up feeling against the EU because of problems arising from the protocol they wanted, they negotiated, and they signed up to accept. One can only hope the EU holds firm.

 

[jon0844]

Here we go, David Frosty cooking up more trouble over the NI protocol:

Brexit: UK wants to redraw Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Frost says the Northern Ireland Protocol is tearing the UK's "fabric" - but the EU won't renegotiate.

www.bbc.co.uk

At least we're free of unelected bureaucrats though, oh hang on...

Brexit is done. Those who lost need to get over it. Those who won need to own it.

Time has long passed to try and change things. The deal is signed - go with it.

 

[edwin_m]

Brexit is done. Those who lost need to get over it. Those who won need to own it.

Time has long passed to try and change things. The deal is signed - go with it.

There might be opportunities to re-negotiate parts of it, but this becomes less likely if there is no trust between the two sides.

 

[superjohn]

Brexit is done. Those who lost need to get over it.

And there is the Brexit problem summed up in one line. “We won, you lost. Ergo we know better than you and your views are invalid”.

Sadly Brexit was never going to be as black and white as that. Sure, we voted to leave the EU and we have left the EU. The wider implications are still becoming clear and how we deal with them should be open to input from all sides.

 

[najaB]

Sadly Brexit was never going to be as black and white as that. Sure, we voted to leave the EU and we have left the EU. The wider implications are still becoming clear and how we deal with them should be open to input from all sides.

Indeed. The very concept of "winners and losers" implies that Brexit is a zero-sum, close-ended game. It is neither. We all succeed or we all fail and time has no endpoint.

 

[alex397]

Brexit is done. Those who lost need to get over it. Those who won need to own it.

Time has long passed to try and change things. The deal is signed - go with it.

That’s an incredibly naive viewpoint.

Brexit really is not as simple as that.

We live in a democracy by the way, you can’t silence people who disagree with Brexit.

 

[RT4038]

There was a very reasonable interview on R4 Today this morning (see BBC Sounds) with Ireland's Europe minister who set things out very clearly, after we had heard a report from the chairman of Marks & Spencer rather stressing how difficult it was when they filled in one page of a long form in the wrong colour of ink. It all sounds as though Johnson's government and its cronies are intent on having another trhy at stirring up feeling against the EU because of problems arising from the protocol they wanted, they negotiated, and they signed up to accept. One can only hope the EU holds firm.

It seems like M&S will need to employ administrators that can fill forms in using the right colour of ink, rather than complaining about their administrative shortcomings.

I don't think it is quite right to be saying that the protocol was what they wanted. They wanted out of the EU Single Market and Customs Union. they did not want the Protocol, and a land border on the island of Ireland was simply not tenable in the International politics domain or for any possibility of an EU trade deal

So the protocol was the only possible way forward, for good or for bad, aside from 300 years of negotiations and the opportunity of leaving the SM & CU in their lifetime slipping away. They were not going to let the Northern Ireland question rob the rest of the UK of their destiny.

The EU thought they had the UK in a pincer movement, to try and prevent departure from the SM & CU. They extracted signature of the protocol pretty much under duress, as there was no other alternative. In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that there is disquiet of the Protocol from the UK . When one of the signatories of an agreement feels cheated or disadvantaged there is rarely any good to come out of it. The history of the UK has plenty of experience, often with the boot on the other foot!

 

[najaB]

The EU thought they had the UK in a pincer movement, to try and prevent departure from the SM & CU. They extracted signature of the protocol pretty much under duress, as there was no other alternative.

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left is, no matter how unpalatable, must be the deal.

 

[nlogax]

Brexit is done. Those who lost need to get over it. Those who won need to own it.

Time has long passed to try and change things. The deal is signed - go with it.

That's a reductionist viewpoint if ever I've heard one. The realities..

- Those who won have no intention of owning what they agreed to and signed.
- Those who lost seem mostly resigned to it (as if there was an alternative) but can't believe the sheer incompetence of the implementation.

 

[RT4038]

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left is, no matter how unpalatable, must be the deal.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily make all of the parties happy, thereby sowing the seeds of dissention. Which is what is happening now.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I don't think it is quite right to be saying that the protocol was what they wanted.

What did they want then? Since they still can't seem to tell us, maybe you know?
Because to me it sounds like the Brexiteers wanted the impossible if you conclude they don't want a land border on the island of Ireland, they don't want to be in the Customs Union / Single market and they also don't want essentially a sea border between the island of Ireland and the rest of the UK.

 

[RT4038]

What did they want then? Since they still can't seem to tell us, maybe you know?
Because to me it sounds like the Brexiteers wanted the impossible if you conclude they don't want a land border on the island of Ireland, they don't want to be in the Customs Union / Single market and they also don't want essentially a sea border between the island of Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Is it not obvious? Access to the Customs Union / Single Market without having the rules, particularly those regulating immigration, justice, finance, external trade and other social aspects applying to us. Simple.

 

[nlogax]

Is it not obvious? Access to the Customs Union / Single Market without having the rules, particularly those regulating immigration, justice, finance, external trade and other social aspects applying to us. Simple.

Cakeism.

 

[RT4038]

Cakeism.

Nice if you can get it. Esp. Walnut and Victoria Sponge.