Brexit: In or Out

I think will may leave because; Leave are very determined, whereas you dont get strong advocates of staying in the EU, I mean you dont talk to someone in the pub that loves the EU, whereas you do hear the opposite.  David Cameron is not very popualar, 65% didnt vote for him, and half of those that did want to leave.

It isn't but it is an area that has been found to be very widely supported so the campaign has made very extensive use of the issue. A significant cause of this was probably the decision of Blair to immediately grant the right to work to those from the former Communist countries that joined the EU in 2004, unlike most EU countries. So by 2015 75% of people thought that there had been too much immigration in the previous ten years with some 423,000 net increase in the population from those countries by 2012. Personally I don't find cheap labour and a larger economy to be negatives but that's the view the leave campaign is taking even though there seems to be little evidence that immigrants do actually reduce wages except for very low end jobs like taxi drivers and shop assistants.

I assume that if there is an exit from the EU there would be individual visa requirements for visitors from different countries, though with them probably starting out the same for the countries which have been part of the Schengen system for decades. I don't see any prospect of a system that provides the same immigration treatment for all Schengen countries being seen as desirable because part of the problem is being pitched as immigration from just some of those countries so that would require specific different rules for those countries. Catch there is that countries in the EU would probably not want to conclude individual deals and probably couldn't unless they have opt-outs for this area. I assume that similar requirements would apply to UK nationals, though probably easier to foster tourism to the newer joiners of the Schengen system. Such differences could be implemented using a points-based system for all prospective migrants, knowing that the characteristics of migrants from different countries are different, so the same rule would have different effects overall for those from different countries - perhaps minimal say for French nationals who probably don't come here to work as taxi drivers but high for say Romanians who often do.

Similarly for those currently in the UK it is not unduly hard to require the sort of registration that is commonly needed in other countries for longer term stayers, including in Schengen countries, and require application for visas and permission to stay during a transition time period, with some being accepted and others rejected when they apply. France, for example, has such a registration requirement but dropped it for citizens of EU citizens in 2003 and I assume that it would again apply to UK citizens after any departure from the EU unless an individual country to country agreement was made. This would have to be gradual because there are about 3.3 million EU nationals long term (more than twelve months) living in the UK and about 5.4 million non-EU.

Trade deals don't normally incorporate free travel requirements, the EU is unusual in this respect with the common labour market as part of the EU's agreements, reflecting its single internal labour market objective and extending that more broadly. Yet that requirement isn't normally imposed on those it has trade agreements with, particularly not those countries located off the physical continent. I assume that some sort of normal trade agreement would be made to avoid the right to work in the UK issue, which would also presumably result in UK nationals not automatically having the right to work in the EU.

It's the norm for tourist visas to be automatically granted to most British citizens when they seek to enter a country, with no advance notice required, but there are a few exceptions. I assume that this would continue to be the case for non-Schengen countries like Turkey and would be introduced by the free travel area countries.

Another aspect that those campaigning to leave might mention would be the ability of the EU's  European Court of Justice to over-rule the UK Supreme Court. Or in the case of Poland, to tell the country that it must change how its Supreme Court operates because it might not implement EU law as the EU wants. This particular issue became more significant after the Charter of Fundamental Rights became part of the EU treaties in 2009, expanding the areas covered by the ECJ from mainly trade disputes to a very wide and increasing range of other issues, with 43 cases taken there in 2011 but 210 in 2014.

A longer term issue is the practical objective of a single European country like the United States, even though that has formally been withdrawn - ever closer union - as an objective. Those who don't want to be part of such a single state might vote to leave now rather than waiting.

What's common to both the immigration and legal aspects is that they are the result of relatively recent changes in either EU membership or what is governed by EU law, so explaining why we end up having a referendum now to decide partly based on things that weren't a factor back when it was just the Common Market. In essence it and a possible leave result are negative reactions to recent changes that some consider to be undesirable.

There was a very interesting infographic floating around t'other day showing perceptions versus reality.



And here's the very long version...
www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/16-029926-01_perils_of_perception_eu_Final%20for%20webpage.pdf
from
www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3742/The-Perils-of-Perception-and-the-EU.aspx



That's what Schengen is, though... It's a single visa system.

Let's say an American wants to visit France for anything more than <90 day tourism. He needs a Schengen visa. That Schengen visa applies equally to Germany, Poland, Lithuania etc. 90 days means 90 days across ALL Schengen countries.

The US, in return, cannot differentiate between Schengen nationalities in its visa requirements. Because, to all intents and purposes, a Schengen passport is a Schengen passport. Really, as far as travel goes, you have to view "Schengen" as a nationality. It might have been issued by one of the 26 different governments (not all of which are EU), but it's a Schengen passport.



That's all part of the history of the EU coming out of the EC coming out of the Treaty of Rome, which explicitly said "four basic freedoms of movement - goods, services, capital, people" back in the 1950s. We joined the EC in the mid '70s with free movement of people as an integral part of what we were joining.



Tourist visas are, of course, very different from what's being talked about with migration. But, to take one example - Albania. UK citizens can travel to Albania visa-free. Albanians can work in Schengen for three months per year, visa-free. Albanians need expensive and bureaucratic visas to even visit the UK for a week as tourists. So visa asymmetry is certainly possible, but rarely happens between roughly-equal nations.



The ECJ is not the only international court that the UK's judiciary is subservient to, of course. There's the Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights (which is nothing to do with the EU, contrary to all the Daily Mail's headlines), there's the UN's International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, there's the WTO's Appellate Body, there's the IMO's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and there are others.



The UK has a permanent opt-out from "close political union". Just as we have a permanent opt-out of the Euro and Schengen.

Cameron will have to resign as party leader anyway, if exit wins - or face a no-confidence, which he'll lose.

They'd be irresponsible if they didn't point out what they see as major threats to the economy, so they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. And it's not like the markets and investors can't make their own minds up...

I'm writing this in a purely personal capacity.

A general election before Christmas is quite possible.  If the vote is to remain I can foresee a major reshuffle within Government, and if the vote is to leave then David and George will find their positions untenable.  There is the possibility of a Brexit Government with some Labour leave members brought into to also negotiate the UK's exit.  There has never been a time when both political parties are so split and some politicians so out of touch.