EU, Brexit and Immigration

[PeterGray]

The folk coming from France are already in a safe country, hence they can apply there.


So let France, Germany and other European and ME countries to carry the load of looking after the vast majority of refugees (and increase it) - even that minority whose first language is English or have family here.

Such generosity of spirit. Doesn't exactly make anyone proud to be British!

[PeterGray]

Is the UK an attractive place to live after Brexit or are all the illegals being hoodwinked to come to a country that is about to collapse as you seem to be arguing. If this is your thesis then surely we should be sending all the illegals back to save them from the collapsing UK.

Nothing incompatible there.

Yes, the UK is a less desirable place to live after Brexit, shrinking economy, reduced opportunities for young people to travel and work abroad, that's certainly true.

But that doesn't mean it's not a vastly more desirable place to live than Syria, Iran and many more, even Rwanda, if you end up on the wrong side of the governement and are at risk to life and limb. And that is of course particulalry true for those (minority) who speak English as a first or only language and/or have family here - who make up the vast bulk of those trying to apply for asylum in the UK.

Not really hard to see any of that if you are prepared to stop and think for a microsecond.

[AWOL]

The procedure is clear:

Apply for refugee status in the first safe country.

That is not what the refugee convention nor any relevant law in the UK requires. That is what some people/ministers who do not wish to support providing refugee would like the law to say. I think it says a lot about their values.

Britain's greatest shame in WW2 was that we should have provided refuge for more Jews than we did. Thank goodness for Frank Foley. A real hero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_F ... ng%20visas.

[ursaminortaur]

More interesting replies that warp history to suit a retainer view point.

In the 1970's a referendum was held about the UK joining a common market. There was no open discussion about political union although papers released under the 30 year rule show that this was the intention and over the years political union came with no opportunity until the Brexit referendum for a UK democratic vote. It is hard not to see this as a underhand business by both the UK parliament and the the EU commission.

The 1975 referendum was full of discussion about the political implications - in the newspapers, TV debates and in the anti-marketeers "NO" leaflet delivered to every household. It is irrelevant what some paper recommended - it was the centre piece of the anti-marketeers campaign as would be expected. Harold Wilson's cabinet and party were split on the issue which is why there was a referendum in the first place and that meant that both sides had full access to all the available information about the EEC, how it operated and what its future goals were.

See the Daily Mail leader on the eve of the referendum

https://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/we-were-never-hoodwinked/

The anti-Marketeers have a glum lack of faith in Britain's ability to hold her own inside the Market -- coupled with an unremitting suspicion of foreigners.
They speak as if the EEC's eventual goal of political union was a dark secret to be sprung on us when our back was turned. Haven't they being listening to the visionary words of European Leaders for the last twenty-five years ?
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and the section headed "The Right to Rule ourselves" in the NO referendum leaflet

http://civitas.org.uk/content/files/1975ReferendumNO.pdf

What is worse, it sets out by stages to merge Britain with France, Germany, Italy and other countries into a single nation. This will take away from us the right to rule ourselves which we have enjoyed for centuries.
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This is a really good example of finding something that was not widely presented at the time and assuming that everyone was aware.

Go and talk to folk who voted in the 70's referendum and one will find near unity that they thought they were voting to join a common market and that if they had been told this was a political union they would have voted not to join.

The whole idea that the subsequent negotiations to join the EU were sanctioned by the 70's referendum is wrong.

Regards,

I wasn't quite old enough to vote in the referendum but was old enough to be interested in the result and I was certainly aware of the debates over sovereignty and closer union that were taking place in the media. I'm sorry but it is a myth that people didn't know about the political dimension.

Here is another link this time to the Panorama program before the 1975 referendum between Roy Jenkins and Tony Benn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zBFh6bpcMo

Where Sovereignty and the idea of the unelected Commission making laws that apply to Britain is raised almost from the start - wth the first mention of political union at around 9 minutes 42 seconds and even talk of economic and monetary union at around 41 minutes and the idea of a federated state being raised at around 43 minutes with Benn then a few minutes later describing Britain as being an offshore island province in such a future federation.

(As an aside whichever side you were on in 1975 the level of debate from two politicians with a good grasp of figures and the issues is remarkable compared to debates in the 2016 referendum or for that matter debates between politicians in the last decade or so).

And then there is the explicit referendum debate on Sovereignty between Ted Heath and Michael Foot on the ITV (Thames TV) "People and Politics" programme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuZrzwm6CJs

[odysseus2000]

Thank you for the link to the Fab debate between Jenkins & Benn.

This took place in the atmosphere created by the recent decision to join the common market & if you talk to people alive at the time many will tell you that is what they voted for. Sure some would have watched Panorama & would around 42 minutes & earlier have heard Mr Jenkins argue that full political union may eventually occur but not for a very long time, all suggesting that Mr. Benn was barking at something that may never happen. Those who understood it were, based on talking to people, a small minority.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

The whole debate about refugees is a classic paving of a road to hell with good intention.

The whole idea that a refugee who has fled persecution carrybthousands of $ to pay gangsters is not credible. What we are dealing with is economic migrants, depleting their own nation in the belief that in the uk the streets are paved with gold. To argue that people only speak English & can’t learn another language is yet more ridiculous. We are in the 21st century with many accelerated learning programs that can give a non speaker a new tongue that makes them more employable. A refugee can settle some where learn the language, prosper & then with skills & history apply to live & work else where. When I worked in the US I got a job & then a visa & it was all work, but I was legal & playing by the rules.

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

Thank you for the link to the Fab debate between Jenkins & Benn.

This took place in the atmosphere created by the recent decision to join the common market & if you talk to people alive at the time many will tell you that is what they voted for. Sure some would have watched Panorama & would around 42 minutes & earlier have heard Mr Jenkins argue that full political union may eventually occur but not for a very long time, all suggesting that Mr. Benn was barking at something that may never happen. Those who understood it were, based on talking to people, a small minority.

Regards,

And something that still hasn't happened - the EU is not a federal superstate. However the point I was making is that all this information on the political side of the EEC was well publicised in the newspapers, tv debates and leave campaign. Your argument seems to be that people in the seventies were so dumb that they couldn't take in those arguments even to the limited extent of realising that they were being made.

[ursaminortaur]

The whole debate about refugees is a classic paving of a road to hell with good intention.

The whole idea that a refugee who has fled persecution carrybthousands of $ to pay gangsters is not credible. What we are dealing with is economic migrants, depleting their own nation in the belief that in the uk the streets are paved with gold. To argue that people only speak English & can’t learn another language is yet more ridiculous. We are in the 21st century with many accelerated learning programs that can give a non speaker a new tongue that makes them more employable. A refugee can settle some where learn the language, prosper & then with skills & history apply to live & work else where. When I worked in the US I got a job & then a visa & it was all work, but I was legal & playing by the rules.

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Regards,

The numbers of asylum seekers coming into the country is miniscule compared to the numbers who legally immigrate to the UK each year and of course many of those who do immigrate to the UK actually work in the NHS providing those services (and all that Brexit has done is force the NHS to recruit more immigrant staff from non-EU countries to replace those it used to recruit from the EU).

[odysseus2000]

The whole debate about refugees is a classic paving of a road to hell with good intention.

The whole idea that a refugee who has fled persecution carrybthousands of $ to pay gangsters is not credible. What we are dealing with is economic migrants, depleting their own nation in the belief that in the uk the streets are paved with gold. To argue that people only speak English & can’t learn another language is yet more ridiculous. We are in the 21st century with many accelerated learning programs that can give a non speaker a new tongue that makes them more employable. A refugee can settle some where learn the language, prosper & then with skills & history apply to live & work else where. When I worked in the US I got a job & then a visa & it was all work, but I was legal & playing by the rules.

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Regards,

The numbers of asylum seekers coming into the country is miniscule compared to the numbers who legally immigrate to the UK each year and of course many of those who do immigrate to the UK actually work in the NHS providing those services (and all that Brexit has done is force the NHS to recruit more immigrant staff from non-EU countries to replace those it used to recruit from the EU).

If the official figures are correct then one can neglect the illegals, but are the official figures right?

If the numbers of immigrants is small why are the waiting times for GP, Dentists, Schools all so much longer than they used to be?

Sure there are also lots of temporary workers too, but the mismatch between need and supply is far bigger than it used to be.

My own belief is that the only way one can effectively cut these waits is to use synthetics for many of the consultation like phases, allowing trained humans to be released and re-deployed for the complex hands on surgery and in the by and by this too will move to synthetics.

However, there are many vested interests against synthetics including a lot of GP's who are currently endlessly moaning but who are earning well. The daughter of a neighbour who worked in a NHS practice as a manager told me that many GP in her practice were earning £200k per year.

Meanwhile another neighbour tells me his son does evening work at the local hospital on maintenance and mostly sits in his car watching youtube or playing games and never gets challenged.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

The whole debate about refugees is a classic paving of a road to hell with good intention.

The whole idea that a refugee who has fled persecution carrybthousands of $ to pay gangsters is not credible. What we are dealing with is economic migrants, depleting their own nation in the belief that in the uk the streets are paved with gold. To argue that people only speak English & can’t learn another language is yet more ridiculous. We are in the 21st century with many accelerated learning programs that can give a non speaker a new tongue that makes them more employable. A refugee can settle some where learn the language, prosper & then with skills & history apply to live & work else where. When I worked in the US I got a job & then a visa & it was all work, but I was legal & playing by the rules.

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Regards,

The numbers of asylum seekers coming into the country is miniscule compared to the numbers who legally immigrate to the UK each year and of course many of those who do immigrate to the UK actually work in the NHS providing those services (and all that Brexit has done is force the NHS to recruit more immigrant staff from non-EU countries to replace those it used to recruit from the EU).

If the official figures are correct then one can neglect the illegals, but are the official figures right?

If the numbers of immigrants is small why are the waiting times for GP, Dentists, Schools all so much longer than they used to be?

We don't train enough Doctors in the UK and haven't for a long time and for those we do train going into General Practice is not the preferred option.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3277481

We are told almost daily that we don't have enough doctors to provide care for the growing population. The waiting time for GP or hospital consultant appointment now is at its longest. Still year after year the British medical schools are rejecting the capable candidates due to government imposed restriction on the number of places for medical training.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505419/

The NHS needs about 50% of medical school graduates to become GPs, but a much smaller percentage of doctors leave medical school wanting careers as GPs. Lifestyle factors are important determinants of a positive choice for a career in general practice. So, too, is enthusiasm for general practice. Some doctors are put off general practice because of their view of its job content.

In addition we have bizarre incentives for well paid doctors to retire early such as the much lower and now frozen Lifetime allowance for pensions.

Sure there are also lots of temporary workers too, but the mismatch between need and supply is far bigger than it used to be.

My own belief is that the only way one can effectively cut these waits is to use synthetics for many of the consultation like phases, allowing trained humans to be released and re-deployed for the complex hands on surgery and in the by and by this too will move to synthetics.

However, there are many vested interests against synthetics including a lot of GP's who are currently endlessly moaning but who are earning well. The daughter of a neighbour who worked in a NHS practice as a manager told me that many GP in her practice were earning £200k per year.

I'm not sure what you mean by "synthetics". If you mean using computer systems to aid in patient diagnosis then this is starting to occur in GPs surgeries and will likely grow. However we are a long way from computer systems reliably replacing GPS doctors for diagnosis rather than assisting them since patients self reporting of symptoms is not always reliable and often requires one on one visual and physical examination by the doctor.

https://bjgp.org/content/69/684/324

To conclude, AI cannot replace GP diagnostic intelligence, but could augment it. However, before any large-scale roll-out is considered, there is a requirement for AI systems to be subjected to careful evaluation. We need to ensure that the AI–GP combination enhances diagnostic decision making and health outcomes without simply producing anxious patients or inflicting a further burden on healthcare budgets.

The amount that GPs are paid under the GP contract is somewhat misleading in that GPs are technically self employed running their own business. Hence the contract has to support the business as well as the individual and GPs have to pay both their employee and the employer contribution into their NHS pension.

[odysseus2000]

ursaminortaur
I'm not sure what you mean by "synthetics". If you mean using computer systems to aid in patient diagnosis then this is starting to occur in GPs surgeries and will likely grow. However we are a long way from computer systems reliably replacing GPS doctors for diagnosis rather than assisting them since patients self reporting of symptoms is not always reliable and often requires one on one visual and physical examination by the doctor.

https://bjgp.org/content/69/684/324

To conclude, AI cannot replace GP diagnostic intelligence, but could augment it. However, before any large-scale roll-out is considered, there is a requirement for AI systems to be subjected to careful evaluation. We need to ensure that the AI–GP combination enhances diagnostic decision making and health outcomes without simply producing anxious patients or inflicting a further burden on healthcare budgets.

The AI industry is doing its best to comfort GP and assure them that machines can not replace them while slowly turning every GP into a Cyborg that is totally dependent on AI or synthetics and before too long it will become obvious that the error rate (every legal office all over the planet has relentless cases for medical incompetence etc), lack of availability and cost of a human GP is too much. Moreover most GP's hate their work and consequently retire as soon as possible.

There are already systems where a patient enters a sanitised cubical and has all his/her vital signs recorded. For those who consent the AI has their full medical history and listens to their comments and evaluates likely prognosis, enters all of this into the patients record that can be block chained so as to be available all over the planet and for the life of the patient. This it can do 24-7, 365 days a year and the accuracy is super human with the first Chinese AI passing the medical examinations needed to become a GP over 5 years ago. With neural nets AI GP continually improve.

Yes, I am aware that in the current structure a GP is self employed, a part of their acceptance of the NHS in 1945. Sure they have overheads but when you compare what each GP costs both in training and operational costs it is several orders of magnitude more than a synthetic and greatly under performs it. IMHO GP will be one of the first groups of skilled workers who will be replaced by AI. My own experience with the local GP has been very mixed. Every now and then you get a good one, but mostly they don't listen, don't even bother reading your case before making the phone call and then spend the phone call reading the case before making some seat of the pants call and sending the patient for some diagnostics that are often not targeted and could be mostly done at the surgery or at some sanitised booth.

Regards,

[PeterGray]

What we are dealing with is economic migrants

I don't know how many times this has to be said, though I doubt you would pay attention however many.

The great majority are not economic migrants.

Over 75% are classed a legal asylum seekers once the HO finally gets round to assessing them - that is the real scandal Priti is trying to cover up - her dept is such a mess that people wait for years to be assessed, allowing those given asylum to settle and contribute to the economy or to remove those who don't. That is the waste of money and human resources, but she is happy to spend millions of our money to cover it up, and appeal to a few Express readers and extreme Tory backbenchers.

And there is nothing illegal about crossing the channel in a dinghy in international law, which also allows anyone who lands to claimn asylum.

On the other issue of the pre common market debate, I can assure you I was alive at the time and the issue of plans for future integration was very well covered. Also of course that the darling of the right wing of the Tory party was the person who supported and signed on of the key agreements in that process, but somehow the ERG tend to stop short of daring to say Thatcher was wrong.

[Hallucigenia]

Some anecdote on why refugees come to the UK rather than staying on the Continent - for most of them it's either because they have family/friends here or because they don't think they're safe on the Continent because eg the police have beaten them up :

https://twitter.com/SqueakinglyJen/stat ... 3039598593

[odysseus2000]

Some anecdote on why refugees come to the UK rather than staying on the Continent - for most of them it's either because they have family/friends here or because they don't think they're safe on the Continent because eg the police have beaten them up :

https://twitter.com/SqueakinglyJen/stat ... 3039598593

More good reasons for Brexit. If the police on mainland of Europe won’t look after the population why should we pay money to support the system?

Regards,

[servodude]

Some anecdote on why refugees come to the UK rather than staying on the Continent - for most of them it's either because they have family/friends here or because they don't think they're safe on the Continent because eg the police have beaten them up :

https://twitter.com/SqueakinglyJen/stat ... 3039598593

More good reasons for Brexit. If the police on mainland of Europe won’t look after the population why should we pay money to support the system?

Regards,

You didn't
You paid money, and took on responsibilities, to be part of a trading block
Complicated I know but hey! people believed crap about bananas, kippers and aliens

[odysseus2000]

Some anecdote on why refugees come to the UK rather than staying on the Continent - for most of them it's either because they have family/friends here or because they don't think they're safe on the Continent because eg the police have beaten them up :

https://twitter.com/SqueakinglyJen/stat ... 3039598593

More good reasons for Brexit. If the police on mainland of Europe won’t look after the population why should we pay money to support the system?

Regards,

You didn't
You paid money, and took on responsibilities, to be part of a trading block
Complicated I know but hey! people believed crap about bananas, kippers and aliens

The EU went a long way past a trading block and is set for yet more political integration and had the UK remained we would have been part of that system with all its good and bad points and without any direct control over who governs us and who writes the laws that we must obey.

Regards,

[PeterGray]

The EU went a long way past a trading block and is set for yet more political integration and had the UK remained we would have been part of that system with all its good and bad points and without any direct control over who governs us and who writes the laws that we must obey.

You live in a country with an unelected second chamber which the current PM (who can't retain "ethics" adivsers) has appointed several people with very questionable qualifications, and many others there because of what their forebears (often distant) did. The current govt has an large majority in the HoC with well under 50% of the votes (significantly less than Remain got in the referendum). It is using that majority to make it harder for oppsotion parties to win in the future, and seriously damaging our international standing with various plans to breach international agreements - mostly apparently aimed at keeping a very unpopular PM in post for a bit longer.

Your control over our laws is certainly no less direct than that we had over EU laws, and in fact the UK was nearly always one of the key nations involved in drawing up such EU legislation. Yes, of course, as one of 28 our infulence was less than as one of one (while the Union lasts). But humankind have mostly over the millenia realised that working together, which generally means some compromise, leads to better outcomes than working alone - otherwise we'd all be living on allotments surrounded by barbed wire ekking out a pretty precarious and dull existance.

[odysseus2000]

The EU went a long way past a trading block and is set for yet more political integration and had the UK remained we would have been part of that system with all its good and bad points and without any direct control over who governs us and who writes the laws that we must obey.

You live in a country with an unelected second chamber which the current PM (who can't retain "ethics" adivsers) has appointed several people with very questionable qualifications, and many others there because of what their forebears (often distant) did. The current govt has an large majority in the HoC with well under 50% of the votes (significantly less than Remain got in the referendum). It is using that majority to make it harder for oppsotion parties to win in the future, and seriously damaging our international standing with various plans to breach international agreements - mostly apparently aimed at keeping a very unpopular PM in post for a bit longer.

Your control over our laws is certainly no less direct than that we had over EU laws, and in fact the UK was nearly always one of the key nations involved in drawing up such EU legislation. Yes, of course, as one of 28 our infulence was less than as one of one (while the Union lasts). But humankind have mostly over the millenia realised that working together, which generally means some compromise, leads to better outcomes than working alone - otherwise we'd all be living on allotments surrounded by barbed wire ekking out a pretty precarious and dull existance.

This is all way from reality.

We have a direct link to our representatives: If we don't like them we can remove them at the next election. This is democracy,

Citizens in the EU do not control who is in charge and can not remove them at the next election. This is a totalitarian state.

There is no historical evidence that large scale organisations, spanning greatly different cultures and governed by folk who the governed can not remove are effective.

Contrast the now decayed Soviet empire with the US for example.

It is important that people can trade internationally with few restrictions and are free to elect people who suit their needs rather than some theoretical need spanning many different cultures, practices and what ever.

It is also important that people are allowed to develop and try technologies and ways of working that may or may not be beneficial rather than having some blanket policy applied across the whole population. E.g. what is good practice in Northern Europe may not be suitable for Southern Europe. The EU is in secular decline by having politicians rather than business decide what is appropriate and as a consequence the EU has virtually no significant players in the Internet economy that has created so much wealth for the US and China.

Regards,

[XFool]

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Are you claiming everyone ahead of him in the queue is an economic migrant? Or 50% are and that is the only cause of the queue? How do you know? Is this the only explanation why there is such a delay? What about the last two years? What about how the NHS is run and financed?

This seems to me to illustrate what appears to have become common in the UK - blame someone else. The idea that nothing is the responsibility of our own governments or its policies, or the voters who voted for them! Everything is someone else's fault: The EU, immigrants, 'foreigners' in general. Never "us".

[odysseus2000]

This great economic migration is making uk residents life miserable. A neighbour has been waiting two years to see a consultant & was just told he will have to wait another 8 months & that kind of long wait is common. These economic migrants are just queue jumpers working the system & hurting long time residents.

Are you claiming everyone ahead of him in the queue is an economic migrant? Or 50% are and that is the only cause of the queue? How do you know? Is this the only explanation why there is such a delay? What about the last two years? What about how the NHS is run and financed?

This seems to me to illustrate what appears to have become common in the UK - blame someone else. The idea that nothing is the responsibility of our own governments or its policies, or the voters who voted for them! Everything is someone else's fault: The EU, immigrants, 'foreigners' in general. Never "us".

No one cares what the causes of the long waits are as we all know that it is very difficult to believe what ever we are told, but everyone wants the waits over and we also want to control who comes into the country and not make the gangsters yet more wealthy with their wicked and dangerous trade.

Regards,