25th September 2021
Some magazine covers are for the ages.
This The New European cover captures the current predicament of the current United Kingdom in respect of migration.
On one hand, the government is strident in its attempt to exclude migration.
Brexit-supporting politicians boasted about ending ‘freedom of movement’ as an end in and of itself.
(It always seemed odd to hear those boasts about ending freedoms – as if ending a freedom was something to be proud about.)
The current home secretary loudly wants, as a matter of policy, to deter cross-channel migration – a policy aimed at and appreciated by those who clap and cheer at such things.
And on the other hand, we not only have damaging self-inflicted labour shortages – we also now have a significant reversal of policy.
The United Kingdom government has realised – in perhaps the first of what will be a telling sequence of realisations about Brexit in reality – that ending freedom of movement causes serious problems as well as prompting claps and cheers.
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One of the causes of this situation is that that those who wanted to suddenly and drastically end migration had no grasp of what would happen in practical, messy reality.
Brexit was (and remains) a political attempt at treating a complex problem as a simple problem.
And so we keep bouncing between the fantastic realm of slogans and the mundane world of reality.
Here the government’s reversal of some visas (the applications for which will be tied up in red tape) may not even work as a policy change.
If so, then such an abrupt reversal may not be enough to solve the problem this government has created for itself – and for us.
And if there is to be a sequence of realisations, where Brexit slogans – one can hardly call it an ideology – do not match Brexit reality, then the government will find that quick-fix reversals will not work either.
It is one thing to realise that reality does not match up with your slogans, but it is another to realise that no policy reversal will match up to the policy mistake you have made.
And so we may end up with a bunch of stressed, washed-out, desperate and directionless politicians – facing the question: can any of you drive a policy?
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If this is what Eton’s brightest and best are capable of, thank goodness we didn’t get the class dunces!
Feeling a lot of red, white and blue embarrassment today.
Winging it works until it doesn’t.
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1441442975448330246/photo/1
“…washed-out, desperate and directionless politicians…” describes the cabinet very well.
This was said to be a unique property of a Brexited Britain – the ability to control immigration rather than leaving it, in a Tory way,. to the single market movement of people and capital. It has forced the government to learn how to do Soviet things like forecasting labour demand and output and managing training places to fit. They have built a closed system out of an open one on which their naive economics actually sits. So we see them realising the large lag between seeing the need for more HGV drivers (or GPs eg) and making them available from the UK population, at any price, including one that brings wage inflation along with it. So Brexit comes with built in wage inflation to conflict directly with austerity policies and the tendency to run all systems at the limit of capacity since this is ‘efficient’ – which is different and often worse than ‘effective’. There is, I think, no policy thread visible that can fix this within the current government’s portfolio. Each step takes it further into the mire.
What would be so funny, if it were not so tragic, is that the proposal is just for three months. So, just as the U-turn is taking effect (if indeed it actually does), the rug will again be swept from under our feet, to Christmas cheers of – what? Has ever a government been so populist, to the detriment of the country?
And capped at 5,000 drivers, which is a uselessly small number in any event.
Possible the best quote yet; ”Can any of you drive a policy?”. Consistently excellent blog. Not to be missed.
Freedom of movement was always presented as a negative thing, the freedom of foreigners to come to the UK. Our rights to freedom of movement in the EU were totally ignored. Ironically many ex pats in Spain voted for Brexit, ignorant of that being a vote to restrict their rights to remain there.
Replacing EU labour that was no longer wanted in the UK was a long foreseen problem yet the Government did little to solve it until the situation turned into a crisis. Blindly hoping the labour market would solve things was shortsighted, whether it was for fruit pickers or HGV drivers.
Thanks David. I think you’re implying that a more liberal approach to issuing visas won’t, by itself, be enough. I agree. But I can’t see what this Government can do beyond that, and in particular how our (now) relative-closed economy expects to compete with the Single Market let alone the US or Chinese economies in the decades ahead. No doubt tech and financial services will be called out as potential future British success stories that will bring prosperity, but how does ending free movement help them, either?
It is indeed a brilliant front cover by the European. Smiling away in one sense but despairing at its accuracy.
Last year the headline was “Boris Battles Experts to Save Xmas “. Now it seems ‘Boris Battles Patel to Save Xmas’ for popular headlines
I doubt this Brexit Government will ever learn how the grown ups do real life Foreign, Social and Economic policy.
Even if Johnsons Government were surrounded by a ring of burning buildings (caused by the hypothetical watering down of Health and Safety regulations) l can imagine them pointing out ‘look what we can do because we have left the EU’ as a measure of Brexit success before ringing for the Fire Brigade for help to put out the fire that they caused.
But what could be done to save the people of the UK from this HMG, or shall i say subjects, the next election is far away, the Royals as far as i know cant realy change the way the UK works or can they?
So the UK will get another PM from the Tory benches and will drive the agenda or plan what ever it might be. After the referendum, i cant remember if it was Tusk or Verhofstedt called it a COUPE and i thought what an exaggeration.
But tally hoe we are where we are, maybe just maybe the people of the UK become more like the french, but i doubt it.
So keep calm and carry on, i guess. Humpty Dumpty was right all that counts in the end, is who is the Master, isnt it?
Meanwhile Dominic Cummings is revising his blogs.
Exactly.
I suggest a read of the three articles here
https://westcountrybylines.co.uk/author/tomaszorynski/
But its really a lot to do with the race to the bottom in terms of pay and conditions in many areas of the economy, nobody wants to do it any more.
I have also seen it suggested that the ending of conscription in both the former NATO & Warsaw Pact states meant that the supply of former conscripts emerging from their time in the army with HGV licences has dried up.
1. 1,500 euros a week to be paid direct weekly to a bank account in the country of origin.
2. Contract term to be three months to include ten days holiday pay to be taken towards the end of December.
3. NI and Pension payments to be paid in euros to the country of origin at local rates.
4. Full private Uk health insurance for the period of the contract.
5. 100 pounds a night expense allowance for all nights spent away from home during the contract
Brexit as they say really does mean Brexit
just out of curiousity is this a real offer or just what you think those EU drivers will ask for, to temporarily let their long term Customers in the EU down? Especially your second point doesn’t seem practical. With 10 Day off at the end of Dezember and the Emergency Visas expiring on the 24, who is going to save Xmas then.
Sorry if this comes over as rude or offensive I am just curious
The post is from an Eu perspective based upon exchanges with Eu citizens within the Eu
Bewilderment in 2016 has now moved on from acceptance and respect for your choice to sometimes open amusement.
You appear to have dug quite a hole for yourselves here. Whilst there is still a lot of goodwill towards the UK you left of your own accord and there are limits as to how far EU citizens will go to help you.
Remember too from 1 October many Eu citizens will not be able to enter the UK because they only have free ID cards as opposed to expensive passports.
“It always seemed odd to hear those boasts about ending freedoms – as if ending a freedom was something to be proud about.”
Pure & simple. Brilliant. Exhausting.
May I suggest a little bolt on addition to ‘let in lorry drivers, just for a few months’ – that we rejoin the EU – just for a few months (years really) to see how we like it. To see if the passport gates work a bit better, that sort of thing.
TBH I liked being in the EU. I especially liked Parliament being hogtied by all that foreign legislation because I just knew that let loose our poor parliamentarians would make a mess of their job. All that ridiculous screaming across the dispatch box. Far better a dull plodding and more cooperative system – or being shackled to a dull plodding more cooperative system.
Not all that bothered about folk coming in on rubber boats – just so long as we don’t make it too easy for them. A Darwinian system that brings us fit capable young people. And scrap this silly Home Office idea of locking them up to be ‘processed’. Just another useless makework/money wasting scheme. Let them take up work Huguenotes style.
Hi Jim. Yes, I liked Parliament being hog-tied as well. And firmly believed in “larger electorate = more decent behaviour” eg Human Rights Act, GDPR.
There is another, slower-moving crisis in progress. Academics are moving out in large numbers. The UK has become a much less desirable destination relative to the alternatives. The prospect of this or similar Conservative governments running the country into the ground for ten more years makes it worth considering even dysfunctional countries, such as Italy.
to be honest the level of corruption displayed by HMG (Chinese Takeway PPE as just one example), would make Silvio blush. So I am not sure that you should call any other country at the moment dysfunctional. I know it is hard to let old habits go but sometimes you maybe should.
As a matter of fact Italy is a founding EU member and second or third economy of the Union. UK is no longer in the Union, hence from a systemic point of view it is fully dysfunctional – the HGV drivers and agricultural pickers shortage is just one example of the hundreds that have popped up so far, and you really have no idea as to how many more you will see.
Absentee nations like the UK in Europe are wrong by definition, hence dysfunctional both endogenously and systemically.
Yeah, but academics are generally experts, and Mr. Gove told us we’ve had enough of them, remember?
To be fair, its a funny cartoon caption. One wonders if, on saving the necessary lorry drivers, the rescuers then pin-prick the dingy and sail away. (Bit like politicians and policies maybe?)
(Great end quote, by the way.)
(And the stuff in the middle – did read it)