EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Blimey

I used to work for the New Zealand Immigration Department. Immigration forms can be difficult for people to complete, there were no deliberate trick questions but there were a lot that people failed to answer or answer adequately. Most countries have a few streams of immigration, spousal/family, economic/skilled, tourism, temporary work. They also tend to have long term/resident and temporary or short term. Often there are rules that get applied and the visa officers have very limited powers of discretion.

Applicants will be assessed for health, criminal record etc and then if they meet the criteria for the type of application they are making.

Most countries treat citizenship as an entirely different thing.

It can be frustrating when there are loopholes that allow people through or weird barriers that make certain applications particularly difficult.

The technicality thing can be abused: Who files holiday for 5 years? Edit: I don't trust any government a 100% and some crap the home office has done doesn't fill me with confidence.

I am going to tease a bit: Why should citizenship, bar for security reasons, be seriously hard? You get unchecked born UK citizens with no check at all by birth :)

(This counts for all countries btw)

I would not have a hope in hell of listing all my travelling for the past five years- simply no chance.

I had to give the Australian immigration knobs ten years worth of travel details, it was a fucking nightmare...

I saw this tweet and thought it was an excellent metaphor for Brexit.

https://twitter.com/Jdill55/status/723993051627171840

I had to give the Australian immigration knobs ten years worth of travel details, it was a fucking nightmare...

It would actually be much, much simpler for me to apply with the travel section blank, then get hauled in for the "what about all this then sonny?" lecture, simply so I could then submit the evidence (as it were) on the next application.

A Russian travel visa is something like 5 years worth of travel. Was a number of half-remembered guesses for countries where I didn't have a passport stamp.

What exactly is that "working with foreigner" supposed to mean?

All my jobs in the last 6yrs have been in offices with between 50-80% non-UK citizens. Of those it's been a fairly even mix of EU to non-EU.

I've heard tonnes on horror stories from the non-EU citizens in that time. Prior to hearing those stories I had not considered what a PITA it was for non-EU citizens - I'd only worked with EU or US citizens before that (most of the US ones had been temp transferred internally within a US company). Based on my limited experience my EU friends and colleagues also didn't appreciate what a fucker any part of the immigration process could be. I would be very surprised if the citizenship was any difference.

I probably should have explained that part better. But the relevance to the story is that I expect lot of people think (assuming they even do) you just fill out a brief form with copies of your ID and it's job done.

Gotcha, tx :)

Unfortunately due to the beauty of bureaucracy worldwide, anything, VISA, citizenships etc. must be made as complicated as possible in most countries ;)

re: Dutch woman, I think @Fox is fair in saying that it's a bureaucratic error on not accepting the signed copy, it's not the Brexit nightmare, but I do think the letter saying, "make preparations to leave the country" is not an oversight that can be overlooked. Should all denied applications be sent a letter that sounds quite threatening, even if it doesn't apply in all circumstances?

re: all travel in the last 5 years, pfffttt, that's nothing, a USA visa requires all travel in the last 10 years, which was almost impossible for me.

Should all denied applications be sent a letter that sounds quite threatening, even if it doesn't apply in all circumstances?

do you even home office?

Sir Ivan Rogers decides: "F*ck this sh*t. I'm off...", or something

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38498839

I enjoyed this

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/why-britain-voted-for-brexit-a-look-back-200-years?utm_content=buffer808bf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Good one.

A result in the Netherlands showed people valued "changes and identify" over the economy...Which is why the current gov that done quite well faces discontent.

Identity politics aka tribalism once again...

Also this.

skwawkbox.org/2016/12/30/proof-f­arage-applied-for-german-citizenship-and­-hes-under-police-investigation-for-it/

Much as I want this to be true, I assume this is 'fake news'?

Has anything been heard about this that I've missed?

He was forced to deny the story last year, because he was seen in a queue at the German Embassy in London. That part is definitely true, no idea about the rest of it.

Even the hardest core of fascists have realised what an awful idea this is.

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/01/marine-le-pen-u-turns-on-leaving-the-eu-and-ditching-the-euro/

Who could possibly have foreseen what a shambles the whole thing was going to be?

Apart from 48% of voters, every mainstream political party, every respected economist, and every single other member or soon to be member of the EU. Apart from them, who could have known?

But but lack of democracy and corruption!

It seems a lot of people think if EU has bad stuff, it's leaving that will fix it.
Or that some bad things are equally bad (USA is just as bad as Russia, roit)

But if the EU wants to stay together, it does need to have a good long talk about itself and with voters. It seems, agrre with it ot not, the customers want something they don't get.

Hmmm. She actually said that she would give the chance for the EU to reform to give sovereignty back to France and then hold a referendum. I think she is hedging her bets to try to appeal to moderate voters.

I think she is hedging her bets to try to appeal to moderate voters.

I agree. If Brexit/Trump has shown anything it is the importance of being as many things to as many people as possible.... although you could say that was one of Blaire's strengths too (or at least all things to the voters that mattered).

It is also a shrewd negotiating move. Post Brexit, France is in a strong position if it wants changes in the EU.

Personally I think the media vastly underestimated and downplayed Cameron's achievements in the pre-referendum negotiations. However, I think the Commission would have conceded more* had it believed Brexit was a realistic possibility. Now they know member states leaving is a real risk there's more scope for bargaining.

My bet is on freedom of movement being limited and boarder control changes (an easy spot admittedly). Second, is some sort of financial services bashing regs to win popular appeal while trying to wrestle FS from the UK and Ire.

*coupled with confidence by Cameron to ask for more obvs
**don't actually know what "more" he would have wanted though... the right to overfish all the fish??

It's a funny one as Cameron might be clever enough to realise that if he'd got limitations on freedom of movement that would a) harm the economy (although he had zero issues with Austerity doing the same thing, but that was a key ideological policy for him so maybe he was blind to it) and b) risk people realising that it's long term de-funding of the NHS that's causing the service to grind to a halt, not brown people, or people who sound funny even if they look quite like us.

i.e. it's very convenient for the Conservatives to have the current media narrative that it's forins causing all the ills of the UK, rather than those in charge. Compounded by the Labour party being almost totally silent on, well, anything but leadership issues (they may not be, and it's simply going unreported, but whilst this is a tragic indictment of the press, it also means that Labour is irrelevant to the current political situation).

The freedom of movement thing frustrates me to no end: There's quite a few EU countries that set reasonable limits on it (no benefits unless you worked for half a year, or you need to show you have savings...) and the UK could have done this too. But, no.

Complaints about lack of refugee checks seem to be EU wide, it would need investment though in border checks, places for refugees to live, which in the end is tax payer money.

RE financial services, that's more interesting the UK is now in a weak position as France wanted to trading to be done in Euros and the UK veto'd it. If "we" leave...

But that won't influence ROI and their brand of "easy,easy...softly" regulatory enforcement. A lot of that is USA companies though, so if ROI risks leaving the EU it may not totally destroy it.

But the current PM of ROI isn't happy at all with brexit, so perhaps a lot of manoeuvring and negotiation will be done to tighten rules, and enforce them, but not so much it chases ROI into an irexit.

The freedom of movement thing frustrates me to no end: There's quite a
few EU countries that set reasonable limits on it (no benefits unless
you worked for half a year, or you need to show you have savings...)
and the UK could have done this too. But, no.

This! Why aren't people talking about this?

Ignoring my own views (that immigration is usually a good thing), there is no reason why the UK can't put restrictions on both EU and non EU immigration without leaving the EU.

The UK could halve immigration if it wanted to. The problem is that the government doesn't want to piss off a certain group of people by admitting that they want high immigration to solve the pensions gap, ageing population and stimulate the economy.

Does it not cross people's mind that there must be a reason why governments allow a flood of immigration? Its not a lackadaisical mistake, its a deliberate decision to achieve certain goals.