EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

I assume the thinking is it'll be used as a negotiation point further down the line. So far as I'm aware the EU hasn't voted to guarantee UK citizens in the EU the right to stay in the EU.

Not sure how good a negotiation point it is given what I expect the demographics of the two groups are.

David Davis to Lords - Lie back and think of England

On radio 4 earlier...

"If Le pen becomes president of France, will it make Brexit negotiations easier?"

What a time to be alive.

That's a cynical statement. I find it quite believable that Clive Lewis couldn't in good conscience back a Tory-sponsored hard brexit. I'm disappointed and amazed that there weren't more rebellions. I feel totally betrayed by Labour - yes the people voted for Brexit but they never voted for the hard Brexit May steamrollered through Parliament and the three line whip is shameful.

@hoefla I can only presume that it's a combination of Corbyn's deep down dislike of the EU combined with a desire to not be seen to oppose the will of the people but it was hugely misguided and this country will feel the effects for a long time.

I'm going to call up and cancel my Labour membership today - I don't want to be part of a party that waved this through Parliament.

May is deluded if she thinks using EU nationals as a negotiation point is going to create goodwill.

And if her position is so weak that it's needed...Well then good luck.

Ha, if you don't think that Lewis and a few others aren't planning for the inevitable day when Corbyn has to go then it's not a lack of cynicism that's colouring your view. And I bloody hope he is planning because Corbyn is never going to be seen as a potential Prime Minister by enough people and he should not be leading the party at the next election.

Quite possibly but do you think that's his primary motivation? I'd really find it quite easy to be guided by principle on this one, if perhaps driven by ambition too.

+1 on that...

Well, Boris is still planning for the fall out so I imagine others are too.

There is no possible scenario that doesn't end in a hard Brexit IMO. I suspect the PM knows this and is aiming for the hardest possible Brexit and taking as many hostages along the way as possible.

If they force us in to the hardest Brexit possible then they probably think only option is to reciprocate and try and create enough global negativity to reverse some of the decisions with the urgency necessary to avoid decades of litigation.

The sort of response I'm thinking is possible might be "ok, all EU citizens your benefits and access to healthcare will be stopped in 90 days" and then at the same time May says to the EU "we need a revision to WTO rules that saves the UK £1b which is what we are spending on the benefits and healthcare of EU citizens, and we need it in 90 days"

I reckon this is risky as fuck though and will ultimately, only benefit the trading block with the greater power - the EU

Plus we are currently receiving a net benefit in terms of healthcare spending with all of our pensioners in Spain etc. If we took the line you suggest we'd lose money, not gain it.

I think you're giving May too much credit.

From today's Times:

This.

Currently there are ~70k retired brits registered for healthcare in Spain. There are 81 Spanish pensioners registered in the UK...

That seems like a bogus stat.

FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS!

Taken from a BBC article from last month: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/38534958

It appears worse however as rather than registered, they claim that it's 70k pensioners who 'use' Spanish healthcare each year.

They were obtained via a FOIA request so i'd be inclined to believe them.

Yeah but what are we actually comparing? What % of our OAPS are in Spain vs theirs?

It might be a fact, but it's pointless.

Yes, that's what I was referring to re: demographics.

My feeling is that there are far more EU workers over here than British workers in the EU, many head out to the US, Australia/NZ, Far East, etc. rather than EU, probably in part due to the lack of language skills.

My department will be fucked if anything happens re: EU nationals, they make up about 50% of the department.

What % of our OAPS are in Spain vs theirs?

That's exactly the point; obviously there's many more British OAPS in Spain (and France) that there are of Spanish or French nationality in the UK.

Because working migrants pay tax, they would self subsidise (to a degree) when working in the UK. We'd still be left with a large deficit when taking into account the number of non-working expats who live in Europe.

Isn't overseas healthcare in the EU charged back to the NHS anyway?

Meant to be, hasn't been. We've not chased it, for understandable reasons.

I can't believe no-one's made a Teenslain joke yet.

I don't expect they turf out EU nationals, but it's easy to put rules on us like

No NHS
No benefit like housing benefit, working tax credit
Pay for visa every year or get UK citizenship

This will make the UK hugely unattractive, so then it's going to cost money either by retraining UK people or wages must go up.

But this was never about money, if it were more rational options would have been tabled

I think about 50% of my entire company is EU Nationals.

You've just cancelled your contract with us so clearly your EU nationals are not being productive enough- whip them more!

That's a cynical statement. I find it quite believable that Clive Lewis couldn't in good conscience back a Tory-sponsored hard brexit. I'm disappointed and amazed that there weren't more rebellions. I feel totally betrayed by Labour - yes the people voted for Brexit but they never voted for the hard Brexit May steamrollered through Parliament and the three line whip is shameful.

So what was Corbyn supposed to do? Opposing the bill outright would have been political poison and wouldn't have worked, anyway--because they knew full well that the usual Tory loyalism would have prevented a rebellion. Labour tried and moved a number of amendments, all of which were voted down, and that's the only thing they could do. (You may well say that you thought them feeble and not going far enough towards preventing a 'hard' Brexit, but it doesn't matter--they wouldn't have got through under any scenario.)

I personally don't like the three-line whip because I don't think any vote should be whipped, and of course with Corbyn's history it always leaves a funny taste, but it was the best of a lot of worse options, as if the vote hadn't been whipped, the hostile press would have had a field day, damaging Labour, and Corbyn's leadership would have been weakened. In a nutshell: They couldn't have won this one because they don't have a parliamentary majority.

The whole thing is obviously a shambles but it's simply Labour being caught between a rock and a hard place. That there wasn't a bigger rebellion signals that.

@hoefla I can only presume that it's a combination of Corbyn's deep down dislike of the EU combined with a desire to not be seen to oppose the will of the people but it was hugely misguided and this country will feel the effects for a long time.

No, there's no scope for pinning the blame on Corbyn this time. This was at worst a gambit, resulting in a small number of soft resignations (because of 'Remain' constituencies), very amicable statements in Clive Lewis' case, and no great waves created. We'll see if it worked--of course it may not, and Labour may still do badly in Stoke and Copeland, but if they do well, it will mark a transition for Corbyn.

What do you think Corbyn could/should have done?

(Just to be clear--I remain quite clearly opposed to Brexit and I think Theresa May is doing an appalling job, not that I have a say, anyway. :) )

With just a few phone calls I could get you a list of over 81 Spanish OAPs in less than a couple of hours... Ludicrous statistic...