Bill Cameron asks whether Barroso is trying to turn us against Turkey’s accession to the EU…
And I have another question: If the UK government goes against the principles of the EU and refuses Romanian and Bulgarian workers the right to come here, when will that restriction have to be dropped according to the agreements?
If it happens under the next administration, whoever that may be, it would be very damaging indeed.
Update: (16:21, 26 September) I wrote this post in a hurry and, after re-reading and after receiving complaints, I’ve tried to clear up what I meant in the comments!
September 26th, 2006 at 11:20 am
I seem to recall that for the 8 former eastern-bloc countries who joined in 2004 those countries that imposed restrictions have until around 2010 or 2011 to open fully their labour markets, so I can only imagine there is a similar ‘get out’ clause for the two who will probably join next January.
September 26th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
I do not think the government can prevent those workers from coming here, once they are members their citizens have right of entry. I belive if they are self employed they can also work, I think the government is suggesting not issuing work permits for those who would become employed.
I belive the way it works is the new entrant countries agree as part of their accession treaty to a limit on their rights for a period.
I can not see the point you are making about the next administration, can you explain please?
September 26th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Ken, you’re not the only one — I’ve had private e-mails complaining about the clarity of the post. So, to be clear:
- I believe that EU membership should be about free movement of people. If our government doesn’t believe that it shouldn’t be in the EU. If it does believe that then it shouldn’t restrict Romanian and Bulgarian workers from coming here.
- If the time limit is six or seven years as Bill suggested, after which the UK government of the time would have absolutely no choice but to allow Romanian and Bulgarian workers to come here, there will be a large proportion of the British public opposing that. If the government by then is Conservative then the euro-realist attacks will be extremely damaging indeed.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
The French and Germans don’t seem to have any problems blocking the the Eastern Europeans from working in their countries.
So why should it be a problem for Britain?
September 26th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Dave - I don’t think we would have any ‘problem’ following our friends in France and Germany, et al, just whether it would be ‘right’ to do so. Like Gavin I think membership of the EU involves free movement of people, goods and services - so if we agree that certain countries should be able to join then their should be no restrictions. Period. Personally I am glad that there are Polish bus drivers, plumbers, carpenters, etc. Generally I believe in a broader, not necessarily a much ‘deeper’ Europe - that will probably involve places like Turkey, Ukraine, etc - but France and Austria seem very opposed to Turkey joining, for example. Like the French and the Dutch, I would not have voted for the EU Constitution in its present form, but the other aspect of Barroso’s statement is that furhter expansion of the EU is not ‘practical’ without something like the Constitution. Not sure I understand WHY though; we are just adding the first Cyrillic-scripted official language with Bulgaria, for example - at least the Turks use latin script.
September 26th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
But freedom of movement to the UK wouldn’t be as big a population shift if the other big western European economies were also open so I think we should say we will be open when we do it together.
If ‘Europe’ wants freedom of movement let us all follow the same rules.
Easy for you to say you want Turks in Europe Bill when you know full well very very few will be invading Scotland. I bet you’d soon change your mind if 3-4 million them turned up on ya doorstep wanting a share of your free education and generous pensions.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Gavin; Thanks for the clarification I now understand your meaning, I think like Dave if all the countries opened their door at the same time the resulting influx would be much smaller, the reason we have had so many immigrants from the last round of immigration is because we along with Ireland and Sweden were the only ones to open our doors from day one.
From my standpoint as a Eurealsit I do not feel that immigration is an important issue, it is only one of many and is far down the list of my priorities. If we left the EU tomorrow we could regain control of our own borders, but that would not end immigration, but the choice would then be made by our elected government and immigration would be considered from a national point of view. The same would be true if the EU were a trading block of independent nation states.
September 27th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Ken I can’t believe you say immigration is not that important, earlier this week on BBC midlands news they were talking about making a ‘road pricing’ scheme the reporter suggest that the government effectively wanted to price people off the roads..
The question is why are we running out of road space?
I suppose our rapidly rising population due to immigration with over 1million people in the last 2 years alone has nothing at all to do with it??
September 27th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
To be fair, Dave, immigration is not the cause of this pricing people off of the roads. It’s an enviro-socialist plan to stop people using that symbol of capitalism and freedom: the car.
September 27th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Dave
Easy for you to say you want Turks in Europe Bill when you know full well very very few will be invading Scotland. I bet you’d soon change your mind if 3-4 million them turned up on ya doorstep wanting a share of your free education and generous pensions.
Your are quite incorrect in what you imply in your second sentence, Dave. We already have quite a lot of ‘invaders’ up here, relative to the size of the population, many of them other UK citizens from England; I don’t agree with much of what Jack McConnell (First Minister of Scotland) says, but his wish to encourage inward immigration into Scotland, to counter the trend to depopulation here, is not only necessary, but welcome to me, although whether the mythical figure of 3-4 million you conjure up coming to a Scotland where we have an approximate population of only 5 million in all at present is likely anyplace other than your imagination is open to severe question (in my opinion).
As for me being some kind of closet ‘little Scotlander’ (to mirror the mythical ‘little Englander’), you could not be farther from understanding me; please don’t project your own instincts/beliefs onto others. Incidentally there is a minimum 70/30 likelihood that I will move my UK home in the next year or two to the south coast of England, probably to somewhere like Brighton/Hove, Worthing or Eastbourne; I’ve been keeping my eye out for suitable properties in the area for some months - unless things have changed very much in that part of the world since I last lived in the region (in London) I think I’ll fit in just fine
.
September 27th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Gav, our population is predicted to increase by 7million in the next 15-20 years. And almost all of that will be to England.
So would you generally expect a nation of 57 million to need more road space than a nation of 50 million?
Yes that might be simplistic and I know as price changes people will change behaviour, but the fact is our roads are full so when you add more people they reach breaking point.
Bill, I was not at all implying you were a little Scotlander, and would have no problem if you were.. I was simply saying that many of the cheerleaders of mass immigration come from areas such as Scotland and Wales where they don’t see the effects as much as people in the South and Midlands of England many of which are very opposed to it.
I said ‘if’ 3-4 million turned up on your doorstep, it was not a prediction.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Dave
So would you generally expect a nation of 57 million to need more road space than a nation of 50 million?
I believe the UK population recently passed 60 million; taking away estimates of the Welsh (2mio), Northern Irish (1.5mio) and Scottish (5mio) residents, I would imagine therefore that England currently has around 51.5mio residents with, give or take, 12mio or so in the south-east - obviously this gives an extremely high density in that small area. Unless you restrict domestic immigration into that region by some means, the current preponderance of jobs in the finance/government industries in that region will always mean this is an attractive area for people to find work in, irrespective of whether we have immigration into the UK or not. Personally I think we need to create an alternative capital (a la Washington or Canberra), probably somewhere between Manchester and Birmingham, to create a focus for jobs in government and eventually businesses that want to be close to where the government is; ultimately, over several decades, this would lessen the chronic pressure on the south east corner - on the other hand London has been the English capital ever since England became a unitary state, a long time before the UK came into being, so there would undoubtedly be emotional resistance; I don’t preetend that my idea is probably anything other than ‘blue sky’ thinking, but I think it is the only long-term solution, even if we were to stop all immigration tomorrow, an unlikely and (in my opinion) unwelcome prospect.
In general, assuming there is still the petrol/alternative fuel to run cars like we do now in 20 or 40 years time, then I daresay 60+ mio people will require more transport and all kinds of other infrastructure than 50 mio. However I think there will have to be some kind of restriction on private car ownership - and I suspect that market forces will ultimately lead to a reduction anyway. And I can’t see cheap air flights being sustainable forever; much as I love being able to drive/fly whenever I want at pretty modest cost I think we are living in an unsustainable ‘lotus’ land in all sorts of ways; luckily I will be dead before the full effects are felt. If scientists can make cold fusion work then the whole equation changes I suppose.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
One other thing I forgot to mention earlier - there are apparently upwards of 5,000 Poles in Inverness, out of a pop. of 50-60,000, already. Last year one of the two workmen putting some of the teething problems right on my apartment, from the builder company, was Polish. Recently at Inverness airport, to meet some relatives, there were several Poles there too, meeting friends up from London for the weekend. I often hear Polish being spoken by other customers in the local Tesco. It is simply not true to say we don’t have eastern Europeans up here, in significant numbers in relation to the overall population. Monday evening at a regular wine tasting the waiters/maitre d’ were all foreign - looked/sounded Eastern European to me and seemed to know what they were doing. No probs so far as I’m concerned
September 28th, 2006 at 9:50 am
As Bill shows any immigration to Scotland requires much smaller numbers to have a much bigger impact.
At the same time, though, any increase in Scotland’s population will affect English taxpayers more than Scottish taxpayers because more is spent on the NHS, education etc. in Scotland per head than is spent in England. That extra money is paid for by the Barnett Formula.
Do come to Brighton, though Bill, it’s lovely!