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Seems the EU haven't learnt anything about Britain yet. Personally this makes me want to say "fuck you" and dive head first into the abyss.
Much of the past century of European history, indeed much of the past six centuries of European history has included the fallout of continentals thinking we will shirk back from the Abyss in our "darkest hour" only to be shocked when we don't. Belgium 1914, Poland 1939, Brexit 2016. If Brexit 2018 has to join that list so be it. Might want to look up the phrase "darkest hour" and its origins before bandying that phrase too, morons. History would have been very different if Churchill had come back from the abyss and retreated in our actual darkest hour.
Why should we bother to learn anything about you? Other than that, your goverment is hardly giving the impression that it is indeed willing to dive into the abyss.
Congratulations America
I understand that 2-for-1 offers are tempting, but that doesn't mean it's a bright idea to have both your heart and your brain surgically removed at the same time you absurd little egotist. People plan their lives. The extreme uncertainty brought about by Brexit has a direct impact on people's plans about where to live, where to work, what jobs to take, whether or not to get married or have children etc.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpo...ent-residency/
https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-limbo/554717/
https://twitter.com/InLimboBrexit
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These people and tens of thousands of others are being faced with harrowing uncertainty about their lives and their futures, as well as a great deal of extra work and expenses, entirely due to the UK's decisions. They led ordinary lives up until that moment. To blame "bureaucrats" for the suffering you chose to subject these regular people to is like pushing someone off of a roof and saying it was the fall that killed him. I understand that these things don't matter in your dank self-centered Little Englander bubble where only you matter and everyone outside can get fucked, but to claim that "Not one citizen of another EU country has had their life upended yet" is plainly a fucking lie.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Who in those links has had their lives turned upside down? Limbo is just a cute phrase for bugger all has happened yet.
The UK government has said all along it wants to honour settled status for all existing migrants on both sides, Barnier et al haven't been willing to reach a deal yet wanting to piss about inflaming the Irish border instead.
No RB, it means that people now do not know what their status will be in the UK in a year's time. It means they can't plan studies, jobs, starting families etc. It means they don't know what rights they'll have when it comes to retirement benefits, health benefits etc, which means they no longer know whether they can spend their retirement years with their families. It means they're having to waste a lot of time and money trying to gather sufficient documentation in order to have at least a chance of staying. It means many of them are going through a great deal of unnecessary stress, with all that entails for their mental and physical health. So every single person described in those links and tens of thousands of other people have had their lives severely disrupted. That you're too dumb or too callous to realize this only speaks towards your own deficiencies as a human being; it says nothing about reality.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
This is a load of bullshit and you know it. Life is full of uncertainty but for the people affected by Brexit, life is far, far more uncertain than it was before the referendum, with far more at stake for individuals (as well as for thousands of businesses and for their employees--but we've already established that you don't care about business). I don't know what I'll have for dinner next tuesday, but I do know with a relatively high degree of certainty what my job will be, how much I'll earn each month, where I'll be living and what rights I'll have a year from now, absent war, disaster or severe illness. I can take that to the bank, quite literally. These people can no longer do that. They can't undertake any major venture that may be significantly impacted by the loss of their rights & opportunities in the UK.
No, it would remain very uncertain. It would entail a loss of rights regardless, and we have already seen how you and your kind feel about honouring agreements with other countries. Indeed, we have seen how your kind feels about honouring agreements with its own voters:It would be less uncertain if a deal was reached which we offered BEFORE WE EVEN INVOKED ARTICLE 50.
http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/...on_system.html
Seriously RB,Second, there will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
In other news: You may recall how one important part of May's proposal was based on the UK collecting taxes for the EU to prevent hard borders popping up?
Well, the EU Commission will debate on Wednesday whether to take the UK to court for not paying taxes the EU is due, to the tune of 2.7 billion Euros.
I'm sure that will have a positive impact on her proposal. "So, you'll collect taxes for us? Just like you're doing right now? Oh, wait..."
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Yeah May's proposal is ridiculous bullshit. It won't last, either the EU won't agree to it or a successor of hers will tear it up.
In other news this is a VERY positive development if it gets followed through: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45556246
Yeah, as if anyone wants to wade into your toxic hellscape after you finally dropped out.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Back in reality rather than your twisted perversion about a million have moved already into the UK since the referendum vote and that's not changing. Many more than that want to but can't because they haven't got or can't get a visa. Hopefully more skilled workers who've been discriminated against in the past will now be able to move over if as this report suggests the cap on skilled workers gets abolished.
Snort. Even if your claim were credible and a million foreign individuals really had moved to the UK, net migration has plummeted since the referendum.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Yes, I remember you bringing up that lame excuse, and it's about as compelling as your other variations on the "historically high!!!!" argument. I can only conclude that you're historically high. Net migration is interesting here because, just as policies may make it less attractive for people to move to the UK to begin with, they may also make it less attractive for people who have moved to the UK to stay there. Your claim, of course, is spurious, but perhaps you have a link to a source that you've misunderstood.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Indeed you're right if either the UK was less attractive for people to move to the UK to begin with, or for people who have already moved to the UK to stay there then there would be net emigration. There isn't. There is instead much higher than desired net migration. The millions of people who previously moved to the UK are not just net staying here, they're being joined by many hundreds of thousands more. At a virtual record high rate.
Nonsense. The UK has practically always had net positive migration for the past few decades, as a natural consequence of its (and the world's) growing economy, increased globalization, growing number who marry foreigners etc. As such, a reduction in net migration can be noteworthy and alarming even if net migration remains positive. Just as a slow-down in economic growth can be alarming even if growth is over 0%, and a reduction in profits can be alarming even if you make a whopping £1 in profits this year.
Your claim that a million people have moved to the UK since the referendum is, of course, highly suspect, since the data focuses on immigrants who've been in the UK for at least a year, and doesn't keep track of those who immigrated recently then chose to leave again.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The UK's net migration last was the fifth-highest since records began. Claiming that as a reduction is a misleading lie no better than anyone who claims that the temperature being the fifth-highest ever (with all the higher years being within the last decade) shows that anthropomorphic human warming is nonsense. In fact its worse since you're not measuring how many migrants are in the country you're measuring the net change of the net change. The delta of the delta.
As for 'practically always in recent decades' prior to Blair's election in 1997 the UK had never seen net migration higher than the 'tens of thousands'. It had negative net migration as recently as 1993 and on ten occasions from 1975 onwards. I'm not sure when you're starting to count as "in recent decades" but its bizarre maths where something that has failed to happen ten times is "practically always" whereas something that has happened only 4 times before is viewed as standard.
PS The claim of gross immigration to the UK of a million people is not highly suspect it is extremely conservative. The data shows that we had last year net migration of 271k which consisted of immigration of 614k and emigration of 344k within a 12 month period. 614k immigration within 12 months and it is 2.25 years since the referendum makes your "highly suspect" remarks a complete load of codswallop. The numbers for last year and the year befre are comparable.
Unless you are calling into question all of the statistics and claiming we've had zero emigration it isn't possible that over the last 2.25 years less than 1 million had chosen to migrate here.
Those statistics do not indicate how many of those who moved to the UK remained there. The method used does not deal well with various forms of circular migration. For this reason, you cannot simply extrapolate from or tally the immigration numbers and state with confidence that a million people have moved to the UK since the referendum. 500k may have moved to the UK twice. Many may have left due to not being able to find a job, or losing a job they had. Others may be students who return home. And so on. This is on top of the other flaws with the data: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45272404
So yes, your claim is suspect.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Again you're showing your ignorance about the fact and misunderstanding your sources. As your link shows the last census showed the ONS had UNDERestimated migration so much that 350k people extra were here according to the census. Furthermore in order to be counted you have to be arriving or leaving for at least a year.
Now drilling into your circular nonsense it's easy to set a floor at the minimum number of immigrants who have arrived. If emigration were to be zero then the number of migrants would be the same as the number of net immigrants. If we exclude British citizens (who can immigrate but are more likely to emigrate) then the annual non-British net migration figure is 330k per annum. That means that net non-British migration to the UK since the referendum is roughly .75 million. That is the absolute floor assuming zero emigration and zero British immigrants.
Of course in the real world British immigration isn't zero and non Brtish emigration isn't zero. The are 72k British immigrants per annum (162k since referendum) and 219k non-British emigrants per annum (492k since referendum). That means 654k extra immigrants have arrived on top of the net figure.
They would have had to circled three times each (for a minimum of a year each way each) within the last 2.25 years. That's not statistically possible.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Not only are you wrong about the ONS data, but you also seem to have trouble keeping track of your own claims.
You claimed that about a million people had moved to the UK since the referendum ie. in just over two years, and your later posts suggest that you truly believe about a million new people have settled in the UK since the referendum. You claim that the ONS data supports your position, but this is incorrect because the ONS does not track this information. What they do is conduct interviews at various ports of entry where they record (among other things) the number of people who intend to stay in or leave the UK for at least a year. Based on a small sample of such interviews they attempt to estimate the real number of people who intend to stay in or leave the UK for that length of time. That means that if I go to the UK with the intention of staying there for over a year, and state this in an interview, but then leave before the year is up, I'll still be counted as a long-term immigrant--there is no follow-up to ensure that I actually stayed for a year. If I instead leave more than a year after the referendum, but before two years, both the ONS and you will still believe that I'm in the UK two years after the referendum. If I'm interviewed as I leave the UK after a year, I might be included in the emigration statistics, but the ONS data will not indicate that the same person who migrated TO the UK is now migrating FROM the UK. For these reasons, you cannot use the ONS immigration data to support your claim about a million new people moving to the UK. The claim might be true, but your data does not support it.
In addition, you forget an important bit of context, which is that the situation for people migrating to the UK from EU27 was very unclear after the referendum, but people had been promised that nothing would change in practice. For all practical purposes, Brexit's impact on EU27 migration should have been expected to be small--at least on people moving due to accepting a long-term job, studies, research, family reasons etc--for months after the ref. as the UK continued to dissemble. The significance of this for EU27 migration is especially important to consider because the 2011 census (seven years ago!) showed that the ONS's methods had over time greatly underestimated net migration, in large part due to not covering EU migration adequately at the time (eg. because they only covered some major ports of entry and because EU migration is more flexible and unpredictable ie. people's intentions might change as their circumstances--job, study situation, relationships--change). You cannot conclude that, just because they underestimated net migration over a ten year period seven years ago, it means they are once again underestimating net migration now. It's certainly possible, but the latter does not follow from the former. All you can assume--cautiously--is that the ONS has had problems with tracking EU migration accurately in the past. They've changed their methods, but some of the same difficulties they faced back then remain today.
An analogy to this situation is election polling. Taking the recent Swedish election as an example, all major pollsters underestimated the Sweden Democrats' prospects when attempting to forecast the 2014 election. Most people therefore concluded that polls were underestimating their support this time around as well. In reality, those polls who were the closest the last time around--and who predicted the largest gains for SD this election--greatly overestimated SD's share of the votes. If your reasoning re. the census and the ONS data were accurate and generally applicable, SD would've gotten much better results. But your reasoning is neither accurate nor generally applicable, because, just as SD's support is simply difficult to assess either way using current polling methods, EU migration is difficult to assess either way using the ONS's methods.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."