Yes - my mother was banging on about migrants until I pointed out (at that time) that I was a European migrant in NL and my brother is a migrant in Canada. When I worked here in Inverness, we had 160 Polish employees almost entirely because there was no local labour. Xenophobia is an easy opt out.

After a weekly dose of Question Time Mrs Ed and I find we change our minds almost as regularly.

My dilemma is based around the following, and perhaps more:

War - after 70+ years free of European conflict how likely is Brexit to facilitate such a conflict

Borders - does Brexit imply still allowing immigration either for family, employment or humanitarian reasons and would that reduce the numbers

Jobs - would Brexit create such hassle with existing agreements and infastructure that the UK would never recover or would sufficient new agreements and trading partners be found as a replacement

Trading agreements - would Britain need to be "Norway", "Denmark" or could it work out a "British" one

Rights - would leaving the EU guarantee a deterioration of Human and Employees' rights and would citizens rebel against any draconian measures which would erode the standards that have been set over the years?

Alliances - would Brexit compromise G20 talks, NATO or UN membership

Climate - if we believe in climate change/energy efficiency/green issues should anything change for the better or worse

Costs - would the savings from contributions to the EU after Brexit be swallowed up by unforeseen costs of new trade agreements/tariffs (although it's said tariffs are unlikely) or could they be realistically be channelled back into Britain's health and education (and not funnelled away into private off-shore schemes.

Scotland - really uncertain about this!

Travel - during Britain's membership the ease of movement has been a blessing for recreation, education and family. Will exit mean a simple return to the old days or will we have learnt something to make international transit from Brexit to Europe easier than those days. I'd imagine travelling through Europe might be like going to the US - visas and power-happy uniformed folk at border points but once you're in, you're in. "Visa for Europe, please". Oh and the related employment hassle, green cards, the lot.

Yes but I think certain scaremongerers deliberately correlate "xenophobia" with "border control" in their sophistry.

But if we consider ourselves Europeans, which part of Europe they come from shouldn't matter. The border control for employment protection (which, after all, is the only real difference Brexit will bring as far as borders are concerned) is a key arguement for a great deal of likely Out voters.

Agree with the above! (Sorry Mansilla's post) but this brings us full circle to the reasons people want to leave.
it's the migrants that don't want to get jobs that are a burden on the system and the over supply of cheap labour keeping wages down whilst the true cost of living keeps going up!
Cheap labour is now in oversupply so unless you have a skilled job or a trade those job wages will be kept low
Great for businesses who employ cheap labour! But not great for the cheap labour employees
Yes we need some migration it would just be good to get control of it again and hopefully the increase in population may start to slow down (Mrs note I said the "increase" in population may "start to slow down" Nowhere did I say reduce! )

If the government had sorted the migration issue when renegotiating our terms rather than the poor attempt they made ending up with a policy which is based on votes who on earth would be thinking on leaving

I think the majority want to have control on the immigration especially the ones that have no needed skills

The bottom line is we have too many unskilled which is killing the jobs market for the unskilled and we seem to have no control on who comes in
Cameron did a poor job renegotiating our terms!
Let's see how many more will start the journey into Europe now the wether is improving and how many eventually end up here its quite scary!

You have not explained, H-R, why my old employer needed to hire 160 Poles. It's certainly NOT because they were cheap because there's a fixed salary structure in that company.

I think this idea of keeping unskilled labour out is solving the wrong problem.

I would like to see reliable figures for unemployment among EU migrants, in particular, unskilled workers. Whilst I'm sure it is a phenomenon, I'm much less certain that it hasn't been over-played as a proportion of general unemployment.

You may be right MRS regarding employing Poles I'm aware that there are a shortage of skilled workers perhaps the skilled workers (uk) are not prepared to work for a fixed salary company ( cost of living) but some people( other Europeans) are!
Were you referring to skilled jobs?
I believe as an economic migrant it's possible to sustain a lower wage if they always intend to return to their mother land
Nothing against people that come to work put into the system and make there lives here they are very welcome!

Which problem do you mean? One problem is the British public seem to be scared for their future if nothing is done to reduce the rate the population is increasing by what will it be like in ten years time? Another uncertainty to add to the world of uncertainty! With this referendum people feel it's the only chance they have to slow this thing down that's why there a lot of tension over this if the government was able to control numbers properly we wouldn't be getting so fussed about this thing

It would be interesting to see who eventually votes for what and correlate it to their jobs/income!

No - they were unskilled jobs.

The problem I mean is why we don't have the skilled people (plumbers, electricians etc) that we need. Are the unskilled people too stupid to train to do these jobs?

Quite probably. But that in itself is a fact of life as some people can't or won't try. However the issue, I think, is that the education system is set up to push those that can into more academically centred work. The remaining are pushed towards vocational employment. And best I can tell, that almost seems like a holding facility until any further obligation is done. I just don't think skilled trades are given the attention/promotion they should have.

That's really what I mean by closing the borders being a fix to the wrong problem. Training up skills (and the government is pushing the apprentice levy that should help) is what we need. But it does mean people getting off their butts to do the training required.

And immigration to build our unskilled workforce is something Britain has done throughout history as far as I can tell. Certainly we brought in plenty of people for former colonies in the last century, navvies from Ireland etc before that (and brought slaves in before that)

I absolutely agree with this.

The pointless and ridiculous herding of young people into university in the last 20 years has achieved nothing for most of them other than to create debt and leave them competing with the same applicants for the same jobs, 3 years later.

University - in my opinion - should be the equivalent of vocational training for really bright people. People who need the knowledge only available from top academics. Not having a BA or BSc should not prevent people from accessing vast areas of employment where a degree is neither necessary nor relevant.

Far, far greater emphasis and funding should have been given to less-academic and vocational training and apprenticeships.

I'd tend to agree, Jim, though I read recently that your job prospects were much poorer without a degree right now. Now which is the chicken and which the egg, I don't know.

The trouble is that employers now seek graduates for every position, because they can. In many cases the applicants' degree may be pretty insubstantial and often irrelevant to the position, but because there are so many graduates out there, I have the feeling that HR departments just use a degree as a convenient way of weeding out a percentage of applications.

Not so sure the government is helping with apprenticeships as much as it could! Or there is a loop hole being abused
Our friends son got an apprenticeship at Siemens and was told he would be spending a bit of time in a few departments but would have a skilled job at the end, well he basically ended up in a call centre and that was that! He was getting paid well but felt it was a dead end job and left

I do think if your reasonably bright you can get a well paid job in comparison to a trade, and if you work for a company as a trade the wages are not an awful lot higher than an unskilled employee!
So given that why have responsibilities When you can have none for similar money!
We struggle to get electricians and if they start they don't always stay long, probably as the wages are not the best in the country but also what they are expected to start on before working their way up
Businesses at present are not paying the going rate so until they do there will continue to be this issue of skilled/apprenticeship jobs!

And don't forget Rupert Murdoch. He wants out because he has Cameron's ear but the EU tells him where to go. Do you really want Murdoch to be even more powerful?

Trades, in my extensive experience in industry, get paid very well - much better than junior managers. And self-employed tradesmen such as plumbers and electricians can also earn very good money as there's a permanent shortage.

They are here, and we are there because being in the EU gives unfettered rights of travel and residence. If we are out, then they have no right to be here, and we have no right to be there. They will go because they will have no legal right to stay. If the government creates such a legal right - what was the point in leaving the EU?

The real reason that many right wing business types want to leave is so that they can remove one of the most important things Europe has done for us, employment rights. The only way that the UK out of the EU can compete on the world market would be to undercut our former business partners on trading contracts, and to do so they need ( and want ) to savagely cut employment rights, and costs. Ask an American who lives in an "at will" State just how much they love living from day to day not knowing whether their job will continue or whether they are going to be summarily sacked without any compensation.

Me too. I don't doubt that freeloading migrants exist. I also recognise that there are many freeloading Brits. I strongly suspect that the latter hugely outnumber the former. I'm also clear that most of the migrants that live near me are skilled. Typically blue collar skills, I grant you - brickies, electricians, mechanics. But skilled, and skills that we need and are failing to home-grow for whatever reason.

Also, Let's face it, if you are a freeloading layabout mouth breather, you are not likely to be inclined to cross a continent to (not) do it. I also strongly suspect that migrants, being typically young, healthy and employed, are net contributors to the state. I'd like too see reliable numbers about that, too.

Migrants are where they are because they think life there offers something better, not because of EU rights. The EU right of Travel facilitates that.



This is where it gets interesting - I don't believe that. I think regardless of Brexit free movement will stay. Norway and Switzerland both had to allow free movement of EU citizens to get their trade relationships. I simply do not believe that we would ever get a trade deal that did not include free movement - why would the rest of the EU grant it? And if we don't have open access to Europe we would, at the very least, need a radical shift in our economy.

I agree up to a point with your last paragraph - workers rights in Europe are way better than the US, and that is a good thing.

This.

Plus the inconvenient fact that *throughout history* it has always been the brightest and best who have upped stakes and moved along for a better living.

Regarding skills in this country: by and large the wrong things are being taught. Even a specialist technical degree such as electronics produces graduates who know all there is to know about the electron but a complete ignorance as to which end of a soldering iron is hot; the engineering trades in general would much rather I think get a school leaver with aptitude *who can be taught* rather than one who has been pushed through university but has no practical abilities.

There has been for years a push to get everyone with some sort of higher education qualification and yet we still get people coming through who are functionally illiterate and innumerate at sixteen or eighteen (and graduates who can't are little if any better). There needs to be an observation that some shool-goers need not to study Shakespeare and calculus but practical skills - and there should be *no* opprobrium heaped upon them for choosing the practical path.

I believe the German school system works in that way.

I'm not commenting again on this, there is so much guff stated and stupid comments it's making my blood boil.
The whole picture needs to be viewed, not just from the narrow perspective of "I".
Sometimes the life of "I" improves in the long term, forgetting short term discomfort.

This.

A way to give hundreds of thousands of school leavers a "pathway" who might have formerly joined the ranks of skilled (and unskilled) workers in large industries, many of which are either highly automated or whose produce has been outsourced to other (sweat-shop) countries. How could these hordes be allowed to roam the streets; no, pop them into education as said above regardless of the fact they may be better of with a trade. Remember the number of former colleges being upgraded to university level...

I also agree that there has been almost a snobbish attitude encouraged toward practical skills by the academic side, or perhaps the people in power at the time, whereas in Germany for instance there are plenty of schemes for young people to leave school early and learn a trade with an established employer, with the option of returning to school later to gain qualifications if required.

With regard to Azzura's remark about US working conditions, yes they are pretty harsh compared to ours but my question earlier on was whether we would allow that sort of aggressive change in the workplace to occur. I would like to think not.

Like we wouldn't allow the imposition of university fees, then allow the "absolute maximum level" of such fees to become the standard starting point? Or how we wouldn't allow bedroom tax? Or how we wouldn't allow sanctioning of benefits on disabled people?Or how we wouldn't allow State Re-Education camps for parents set up by "Named Persons"? Or how we wouldn't allow employers to exploit workers with zero hours contracts?

Apparently we as a country will in fact allow just about anything.

Listen to any of the pro leave business proponents and just about all they talk about is wanting to rid themselves of "red tape". By which they mean those pesky employment rights and protections you enjoy

Well the above has indeed come to pass, but that's ''within'' the EU!

Exactly. If these things happen when we have EU legislation that protects our employment rights AND our Human Rights, just imagine what the barstewards will be able to do to us without all that pesky "red tape" hindering them.

Are you suggesting that "either" government, assuming it's going to be one of two persuasions, would carry out these atrocities?

I would see the present one trying it on but not convinced the opposition would - unless it went all Blairite again.

People like me and my work mates! This is what I do for a living and is my main job, as well as two other similar jobs that I don't want migrants taking, leaving nothing for the likes of me.

I've had management roles, I've had roles with more responsibility - I'm a City and Guilds qualified vehicle mechanic, etc., but I'm happier doing what I do now, get paid a reasonable amount and don't want that taken away from me.

I gave up listening to the politicians, none of them can be relied upon to give us any unbiased facts, period.

So, what does this leaves us, gut instinct perhaps, works for me, but even then, ultimately it won't make any difference.

Any Brexit will get bogged down in 'negotiations' for years, perhaps decades while politicians of all types ride the committee meeting gravy train. One assumes that any deal the Uk tried to broker would need the agreement of all other members....good luck with that.

I'd wager I'll be riding a marshmellow escalator to mars before the UK would be allowed to exit the E.U.