Why Would Anyone From The EU Come To Britain?

The leaked Home Office document, setting out Britain's intention to end free movement, immediately after Brexit, should come as no surprise to anyone. Its narrow-minded, mean-spirited approach sums up the narrow-minded, mean spirited nature of the Tory Party, and of that bigoted, narrow minded, mean spirited minority of the population that comprise its core support.

It also illustrates that the upper hand in the Tory Party now belongs to its reactionary wing, and that the conservative social-democratic wing represented by Cameron has been rolled over. Another indication of that was the recent revelation that the Tory grass roots are backing Jacob Rees-Mogg, the MP for the Middle Ages, as their choice for the next Tory leader. Rees-Mogg, like the Tories' bigoted allies amongst the DUP, not only opposes homosexuality, but opposes all abortion, including in the case of incest or rape. The leaked paper on free movement, is yet another indication that a section of the Tories are looking for an excuse to break off the talks with the EU, and to simply walk away without a deal. It is certainly the case that the Tory Brexit negotiators look increasingly pathetic.

The hardcore Tory supporters are already champing at the bit, wondering why Britain has not already walked away from the EU, as they totally disregard all of the real world legalities and practicalities that such a separation involves, having been promised by David Davis, Farage and other Brexiteers that such separation would all be a simple matter. Of course, the Brexiteers were able to promise that for the same reason that right-wing Republicans were able to promise under Obama that replacing Obamacare would be simple. That is they never believed they would have to actually do it. The Republicans, as some of their politicians now admit, never believed Trump would be elected President, or that they would then have to bring forward a replacement for Obamacare. Similarly, the Brexiteers, like Johnson, never believed they would win the referendum. They thought that the best result for them would be a close vote, which they lost, which would then allow them to send Cameron back to negotiate some further British exceptions from the rules of the club. Now they have to back up their rhetoric they are completely lost as to what to do.

But, the question now is, why would anyone from the EU want to come here? Indeed, many in the EU appear to have already asked themselves that question. Migration, from the EU to Britain, seems to have slowed massively, and some of those already here are making plans to leave. What the Tories seek, yet again, is to have their cake and eat it. They want to end free movement, but to have immigration that meets the needs of British capital. That exposes why free movement is vital for workers. There is always free movement for capital. If capital, in Britain, sees the potential to make bigger profits in France or Germany, it can move there, more or less unimpeded, but the Tories want to remove that right for workers. It means that capital can then always move to where it can make the biggest profits, but workers can only move with the permission of capital, and in order to meet the needs of capital to make the biggest profits. 

If fruit and vegetable growers find they cannot obtain the workers they need, in Lincolnshire, that capital can always relocate to Romania, or Bulgaria where there is lots of available land, and where those workers who previously would have come to Britain, could then be employed, paying their taxes into the coffers of the Romanian and Bulgarian governments rather than the British government. And, with the UK economy stagnating whilst the EU economy is growing above trend, there is plenty of demand for labour in the EU that can provide jobs for workers returning there from a Britain that increasingly demonstrates its hostility to foreigners. A recent survey found that 50% of firms in Poland were unable to recruit enough workers.

And the consequence of this narrow ideologically driven policy by the Tories will be as disastrous for the economy as was its ideologically driven policy of austerity after 2010. There are around 3.6 million EU citizens living and working in Britain. If each of them earns around £20,000 that is £72 billion of aggregate demand that they put into the economy each year, or about 3.6% of the £2 trillion UK economy. If all of those EU citizens left, taking that aggregate demand with them, that would be the equivalent of a 3.6% shrinkage of the UK economy. And, of course, around 40% of that income goes in income taxes, VAT, NI, duties and so on, into the government's coffers, which is a loss, therefore, of around £28.8 billion a year to government revenues, which would have to be made up in higher taxes.  Incidentally, that is around £550 million per week, or half as much again, as the Brexiteers were claiming leaving the EU would enable them to pay into the NHS!

And for the Tories, and that core of xenophobic, Daily Express reading old codgers that now form its base, this poses a further dilemma. There are two things that drive them; their virulent hostility to immigrants, and their inexplicable desire to see their house prices climb ever higher into the stratosphere. If 3.6 million EU citizens leave the country that is a hell of a lot of property, whether owned or rented, that suddenly becomes vacant and thrown on to the market, which would act to crash house prices, at a time when that same exodus would be causing the economy to tank, taxes to rise, and as the falling Pound pushes up inflation, and leads to rising interest rates, which also acts to crash house prices.

Maybe as the Tories and their reminiscences of Empire, and ability to rally the people around the flag, by a war with European neighbours, pull up the drawbridge and set about making life difficult for any Johnny Foreigner still living within its ramparts, the demand for those houses might be made up by returning British ex-pat pensioners, facing similar treatment abroad. But, the point is that the large majority of Brits living abroad are indeed pensioners, who have escaped Britain's miserable weather, for the sunnier climes and better healthcare of France, Spain, Portugal or Italy, whereas the EU citizens living in Britain are young active workers. The pensioners might return to Britain, but they will then be forming a large drain on the British health and social care system, at the very time that those EU nurses and care workers, upon which it relies, are being packed off back to the continent, and at a time when the loss of their taxes, makes it all the more difficult to afford to pay for the NHS and Social Care system.

The leaked document has acted as a distraction for the complete lack of progress of the Tory Brexit negotiators, which has exposed further the lies that were given during the referendum campaign, and demonstrates the extent to which the negotiators are up the creek without a paddle. The best that Davis could come up with as evidence of progress was that they had reached agreement on EHIC cards, the European Health Insurance Card. But, that too is an illusion. The EHIC allows the citizen, of EU member states, to obtain the same access to healthcare as the citizens of the state they are in, at any particular time. It is really intended for people who are on holiday, and taken ill, but because the card lasts for five years, it is also used, as a stop-gap, by some people, who go to live or work in another EU country.

Resolution, therefore, over the use of the EHIC is rather a minor matter, because what, for example, British pensioners need to have, where they have retired to, say, Spain, is that they will continue to have the same access to free Spanish healthcare that they receive now. That is completely different to and separate from the EHIC. There is no evidence currently that any agreement over such access to free healthcare is going to be reached, and certainly if Britain keeps denying any responsibility to pay for its ongoing commitments that is unlikely. Indeed, from all of the statements coming out of the British negotiators it seems that they do not even understand all of the technicalities of these problems that were highlighted for them by British expats in parliamentary hearings earlier in the year.