I think the articles assertion that with the reduction in eu migration there will magically be more visas for USA India and China that is not what the hard core brexiters are about.
"More visas for USA, India and China" is obviously not what what the hard core brexiters are about, but it is what those countries are going to ask for when it comes to a 1 on 1 trade deal with the UK. There's nothing magical about it, it's just a question of who has leverage in negotiations.
NB I really hope these things don't happen as although I am a Remainer I don't want the Brexit voters pushed further to the right and I think that would be an understandable reaction if they found that Brexit resulted in more immigration.
Anti-immigration voters aren't driven by actual immigration. How could it be so, when you can't readily know people's immigration status? No, they're driven by news coverage of immigration, plus the loss of jobs and general neglect in provincial parts of the UK (which the news encourages them to blame on immigrants).
They probably are going to go further to the right, but not for any reasons relating to actual policy.
And my point is that you don't need to know somebody's country of origin, since for the anti-immigrant people it's less about nationality and more about ethnicity.
It's just that the too notions usually coincide (people of different ethnicity would usually either be recent immigrants themselves or children of immigrants).
Precisely, they don't want people that are not historically from Britain to come there from outside the country, and they are not particularly happy with those that already came and have children who've been born in Britain etc either.
(And perhaps even more so about ethnicity it's about culture -- they don't want people carrying a non-traditional British culture in Britain).
>I.e. it's not about immigration, it's explicitly about racism?
Not really, since first racism implies considering the other race inferior (except of merely unwanted in your own country), and second because foreign cultures usually don't grow on a domestic population, but come in trough immigration.
Of course some immigrants can perfectly adopt the local culture, but those are not the kind of immigrants the anti-immigrant people worry about or what they believe is happening in any large number.
>Define "traditional British culture".
Like all cultures it's a constellation of things, not all present or shared at all times by all members of it, that has developed historically.It doesn't have a mathematical style, absolute definition, but one knows it when they encounter it, the same way they can tell Basil Fawlty, tea, shepherd's pie and Punch and Judy are in it and bluegrass, wabi-sabi, yodelling and Takeshi Kitano are not.
Visit 'Britain' - then visit 'France' and you'll get an idea of the panacea of cultures and sub-cultures within those two nations, that are quite distinct from one another, most of which could be very readily labeled as either 'French' or 'English'.
And that would only be two of many nations.
Yes - culture and ethnicity actually exist in the world.
"My point is that you can "see" (guess) ethnicity and "hear" language, but that does not tell you someone's country of origin."
You don't need to know someone's origin to guess at their immigration status.
The UK is not quite America. When you step outside of London, simply one's accent can instantly betrays one's class, and one's regional origin within the UK!
The last time I was in Eastern Europe, people would immediately speak to me in English. They could tell simply by the way I dressed (quite normally) that I was a foreigner. That was pretty weird actually.
There's any doubt, much less "almost certainly not", that people who voted for brexit motivated by immigration in areas with fewer immigrants, did it to keep their areas with fewer immigrants?
That's right. There is almost no chance, in my opinion, that people in immigration-light areas voted to withdraw from the EU because they wanted to have fewer immigrants in those areas, simply because there are almost no immigrants in those areas anyway.
I think you're correct for the simple reason that it's been shown people worry more about immigration, and vote accordingly in places where there are few immigrants, in comparison to places where there are lot of immigrants.
"Anti-immigration voters aren't driven by actual immigration."
"and vote accordingly in places where there are few immigrants, in comparison to places where there are lot of immigrants."
No. The number of migrants to the UK is well publicized, and it's quite high, moreover, EU migrants have considerable privileges within other EU nations (i.e. benefits, voting), which would be truly odd for most citizens of the world. (Imagine Canadians voting in US elections).
The population is well aware.
As far as 'those in areas with fewer migrants' voting more for reduction as evidence of 'lack of knowledge' is not quite right either.
People in non-urban areas simply have very different attitudes towards migration - and this is avoiding the fact that many people in Western urban areas are themselves immigrants - or children of immigrants.
Toronto, for example is 49% immigrants, and 75% first generation Canadian. Imagine how they would feel differently than say, Hamilton, Ontario, which has considerably fewer immigrants?
Clearly, there will be differing attitudes.
I'd urge us not to belittle those with whom we may disagree, or else the pendulum will just swing further: were the EU to have effectuated more sensible immigration reform over the years, consistent with the will of the vast majority of EU citizens, then there'd be a lot less turmoil, no Brexit, and there wouldn't be this massive rise of nationalist parties.
Or the local effects of loosely regulated and borderline criminal City of London-based financial services industry that repeatedly contributes to economic crash after economic crash.
You can easily tell people's immigration status. I walked into my local Lidl about 7 years ago and didn't hear an english voice for the entire 30 min shop. That was the first time I realised how out of control immigration to the UK had become.
I voted remain, but if you think we can't tell who's english, or you think it's a lie that huge areas have been ghettozied in virtually every major city, you're either blind or unobservant or simply don't have a diverse contact with many areas of our society.
You can go into shops in Wales where nobody speaks English either.
Yes, there are ghettoes, but (as in European countries which have experienced terrorism problems) that doesn't mean the occupants are immigrants. People can be born here and not have English as a first language.
(Also, non-immigrants have very little idea how large the barriers to immigration are these days..)
>People can be born here and not have English as a first language.
Only this is less common than the other.
Besides, for those anti-immigrant, whether "born here" or "newly arrived" doesn't matter much. If they are not of English, Scottish, etc ancestry, they are immigrants.
So saying that the e.g. the terrorists in Germany were German because they were born in the country is a little beside the point when they are clearly from middle-eastern origin for example.
> for those anti-immigrant, whether "born here" or "newly arrived" doesn't matter much. If they are not of English, Scottish, etc ancestry, they are immigrants.
Well, now here we have a problem, because immigration policy can only apply to people who are legally considered immigrants. The word for expelling large numbers of people who were born in the country but not of the dominant ethnicity is "ethnic cleansing".
>The word for expelling large numbers of people who were born in the country but not of the dominant ethnicity is "ethnic cleansing".
They might not want them expelled, but simply counted along with new immigrants in estimations of the cumulative amount of people of foreign ethnicities that resulted by immigration (and thus in decisions whether immigration has been "too much" or not).
Are you talking about Welsh? If so that's a fairly silly objection. I'm not sure what your point is at all.
That "free movement of people" right the papers keep talking about? That we would need to keep if we wanted access to the single market? That means there are no barriers to EU migrants.
Almost 50% of the record 335,000[1] that migrated to the UK last year were from the EU, which has no barriers. Although I admit it clearly shows the UK government has no actual intention of stopping immigration if it's still letting 195,000 odd non-EU migrants in.
As a bit of a side note, I would thoroughly recommend reading Ayesha's Gift, a recent release, to get a glimpse into the world of immigrants in the UK, the racism they face, but also the consequences of not integrating them properly and how their culture can be entirely alien to ours. It's also an excellent true crime book.
> You can go into shops in Wales where nobody speaks English either.
Which is obviously not the case
> but (as in European countries which have experienced terrorism problems) that doesn't mean the occupants are immigrants.
Correct, but most of them are
> Also, non-immigrants have very little idea how large the barriers to immigration are these days.
That's true, the barriers for legal immigration are high. But it seems a lot of people merely overstay their visas/permissions to stay or ask for asylum on alleged circumstances that are hard to prove. And also there is some welfare abuse, both from EU and non EU-nationals
(local people get upset about migrants moving into their community and refusing to speak the language, only in this case the language is Welsh and the "migrants" are English-speaking. In this case the Welsh people are nearly always bilingual but would prefer to communicate in Welsh.)
Oh, by "obviously not the case" I was not referring to Welsh shops (which in some regions do not speak English, the same happens in some parts of Ireland/Scotland), but that the case where "nobody spoke English" mentioned above
The article you referenced is a nice view on what happens when the roles are switched
"huge areas have been ghettozied in virtually every major city"
Yes, but not just Britain. You hear a lot of Polish around your local Lidl? Well, there's some Spanish bloke also complaining about the amount of English he's hearing in his local Lidl.
My point was that you have no idea what status a person holds. They could be citizens who prefer to speak a different language. They could be on holiday. They could be students. They could be in the country without permission. They could be anywhere on the spectrum of immigration permission. You don't know their status.
Besides, I went to a shop the other day and not a single person was speaking Irish. They were CLEARLY immigrants.
Let me turn that around: if someone is an immigrant forever even once they have achieved indefinite leave to remain, in what sense is it even possible for them to assimilate?
I don't think Brexit voters will particularly care about Australians or Americans having an easier time of immigrating to the UK. Indians and Chinese people, though... that might push them.
I voted for Brexit. Couldn't care less about immigration either way. But please, tell me more about how Indians and Chinese people migrating to the UK is a problem for me.
What I think Brexit has shown is that the British public is averse to 'poor' immigrants, as they are more likely to be competing for low wage jobs and often have a limited education, nonprogresive values and an isolationist mindset. I've not once heard someone complain about Pakistani surgeons or Polish engineers.
If points based controls reduce the the level of 'poor' immigrants then I'd expect it to eventually become a non-issue as it was when the EU member nations were all roughly similar in GDP per capita.
The main complaint about migration in the UK is with respect to low skilled migrants. As the UK was totally unable to control EU migration (a lot of which is low skilled migrants from Eastern Europe) it had to try to 'get the numbers down' from non-EU sources.
Now that the UK will be sovereign, in control of it's borders again, it will be able to limit low skilled migration from the EU and allow more high skilled migrants from everywhere.
Why? It is Brexit not Internexit. The servers will be reachable, even after the Brexit. So, where is the problem? Maybe they will not be able to exploit the tax loops?
There might be tariffs, and there might be concerns about moving data between the EU and a non-EU country.
It seems incredibly obvious that making lots of long-term investment when the future of the UK is so completely unknown would be a risky move. So you cut investment for a bit, and we see what happens later.
> There might be tariffs, and there might be concerns about moving data between the EU and a non-EU country.
More specifically there are concerns about storing EU-citizen data outside the physical EU and in ways which could not comply with the requirements of EU privacy laws.
The first order 'why' is, yes. It would not surprise me that Microsoft expects a discreet call from Westminster, and after a 25 year discount on electricity fees and business rates (or whatever) has been secured, they will, after careful reconsideration, arrive at the conclusion that after all, the UK is indeed the most appropriate location for the DC.
That doesn't solve the compliance problem: data about EU customers can't be stored outside of the EU. So Microsoft will need continental data centers anyway.
Did you RTFA ? They build servers in Eastern Europe and then ship them to UK datacentres. If tariffs come in, they would have to spend quite a bit more. As you correctly point out, a networked server is a networked server and will be reachable no matter what, so might as well drop it in Frankfurt or Amsterdam and save on the tariff.
This is in addition to the legislative issues about handling EU data, which may or may not be side-stepped by UK keeping all laws on the matter. But considering we'll badly need a free-trade agreement with the US right after we leave, that's likely one of the areas where the Americans will ask us to drop shields...
I suspect it will be one factor but when combined with the possibility that the market for these data centers might turn out just to be the UK I can see why they might take a conservative approach.
"Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
EU enforces very strict data privacy laws. UK seems to be going in the exact opposite direction, with snoopers charter subjecting everyone to mass collection of data, and who knows how far UK will take it after British citizens lose the protection of EU. If I owned data centers I would also consider moving them elsewhere :P
While some of that is true, the snooper's charter is UK law while the UK is still in the EU, so there must be more to it than that? A lot of commenters are talking about the UK as if it has left the EU already; the process hasn't even begun.
Yeah, but EU itself is worried about snoopers chapter + many independent organisations are saying that probably it's not even legal to have such a law in the EU. None of that matters though, because UK is already acting in a "we're doing this, you can't stop us" manner. Even if the EU parliament ruled tomorrow that UK cannot order all ISPs to collect browsing data on its citizens, do you think UK would care? It would be just further "proof" that brexit is such a wonderful thing, surely you don't want EU meddling with internal affairs like spying on your own citizens, no? There's no stopping this train now, sadly.
The snooper charter is very likely to be challenged and be declared unlawful, as British Courts have already ruled that indiscriminate data collection contravenes EU law and ECJ rulings.
That doesn't work for UK companies who need to control venue of execution and location of data storage and keep it UK centric, depending on the level of classification that is stipulated.
That's likely a fairly niche segment right now and not likely to become significantly less so. Maybe the UK Gov mandates processing of data which is currently processed in EU within the UK following brexit but it's still 700m+ users in EU vs ~60m in UK. I know where I'd have my primary presence in that case...
