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Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

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Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#51

Post by joduplessis »

frereubu wrote: post #44
beardedman wrote: post #30

A palpable amount of entitlement coming from the author. I like it (sarcasm). > can you account for all your international travels over the past 10 years Well, absolutely. > It has now become a long and challenging obstacle race It has, or is it maybe quite normal? > But it’s not only the UK — the United States has also made it difficult for founders to immigrate and settle in Silicon Valley. Like the new post-Brexit…

Just because someone has written about these difficulties, it doesn't mean that they're unaware of other people's difficulties. In fact I think it quite likely that they're a proponent of less border controls for people from developing countries.

To be fair, making something like "can you account for all your international travels over the past 10 years?" sound like it's something exceptional to ask isn't really helping. Also speaking as someone from SA in Germany, accounting for the last say, 20yrs of travel, is also fine because it's very normal. However, I'm all for conversations highlighting the ridiculous nature of international relocation, having done so myself.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#52

Post by gambiting »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #34
klelatti wrote: post #12

The UK Home Office has long had a 'hostile environment' [1] policy so what's changed is essentially its extension to a wider group of people (EU nationals). When you combine this approach with administrative incompetence (eg but not limited to Windrush [2] where people who legally had the right to stay were deported to countries where they had never lived as adults) you get some very unpleasant situations indeed. Not…

From experience I don't think the UK is bad. It was very good before Brexit, now obviously people have to jump through a few hoops since there is no free movement with the EU anymore but it's not bad at all and the procedures relatively straightforward. My experience with France is much, much worse, for instance. I don't think the current UK system deters people in itself. It's relative and people take the path of le…

>>now obviously people have to jump through a few hoops since there is no free movement with the EU anymore but it's not bad at all.

If by "not bad at all" you mean "previously you could just come over with a 1 day notice and start working immediately" changing to "you literally can't be hired at all unless you fulfill certain criteria that disqualify entire groups of workers" then sure, "not bad at all".

At the company where we work 9/10 hires in the last years were from EU for junior/intermediate positions, now that number is zero, we aren't even interviewing because we know we can't hire them.

But sure, "not bad at all".

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#53

Post by paganel »

moogly wrote: post #27

> demands that are almost impossible to meet (can you account for all your international travels over the past 10 years?) Yes, easily. That's some hyperbolic braggadocio. If you're a maniacal globetrotter, sure, I can see it being annoying or maybe even difficult, but "almost impossible"? Get a grip.

Not the author but in many parts of Europe it's pretty easy to cross a border without you even realising it. There are many people who live in France and work in Switzerland (Geneva or Lausanne), and I'm sure a similar thing happens to Germans who live in their country and work in let's say Basel. How do you account for those international travels?

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#54

Post by netcan »

So... here in Ireland we're pretty open to immigration, both culturally and bureaucratically. English speaking, and Dublin has many of London's advantages on a more modest scale.

The bottleneck here is housing, office space and such. Ireland, like much of Europe, is change averse. We don't build new towns or deal with physical changes to places well, or willingly. Slight upticks in immigration can quickly create big housing shortages.

It's an option though, and for the most part, we're more dedicated to the European project now than before Brexit. It's a good place for both UK & EU facing business.

It's certainly not perfect, but worth considering.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#55

Post by gambiting »

collaborative wrote: post #22
w_t_payne wrote: post #5

Brexit was an absolute tragedy for my family. Immediately after the referendum was lost, my children and wife started to experience a level of racially motivated abuse that we had not seen before. This reached a level where my wife felt she could no longer remain in the country and arranged for us to relocate as a family to mainland Europe. The move was not kind for me, and soon after I arrived I had a breakdown and…

I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you. Brexit also put a lot of psychological pressure on my wife. She's from a Baltic country, but during Brexit, she'd constantly be asked if she was Polish for no reason at all. -"Hi, nice to meet you" -"Hi, are you Polish?" Nothing against Polish people of course, but it made her start to gradually lose it. Each new instance would bring tears for days Luckily, it seems Brexit…

I'm Polish and I run into this all the time. Every time I get asked "are you Polish"? Sometimes the asker is genuienly just curious, but sometimes the tone of the conversation somehow cools down when I say yes. Lived here for 11 years and don't think I have much of an accent, but people still ask.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#56

Post by streamofdigits »

London's/UK's loss is Europe's gain. Why should there even be this systemic entrepreneurial brain drain if not for large scale regulatory arbitrage (affecting both the financial side and available business models)

There is no doubt that beyond lip service many European countries have sclerotic attitudes towards innovation and even hostility towards aspiring newcomers that "rock the boat" of cozy existing arrangements. But the only legitimate path is to fight for reforms within. Any serious innovation carries risks and ultimately those risks must be understood and accepted by society. Can you even do that from an offshore location?

More specifically for the European Union countries (and their aspiration of all sorts of unified digital / financial markets) the only meaningful design would be to spread the know-how (and thus acceptance / trust) across the region. Instead of looking for the next "winner-takes-all" silicon valley of Europe, think in terms of a strong network of neurons, all being equally required for the brain to function.

As for London/UK one would only hope that sooner rather than later it will rejoin the European project as an indispensable additional node.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#57

Post by gpderetta »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #33
rich_sasha wrote: post #4

Sad but true. I think the most fundamental change of Brexit is the overwhelming "you're not welcome" message. Visas, papers, bureaucrats, people can deal with. But the idea that you're at best tolerated so long as you pay your taxes is really off-putting (even for me, now UK citizen and long-time resident). Also, all these schemes forget that moving for a job is so much more than that - it is moving a life. Can you m…

I don’t understand the entitlement people from other countries feel to live in my country. I don’t feel the same entitlement to live in their country. Also, just because they are rich or can start a tech company doesn’t make them any more entitled to live wherever they want any more than anyone else. Just a very bizarre stance IMO and it seems one-sided.

People from other EU countries were entitled to live in your (UK) country. Suddenly taking that right away did upend people lives.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#58

Post by Luc »

adamcharnock wrote: post #24

Somewhat tangential, but I feel like writing it. I left the UK and moved to Portugal shortly after the Brexit vote. I brought a 6 hectare farm for mid-5-figures (for too big for one person really). The process here was as follows: 1 - Get a 'this person really lives here' document from your local village council office (easy, done in a day) 2 - Get a tax number (easy, but may be worth taking an accountant with you, d…

May I ask if you found your property through a real estate website? I have been on the lookout for a while but I have a feeling I should be visiting the real estate agents in Portugal instead of browsing the web.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#59

Post by makomk »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #2

The challenge with most startup/entrepreneur visas is that different countries have very different rules and people don't show for these visas and compare them. Most people are forced to go through this because they are required by one way or another to head to a country. That in turn means that there is no desire to make the process any better. Relatedly Brexit is a really odd thing. I feel like absolutely nobody is…

The press has done a really bad job of explaining the truck driver shortage - mostly because they want to use it as an anti-Brexit weapon - but "truck driver immigration" doesn't solve the problem. Basically, a lot of UK companies were paying their drivers so badly that pretty much only people living in lower cost of living countries, using the much cheaper training and licenses from those countries, and generally breaking the rules on things like breaks too could afford to do them for that money. Anyone living in the UK with the skills to drive trucks safely could find better-paying work with better conditions doing something else - and a whole bunch of them did.

Anyway, the whole point is that those drivers who've left don't actually have the licenses and training to drive in the UK and couldn't afford to live here. The whole thing was an artefact of EU rules specific to lorry drivers that allowed them to work here using cheaper (and I think less stringent) qualifications from elsewhere whilst also living elsewhere, and of even the minimal restrictions there were on things like rest time outside of their cabs being effectively unenforceable. Without the weird distortions caused by those EU rules there's no way to get back to where we were, and opening up immigration wouldn't do it. Also, those rules were causing problems here and elsewhere in western Europe before Brexit, and there was already a substantial shortfall in drivers back then too, so it wasn't a sustainable situation.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#60

Post by gampleman »

beardedman wrote: post #30

A palpable amount of entitlement coming from the author. I like it (sarcasm). > can you account for all your international travels over the past 10 years Well, absolutely. > It has now become a long and challenging obstacle race It has, or is it maybe quite normal? > But it’s not only the UK — the United States has also made it difficult for founders to immigrate and settle in Silicon Valley. Like the new post-Brexit…

> can you account for all your international travels over the past 10 years

I think this really depends on your lifestyle. For the EU generation of people this can be really challenging. When I was asked to provide (just 5 years) this information, I had to attach an extra two sheets of paper to the form, as the space they provided (about a 1/3 of a page IIRC) was absurdly small. And I'm sure that only had air travel (since I found most of my travel dates by search my email for airline bookings) and certainly missed travel with family members who did bookings as well as many, many car trips.

Also no one tells you that 10 years later you're going to need the dates you crossed each border and that you should be keeping this information around.

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