Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Alain Colcer]

The same things are happening in America, from mexico down to chile (which i happen to live in), "workers" are coming from ecuador, colombia and paraguay, which are countries much cheaper to live in than my own.

The trade treaties, and cooperations agendas have also created a tension between inmigrants and locals.....

I'll dare to say that WW3 will explode in 5 years if the trends continue, but this time, it will be civilians against the established powers, and politicians will be used as scapegoats on both sides.

[Utari Onzo]

Just to note, in Britain we have a civil service larger then that to run the entire EU organisation. HMRC alone employs almost as many as the EU does. Further, laws in Britain are recommended and drafted by unelected civil servants, and it's lawyers working for the opposite side that are the ones who find choice parts of proposed laws fpr opposition MPs to hammer on.

To note, this is exactly how every democratic government works in the world. Lawyers and civil servants write the laws themselves since they have the knowledge to do so, politicians set the overarching agenda of their policies that the civil service works to fulfill in writing said laws. MPs then vote on them, and I assure you there's probably a lot of MPs who don't read the full text of given laws and instead follow legal advice and/or the party line. This is nothing new.

In regards to EU laws, most of them relate to industry and work standards. This is not unusual for a free trade market, where it is more efficient for manufacturing standards, working standards (considering workers are treated as an import/export commodity under the EEC) and so on to match up within the area. Britain has enjoyed exemptions to many of these for some time, including the working time directive.

Now, to come clean I voted leave. Not because of immigration but because the EU is inefficient when it comes to a changing global market place. I am pro remaining in the EEC including free movement of workers and accept losing a seat on the negotiating table as the price for the freedom to draw up favourable trade deals with Commonwealth nations like Australia, Canada and India as well as China without needing to get everyone else in Europe on board.

[Utari Onzo]

Side note as I have stepped into this debate I will be completely hands off if there will be a need for moderation, sorry Mod Team :S . So far though I think there hasn't been any need and no reports have been raised. Hopefully, while impassioned people's views may be, we might be able to have a discussion about this but I do remind people pre-emptively not to get carried away.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Also, which recent events in France and Germany are you alluding to? I see no events over here that have any power to cause the EU to cease existing, especially not in the next few years.

The rise of the Far Right political parties, e.g. the Front Nationale in France, and Aktion Fur Deutschland in Germany, which are using the recent refugee crisis, the terrorism crisis, and other things to promote their agendas, a lot of which are anti-EU.

The 'Alternative für Deutschland' (that's the name) is honestly no real threat to the EU. First, they aren't really able to get a majority in the Bundestag. Second, especially with the brexit now, support for the EU is on an alltime high in Germany at the moment and rising as recent polls show - which is part of why the AfD won't make it into the government.

The Front Nationale I'm not so certain about, but I doubt that they will be any more successful. They tried for a long time now and they repeatedly failed. Maybe someone from France is able to elucidate on the situation with them, though.

[Vikarion]

Given the way that the right is being proved completely correct about the risk of bringing in migrants, on pretty much a weekly basis, I wouldn't underestimate their potential for seizing power on a major scale, at least in some provinces. The French are getting rather fed up with being blown up, shot up, or run over every time they go out to have some fun, so I suspect that, at the very least, Hollande's government will not win another election. At the very most, France might decide to change its mind about the free flow of bodies across borders.

[The Rook]

As with Brexit, projecting fears onto simple solutions preached by demagogues will have an impact on elections, I agree. However that doesn't make these simple solutions feasable at all, unless you want to go full fascist and round everyone up into prison like camps, including those who have already been living in the country for years or generations. The attackers in Orlando and San Bernadino have been born in the US, Nice has been living 11 years in France and around half of the attackers in Paris (including the attack on charlie hebdo) have also been born in France or Belgium. Oh and the Brussel attacks had 4 out of 5 also born in the EU (Belgium and Sweden).

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Given the way that the right is being proved completely correct about the risk of bringing in migrants, on pretty much a weekly basis, I wouldn't underestimate their potential for seizing power on a major scale, at least in some provinces. The French are getting rather fed up with being blown up, shot up, or run over every time they go out to have some fun, so I suspect that, at the very least, Hollande's government will not win another election. At the very most, France might decide to change its mind about the free flow of bodies across borders.

Vikarion, you do realize that a) the attacks are carried out mostly by people who didn't recently migrate into the EU (see post above by The Rook) and b) that terror attacks are still on an all-time low in the EU as well? The problem is that the people voting FN or AfD don't realize this.

They are the ones, as The Rook says (I 100% agree with what he said there), that don't realise that "these simple solutions (aren't) feasable at all, unless you want to go full fascist and round everyone up into prison like camps, including those who have already been living in the country for years or generations."

And it's not only those with a certain ethnic background: We have a number of people with ethnic german background attaching themselves to salafistic ideas, even joining the IS in Syria and coming back. You'd have to take care of those, too... so, the system would need to be full fascist indeed.

Still, I stand by what I said earlier. Even if - and I doubt that - it is a realistic scenario that the dissolution of the EU will come in the form of the AfD and FN winning elections (what's more probable is that it'll start with countries in which popular referendums on exiting the EU can be forced bottom up and that wouldn't work in Germany at least, I'm not sure about France), it's still more probable that the UK loses it's unity - at least that it does so prior to that.

And no one really wants a balkanization of Europe that then will ensue.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

deleted: mispost

[kalaratiri]

To answer the question in the title:

It's not awesome at all.

I'm an English student at a Scottish university. I am effectively blind to my future as I have no idea what is going to happen to either of those countries.

[Utari Onzo]

To answer the question in the title:

It's not awesome at all.

I'm an English student at a Scottish university. I am effectively blind to my future as I have no idea what is going to happen to either of those countries.

As much as I feel your situation I think it's important to note a few things:

1) Nothing has changed right now. Britain is still in the European Union with all the rights and costs attached and will be until the 2 year period is up after Article 50 is triggered. From a timeline perspective you have at the very least 2 years before anything happens in regards to Britain's status with the EU, but more likely at least 3-5 years which should cover, or mostly cover, your studies.

2a) The language used by the SNP currently is a lot less impassioned about IndyRef 2. The language has shifted notably from pre-Referendum there absolutely will be an IndyRef 2 to "We're looking at all options and will discuss with Westminster" while keeping IndyRef on the table. The issue is there has now been 2 large referendums that Scotland has been involved with within the space of a couple of years, and it's likely Sturgeon is playing her cards close as there might be a lot less interest in having a third one so soon, and one on the same subject as a recent one. IndyRef1 was divisive enough, EURef more so. How would a closely contested IndyRef2 plan out is anyone's guess.

2b) IndyRef absolutely cannot happen in any clean manner without Westminster support. It's how the first one was able to run, and as much as Sturgeon bangs on that it'll happen, the very Act that allowed the creation of the Scottish Parliament contains an important Clause that gives Westminster the ultimate veto over anything created. If Scotland wants a managed independence and get the best gains from it if it should be successful, it absolutely needs Westminster's blessing and support and willingness to engage diplomatically. Right now the mood for that just isn't there, and it's likely to be something kicked into the long grass.

3) With all the above taken into account, none of the big players in UK politics fancies having a nasty scrap and are mostly taking a deep, collective breath and seeing how things pan out/negotiating. How long this honeymoon period lasts is anyone's guess, but right now it'd be political suicide to engage in any tit-for-tat measures to try and achieve aims. It's possible but I really strongly doubt the SNP will do something stupid like kick out all English Students from Scottish Universities, or cut their funding, nor do I think Westminster would try anything dodgy like pull money out of Scotland when May is scrambling to piece together a new National unity. Concilliation seems to be the message of the day.

So, in short, while yes the future looks scary it seems the politicians are atleast right now talking about 'options' and 'working together' rather then throwing demands and even if an IndyRef2 happened tomorrow it's likely negotiations on it would take a couple of years at the very least and during that time your rights and current priviledges should be protected.

Honestly, I think you should be worrying more about the possibility of your particular studies being dropped funding due to austerity measures of some kind, or some other bull, then anything drastic like being kicked out over politics. As for long term prospects within Scotland or further continuation of education in the coming 5-10 years I can't really predict, no one can, but considering most of Scotland's trade happens internally within the UK I highly doubt anyone with brain capacity is going to shut down the border. These are uncertain times, but nothing is going to change rapidly so long as everyone seems to be in a talking mood.

But that's just my two cents, maybe all the politicians will say fuck it and start a mutually destructive point scoring war with legislation.

[Louella Dougans]

But that's just my two cents, maybe all the politicians will say fuck it and start a mutually destructive point scoring war with legislation.

As part of the UK, people from different parts of the UK have freedom of movement and employment within the "Common Travel Area" which includes the Republic of Ireland, whose citizens also have freedom of movement and employment within the UK. No work permits or residence permits needed. The Republic of Ireland co-ordinates with the UK government on matters of immigration as a result of this.

An independent Scotland in the EU, would have to choose between the Common Travel Area, and the Schengen zone. Being part of the Schengen zone is a requirement for ALL new members, so securing an exemption from that is a pretty big requirement, and makes you wonder what this hypothetical Scotland would have to give up. I'm thinking something along the lines of: "Erdöleinnahmen aus den Mitgliedstaaten werden entsprechend den Anforderungen zentral und verteilt gesammelt." being approved during an EU council meeting prior to Scotland's membership being official, similar to the fast one pulled with the fishing revenues. Bear in mind, that if the UK leaves, there is no requirement for EU business to be translated into English.

And that would mean a whole lot more austerity.

Without an exemption from the Schengen things, then it means that Scotland has to leave the Common Travel Area. This would penalise the vast majority of the Scottish people, by greatly limiting the employment and other opportunities available to them. Want to do post-graduate research at Oxford or Cambridge as those institutes have the best facilities for your subject ? Well, you better hope that the Home Office looks favourably upon you, because you lose that automatic right to do that, and you'd need a permit.

And there would also be customs borders. There'd have to be. Which would mean that although the 11Bn of exports to Europe would be OK, the 44Bn of exports to the rest of the UK would be penalised.

meanwhile, the SNP are abandoning the idea of "you'd be better off in an independent scotland", in favour of the idea "you'll be worse off, but have more control over how much worse you'll be off", with daft ideas like a "scottish pound" which would be pegged to Sterling, which means economic powers still reside with the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. Additionally, and this is a big deal, a "scottish pound" pegged to Sterling is a great big "KICK ME!" sign to currency speculators. Many of them would speculate greatly on it, in an attempt to break the link with Sterling, so that they would profit from it. This would of course, be detrimental to the vast majority of Scottish people, who would see their savings evaporate.

but hey! there'll be statues of Nicola, and plenty of money for her pension.

So that's Okay.

nationalism is an ideology that should have died out in Europe nearly 70 years ago. The fact that the SNP are the largest party atm in scotland is an embarrassment.

Also, I voted Remain.

lol.

[Utari Onzo]

I was more addressing the relative short term in regards to Kala who is studying in Scotland right now. The question of the Common Travel area is not one that will be addressed by way of legal enforcement for atleast two years unless the SNP brings out laws or enforces some kind of martial law or something crazy right now or within those couple of years.

Moving forward the issue of the common travel area is likely to be a mess should Scotland vote for independance. But again this assumes that there is an IndyRef 2 and one that manages to stick in such a way Westminster cannot ignore it (not really likely for the moment) and also assumes that the SNP wins (still a bit up in the air on this one till the dust settles.)

That said I'm inclined to agree should the SNP win an IndyRef2 and remain part of the EU then it will likely cause issues on the border unless the UK is also in the EEC and accepts being linked to the Schengen zone (highly debatable that it would.)

I'm hedging my bets that IndyRef2 won't be dealt with or even really looked at till after the UK is already out, in whatever kind of relationship with Europe that may be.