European Union in or out

My voting papers arrived today - glad I have plenty of time to get them back to UK as the last UK election they were a tad tight for time.

Well done GlaxoSmithklyne - or as we used to call it, Beecham- where I worked when I first came to London in 1970.

I am the only Swiss I know who was able to come to do a 'proper' job and get invaluable experience at the time- pre EU and pre reciprocal arrangements for Switzerland. Beecham had to apply for my work permit, stating the reasons why they chose me rather than a UK person- and my work permit was limited to 6 months and had to re re-applied for. All the others I know either went to a Language School (something my parents could have never afforded) all as Au Pairs. This is what would happen again for young Brits (our grand-children- well, not mine as they can have dual nationality) if Brexit goes through. There are 1000s of young Brits who go to Europe to study or do research, or search for work under the EU free movement agreement- which will no longer be possible unless they have a work contract beforehand.

Not withstanding several indictments for fraud and bribery.....(GSK - not you personally Jura)

That is interesting Jura I wondered how the visa was obtained - sounds very similar to the way a green card is applied for in USA. Did you need to pay for the visa? The green cards need to be renewed every 10 years and cost over $1K each - almost as much as citizen applications. - which is what DS intends to do now for his family - youngest DGS has dual nationality as born in US.

I worked in Germany twice before the free movement of labour was established. In both cases, I had to have a work permit, which my employers paid for. The work was arranged by the Office for Foreign Workers and the employers had to prove that I was doing jobs which were difficult to fill.

Although there was no doubt that I would obtain the permits, it was a load of hassle and time. I'm not sure how much the permits cost, but I wouldn't have received them if I'd just turned up without a job. I couldn't have left those jobs, if I'd found something better.

Over the last few years I've known loads of (mainly young) people who have worked in EU countries on a temporary basis, which has given them invaluable experience and sometimes provided work, when they couldn't find anything in the UK. I'm thinking particularly of the building boom after the reunification of Germany. I have a friend who commutes on a daily or weekly basis to Sweden. This would be much more difficult and time-consuming, if the UK weren't in the UK.

That was mentioned in the debate, granjura, as was the fact that the Swiss pay a very high price for not being full members of the EU but wanting to take part in the single market.
Both my sons partners came over here as students and stayed. I wonder if the numbers wanting to do so will fall dramatically if we leave.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/yanis-varoufakis-warns-that-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-is-being-used-to-distract-from-austerity-a7053866.html

This is an extremely interesting article by Varoufakis about the fact that the immigration debate is taking over from the austerity debate.

Yes I think it is also reflected in the extreme right wing tendency to scapegoat.

Jalmia. Sorry my post re Australia was not clear. What I meant was that i could visit many countries without the bother of a visa, but not Australia. I went to Australia regularly and had a business visa.
I misunderstood GandTea - thought perhaps you were not allowed into Australia because of sheep rustling or knocking the hat off a grand lady or something similar

Michael Gove's arguments for leave are based on assertions which have been fact-checked by the independent organisation 38 degrees -https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c07119/2d640496/619e7744/462016ab/838296967/VEsF/

This should be compulsary reading for anyone even slightly inclined to think that the Brexiters are telling the truth.

Anya I thought your quote sounded familiar and realised I have just read that book too.
Bill does have a wry but very pertinent outlook on things.

harrigran it's good if people checked their security after the posts earlier, you can't be too careful now days

Anya Have you read Bill Bryson and his books on how Britain has changed?

I know I am being a nuisance but can anyone do the article Varian has put up as a link as I don't know how to do that and would like to read the article.

secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c07119/2d640496/619e7744/462016ab/838296967/VEsF/

this may work
or not

Thank you very much - will try it now.

Yes it does work thank you.

Forgot to say- that after I returned here for a while after my 6 months work visa came to an end- DH came to visit and we really wanted to be together. Then I had a terrible car crash- and spent 7 months in hospital- and it was clear I may lose my leg, or at least be invalid for quite some time (thank goodness it turned out to be the latter)- so there was no way I could return to UK, unless we got married- so we had to, but for very different reasons t the usual 'had to'... that was 45 years + 1 day- in our local hospital.

DH's salary was very low at the time. Nowadays, as part of EU or Switzerland, I could go back to be with him once married. But this would not be possible for non EU, unless the British spouse has a salary of at least £18.000. A young couple we befriended here, he Scottish and she Thai- wanted to go back as he just couldn't get work here and she was made redundant. But as a self-employed man, they were not allowed to go back to UK as he couldn't prove he would earn the magical 18.000. In the end, she got a really good job in Scotland- and they were able to make the move. I think many people have no idea just how difficult it would be to move around Europe if we are out of EU.

I remember the days when I had to queue at airports in a different queue to DH and our baby- before I acquired UK citizenship in 73.

Please remember that the only way Switzerland was able to negotiate an agreement with EU was to give up control of borders and accept free movement of people.

It's all on www.fullfact.org
They do the checking for 38 degrees.

Daphnedill, the message lasted for 24 hours but has gone now. The message read that "the message on this page was uploaded from an unsafe site, do not open any links or attachments" sadly it couldn't tell me which message. Maybe we had someone trying to cause mischief yesterday.

Exactly, granjura. People seem to forget that if they vote to leave, they will not get free movement of goods without free movement of people.
Anyway, the bookies have remain at 6-1 on.

Why do you think it was anything to do with this site, harrigran?
You said you never look at links on here.

I read somewhere today that the leavers camp think their only hope of winning is if the turnout is low - so they are trying to make it all so boring people won't bother to vote!

Thank you Jalima for supplying the right link. I hope as many dont knows as possible read it.

varian I just cut and pasted the link and put [[ ]] around it.
Glad it worked!