To be clear: I appreciate the desire to keep parasites and micro-organisms out. I was pointing out that this is (normally) a separate issue to trade agreements. Whereas a couple of weeks ago, it seems that continental Europe was willing to accept the (presumably low) extra risk of contamination from UK foodstuffs, because that was just how membership of the EU worked. Logically, it made little sense in isolation.
While the injustice of depriving an honest truck driver of his ham sandwich might seem very petty, the reason why they have these rules is quite clear to me.
There have been some very serious animal diseases that have decimated the livestock on farms in the past. The ‘Foot and Mouth’ was a national emergency and to contain the outbreak it involved the slaughter of thousands of cattle. So too did the ‘mad cow disease’ outbreak. Dealing with these outbreaks cost millions and the countyside was locked down for a time with strict bio-security measures to try to contain its spread. Foot and Mouth still made it across the channel to The Netherlands and resulted in a desperate slaughter of large herds to stop it. A truckers half eaten lunch could easily end up as pig food and a potential vector for infection.
The UK does take biosecurity very seriously because it would have shared the same rules as other members of the EU. But now that the UK is outside of the EU there is no more recognition that the UK and EU share the same bio-security measures and food safery standards.
I guess mutual recognition of standards could have been negotiated during the UK-EU trade deal negotiations, but it seems to have been left out.
Divergence in food standards looks like it is going to be major issue for further negotiation. The UK Fishing industry exports much of its catch to the EU. The French, who have a fondness for lobster and crab caught in UK waters, are beginning to apply the regulations to the letter.
But then the UK fishermen were famously supporters of Brexit. Did they not have a little flotilla of trawlers motor up the Thames in stunt in support of Brexit led by Nigel Farage?
All this was quite predictable.
The EU does not have to do much to cause a lot of problems for UK exportes. It simply has to apply the rules regarding imports from any country outside the EU. Rules that the UK had a hand in making when it was a member of the EU. It is very easy to agree rules and regulations when they apply to someone else. When they directly affect you, it can be a shock to the system.
The EU/UK deal is thin and there is a lot more to negotiate. The application of these rules is undoubtedly a gambit to inject a bit of realism into the UK position. I would not be surprised if the UK government has a few things up its sleeve as well and we will be entertained by Brexit stories for some time to come.
No it’s not. Trade agreement negotiations will include requirements for food safety procedures in the originating country, or safety inspection at the border, or what the risks are for not instituting or requiring either. The level of detail will be also be weighed against the ease of enforcement, so not every rule will be the most lenient possible.
As @Northern_Piper pointed out above, a couple of weeks ago the UK was obliged to follow EU rules for food safety and imports from outside the EU, now they are not. Is it unlikely that issues have arisen immediately, sure, but it’s not worth it for the EU to spend the time and effort to monitor UK legislation and behavior for every area of commerce to see at what point they use the flexibility of the new reality to do something that the EU would disapprove of. That’s what “let’s limit any import of fresh meat or cheese, unless it follows these strict rules” is for.
Not at all. Safety measures can in some cases be used as a disguised protectionist measure. Therefore, safety measures are usually addressed in a trade agreement, to preserve the power of countries to continue to protect themselves, their agriculture, etc., so long as the safety measures are not really trade measures.
For example, see Chapter 9 of the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement, which preserves the right of the three countries to have ‘Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures’ at their borders, provided they follow the provisions relating to notifications and entry rules.
The law enforcement agencies found it all incredibly useful. And it allowed us to deport thousands of criminals easily, and get some deported back to the UK. Sounds like a pretty good point to me.
On the other hand, how will we be able to stop them if we don’t know they have a criminal record for rape in the first place? That sounds a lot less useful.
I didn’t say we couldn’t. I said we don’t. And it will be a long while before we do. And it will still be less rigorous than what the UK had.
Well The Guardian has historicaly been pro-EU so I would contend that this source will also distort figures in a favourable manner - however this particular article does not say what you think it does, although the Leave Campaign also distorted figures (and to be honest that is likely now to be a low figure given that the article is over 3 years old) I also note that a list of 50 murderers and rapists was used to show how serious criminals enter the UK despite having extensive criminal records, it was not intended to be a full list of ALL the serious offenders with recorded crinminal history, and it is just like the Remain campaign to try use a sample list and dress it up to something rather different.
I’m not dumb enough to believe the Leavers will also dress things up to suit themselves - however I go by what I have observed inside prisons and from other colleagues who worked in the now mostly closed Immigration Detention Centres - I could point you this very day to prison workshops employing between 70-90 foreign criminals - such as the sewing workshop in HMP Leeds for a start - and we have around 130 or more prisons in the UK so you get an idea of the scale of this - and these are the convicted ones in prison, not the ones who served their time and have been released.
The article uses terms such as the UK ‘could exclude’ and that EU membership ‘does not prevent exclusion’ this is far from being a statement such that ‘The UK WILL exclude entry on the basis of ciminal record’ furthermore it acknowledges that reporting systems are rudimentary - so clearly there are huge loopholes.
It notes 6000 were excluded since 2010 - so thats just under 600 per year - out of how entrants to the UK? Are we really saying that only 600 Euro-criminals tried to enter per year? Really?
Compare with the US, where records are provided prior to travel, somehow their agencies and ours can make it work - keep making this point, why is it that travel to the US includes the ability to view criminal records - even cautions and has been that way for years, yet our closest partners, who also deal with the US in the same terms cannot do the same with us, and us for them - becuase UK is no special little angel on sharing this information, not at all.
Having worked all those years in prisons, and seen first hand the number of foreign nationals, the figures are around 10k from around 82k prison population - not all have committed offences that would merit deportation, and many of theM are nationals from outside the EU - but how many can I say I have actually seen deported after release - ONE, just one although I saw three or four more be taken off to the Immigration detention centres until all the paperwork could be done and all the various appeals process undertaken. Its these latter things that make deportation so difficult - and a signficant part of that is rights of appeal to the EU courts, it can take a number of years to reach that level of appeal when our courts are prefectly capable of ruling one way or the other.
Think of how long it took us to offload Abu Hamsa, a known terrorist fundraiser supporter and financial backer. Most of the delay was through the EU court appeals process.
Why is it that EU criminals are not subject to the same rules of exclusion to criminals from other parts of the world? The clue is that the only difference is that they are European, no other difference at all. Leaving the EU gives us the opportunity to apply the same rules to all foreign criminals regardless of nationality - why should anyone object to all entrants being required to be subject to the same rules on criminality?
OK, I think I see now what I was missing - I was trying to draw a distinction between food for personal consumption by an individual crossing a border, and food imported for general sale. But what I hadn’t appreciated was that a difference in standards in food manufacturing could lead to an increased risk of one small item of food acting as a vector for disease (e.g. the discarded ham sandwich referenced in filmstar-en’s post above). Hence the two issues are more closely linked than I first thought.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to say that the EU should continue to go by the ‘old’ rules for some period of time, or that they were being unreasonable in enforcing the actual rules, I just didn’t make that crucial last connection until now.
I believe it was indeed Marx, but about the French aristocracy and the 'lumpenproletariat".
I honestly don’t have much stake in the Brexit argument. I just googled your claim because I felt it was so outlandish. If you want to argue that Britain allowed too many dangerous criminals into the country, or that it was too difficult to deny people access I don’t necessarily agree, but I don’t have a problem with it. But you said it was “so difficult as to be impracticable”; I think denying 3 or so people per day shows that’s inaccurate. I’ll also note that although the article is from the Guardian, the figure was given by Conservative then-immigration minister Damian Green; I’m not sure what his position on Brexit was. As you noted, the article does say that more than 50 very dangerous criminals were let in, but claims that in most cases this was due to some sort of administrative error or crack in the system.
Along with the 48.1%.
So we should only cite sources that agree with our own viewpoint?
And only accept facts that agree with our viewpoints, which is how the previous “If you ignore the xenophobia, there was no xenophobia in the Leave campaign” and “If you ignore all the things Remain were right about, Remain were wrong about everything” conclusions were reached.
No, it was from the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon but the line is as I quoted it:
We speak of two interests of the bourgeoisie, for large landed property, despite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has been rendered thoroughly bourgeois by the development of modern society. Thus the Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent.
On border security, the Home Office Select Committee went into this in some detial with the Minister for Future Borders and Immigration in November. Video of the questioning can be found here and in the three subsequent tweets. Transcript is here. (Q93 onwards). It is an illuminating conversation despite or perhaps becuase of the complete lack of direct answers from the Minister.
Q95 Chair: Okay. Let me just check then. Can we be absolutely clear about this? Currently, somebody arrives at Heathrow, or at juxtaposed controls at Calais, and their passport can be swiped and you can check them immediately against the SIS II database, correct?
Kevin Foster: Today, yes.
Q96 Chair: Yes, today, fine. In January, if Michael Gove is right and if SIS II is not available for the UK to use, if that same person arrives at the border at Heathrow or at Calais, what instantaneous checks at the border will you be able to do on whether or not they are a wanted criminal in France, Germany or Spain?
Kevin Foster: They will be checked against the range of information that we would have and potential domestic fallbacks. Officials, again, can detail in, but certainly the idea that they would not be checked against databases of who we are looking for—of course, it is not just European ones because there are suspects who are of interest to us on a more international basis.
Q97 Chair: But which databases will you be able to check them against?
Kevin Foster: There are our domestic ones in terms of our own intelligence areas, and the information-sharing arrangements we have. Again, officials may wish to come in on some of the work we are doing around central fallback options because that is one of the two—
Chair: Please, yes, somebody.
Philippa Rouse: Apologies, Minister, Chair, I simply do not have this information to hand, so I do not want to give you misinformation.
Q98 Chair: Okay. This is the system that is going to come into place in January. Minister, surely you can tell us, if you are the Minister for immigration and borders, what system will be in place in January.
Kevin Foster: To be clear, as the Minister for Future Borders and Immigration, that is my—
Chair: Future borders, exactly. January is the future.
Kevin Foster: Yes, I know. It is one of those things. We are more looking towards 1 July and ensuring that everybody’s immigration status can be checked to ensure any [inaudible] at the border. We are certainly working on a range of products that will ensure that as people come through the border we can check against a range of databases and information, obviously including our own. We have surprisingly large amounts coming through. We hope, of course, we can have constructive agreements on information sharing with the European Union, which is a mutual benefit because, of course, they benefit from our information as well.
Q99 Chair: Exactly. We are completely behind you on that. We would like you to have maximum access to all of the EU databases. We would urge the EU to provide and to agree to that as well. But Michael Gove has told us that we will not have access to SIS II, and I am still at a loss as to what databases you will be able to check anybody against. If you have somebody that is not on the UK alert system because they are a wanted criminal in Spain, or in Poland, or somewhere else in Europe, what database will you be able to check that person against at the border?
Kevin Foster: There is ongoing work to make sure we have the security systems that we need at the border. Of course, from 1 January we can also apply some of our own criminality standards at the border, which will again be an improvement in the security that we have.
Q100 Chair: How are you going to apply those criminality standards if you cannot tell whether somebody is a criminal or not because you do not have a database to check them against?
Kevin Foster: We will have a database to check information against and ongoing work on transition continues.
Q101 Chair: Which database?
Kevin Foster: Ideally, we would like to have a constructive discussion with the European Union. I would expect if we were able to move forward, others things may.
Q102 Chair: We would love that, too, but which database?
Kevin Foster: But if not, there will be domestic fallback options.
Q103 Chair: A domestic fallback option that has information about somebody who is wanted in France or in Germany? What domestic database will that be?
Kevin Foster: Our domestic databases can have information about whether people are wanted for offences in New Zealand, as you know from the recent discussion we have had around having provisional arrest and modernising our extradition proceedings. There is a range of information that we have access to, not just from Europe, of those who are a potential threat to our country. Certainly, in ending the transition period we will be able to apply our own standards at the border, which will mean that we can enhance the security of our nation, and likewise generally also the work we can do around—
It goes on, but if you were wondering if he ever says which database it is we would be using, then [spoiler warning] he does not.
Well, that told me all I need to know…
Worth noting that if you cross into the EU and register at first point of entry you then stop being an ‘illegal’. You apply for refugee status- unless of course you are an Economic migrant or some other migrant that has not right to be in the EU.
The entrants to the EU amount to a wide mix of individuals with various potential status - but it still comes down to following the EU rules that have been there for years - so by not following the rules, yes they absolutely are illegals - is that clear enough for you?
Or are you maKing a less than subtle accusation of racism? I am not interested in being popular with you, but you should get your unfounded accusations and assumptions at least slightly correct.
Nothing to do with racism, everything to do with your use of dehumanizing pejoratives.
Even trendy teens know better.
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There’s no legal obligation for an asylum seeker to claim refugee status in the first country they enter.
The Dublin regulations allow members of the EU to send refugees to the country they first registered with authorities, but this is an administrative matter between the countries. It does not create a legal obligation on asylum seekers to stay in the first country they arrive at; it does not mean they are breaking the law to move from Italy to the UK. The term “illegals” does not therefore apply.
(Cite = section 4 here which has links to relevant case law.)
One aspect of the system is referred to as the Dublin system or the Dublin Regulation. This piece of EU law provides broadly that where an asylum seeker has been fingerprinted in an EU Member State but then moves on to another EU Member State, the asylum seeker can be sent back to the first country to have the asylum claim processed there.
For example, if an asylum seeker reaches Italy, is fingerprinted then travels to the UK and claims asylum, pretty much the first thing the Home Office will do is take fingerprints, check them against the central Eurodac fingerprint database and then if a match is found notify the other country and send the asylum seeker back there pronto.
There is no legal duty or obligation on the asylum seeker to claim and remain in the first safe country and an asylum seeker who moves on is not breaking the law by doing so or disqualifying themselves from refugee status. But as a matter of administration, one EU country can send the asylum seeker back to another EU country under this system.
Thanks for that clarification.
Border security and keeping out foreign criminals was one of the central arguments for Brexit. Fostered by the regular reporting of cimes committed by foreign criminals and suggestion that the UK is hamstrung by EU rules that promote free movement of labour. This is despite the fact that the UK maintains its own free travel area with Ireland and is not part of the EU Schengen free travel area that allows free movement between EU states.
They are very keen on reporting on cases where judgement has been refered to the UK treaty obligations as a signatory of the European Covention on Human Rights and the European Court that adjudicates whether judgements in court cases conflict with the treaty.
It has Europe in the title, so that this process is often conflated with all things EU. In fact it is a quite seperate treaty designed in the post war years with the rather enlightened idea of discouraging states from slipping into the excesses seen in Fascist and Stalinist regimes.
Sensationalising the threat to the UK sovereignty from these European authorities has been the a constant theme in the press. It is quite common to hear the complaint in the UK that something cannot be done because it infringes someones ‘Human Rights’, as if that was a bad thing.
The UK has always had control of its borders with the EU and they make a great show it. Arrive at an airport in the UK and you will be greeted by immigration officers that inspect your passport before you go through customs checks and you are carefully photographed. A key difference with European states is that there is no identity card in the UK and you are not obliged to carry around identification at all times or risk arrest. Once you are past the border, it is easier to slip under the radar in the UK and there is a legion of people working illegaly, keeping themselves to themselves, doing all the undesirable jobs that UK voters really do not want to do, but are essential to society.
If only the UK public would give up some of their liberty and give the government the tools they need to monitor the population through a comprehensive tracking system, this threat from foreign criminals could be solved. But for some reason the public does not really trust the UK government not to abuse these powers. It has, perhaps, something to do with the fact they a track record of passing laws supposedly to protect against that other existential threat, terrorism, and these laws have been abused. Anyone remember the Section 44 of the Terrorism Act in 2000. That was used by the police to detain people caught taking photos in public places, just in case they are plotting a terrorist attack. It was quickly used to arrest anyone with a camera that they did not like of until the abuses were exposed. The UK government has a track record in passing bad, poorly thought out laws during emergencies that subsequently get taken apart in the courts.
There have been proposals to create a new UK Bill of Rights to clearly state what the government can and cannot do to replace the treaty obligation that requires reference to the authority of the European Court of Human Rights on cases that conflict with treaty obligations.
A new Bill of Rights would be quite a signifcant piece of constitutional legislation and all governments are mindful of the amount of time this would take when there are other more pressing things they may wish to pursue in their political program.
The fact is that criminals are not detered by any these measures. Identity cards, pervasive cameras, border guards, or any laws that politicians think up. They will either break them of evade them. It is kind of their job description.
Nonetheless, the Brexit argument has been that the UK will be a safer place if border controls are strengthened and the UK is released from any oversight that comes as with signing up to international treaties, especially those associated with Europe. The suggestion is that these obligations hinder UK politicians from passing really strong laws to deal with these threats efficiently and so the UK should take back this power by withdrawing from them.
However, by withdrawing from these international organisations you lose the benefits and in the case of dealing with crime, the intelligence sharing between countries which helps track the activities of criminals whose careers are international.
What hope is there of dealing with crime like drug smuggling if the UK police only has access to its own domestic criminal intelligence? It is fighting the problem with one hand tied behind its back.
The UK-EU agreement relegates the UK to ‘third country status’ with respect the access to criminal intelligence databases available to EU members. Intelligence that the UK has spent many years building and has used effectively on many joint operations with the police forces of other EU states. This is the loss of an important asset, throwing away a long term investment in dealing with organised crime that is increasingly international and is very active on the Internet. These days criminals can commit crime remotely, from other countries and international co-operation between police forces is essential. There are no borders in cyberspace.
The UK public were never very aware of all this co-operation amongst EU states when they made the Brexit vote. It was never explained.
So now, after Brexit, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. The UK is beginning to find out what it has lost. The UK-EU trade deal will paper over some of the major issues in the short term
It is not as if there were not warnings about this.
I guess this is another important detail that will merit further negotiation with the EU.
I have a feeling there is a lot more to come.
Look, what you have to understand is that the gunshot wounds in our feet with eventually heal and our feet will be even stronger, unfettered by the confines of European shoes!
Or something like that. This analogy needs work.
Ah! Appealing to “gesundes Volksempfinden”, a perfectly valid way of obfuscating your plans to evade taxes.