Brexit: the negotiation process

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In response to the government White Paper: The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union, the Mayor released a paper entitled "London's Global and European Future"

In this the Mayor responded to the twelve priorities in the government’s White Paper on Brexit, focussing on issues affecting the capital. The main elements of the Mayor’s response are:
- A call for a guarantee that all EU citizens presently living in the UK can stay post Brexit
- That there needs to be an interim trade agreement that ensures current market access arrangements are retained during the negotiations, if they last longer than two years, until the UK’s future relationship with the EU is finalised
- That we need to retain, or better, the current EU environmental regulations that benefit London
- That more clarity is needed around possible future immigration policy, and London needs the ability to determine how much immigration it should receive if the government can’t guarantee the levels necessary for its economy
- That there should be increased devolution of fiscal powers to London, to help the capital respond to the challenges of Brexit
- That we need effective data and intelligence sharing arrangements with European Union member states to detect and prevent crime and terrorism

What do you think of this approach? Do you think there are other issues that should be raised with central government to secure the best deal for London?

The discussion ran from 15 March 2017 - 15 June 2017

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Comments (148)

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Thanks everyone for sharing your views.

The Brexit negotiations are still ongoing. Today, the Mayor commissioned an independent economic analysis for London. The report will be published in January 2018. You can read more about it here: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-commissions-brex…

We'll keep you posted.

Talk London

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Don't worry be happy.

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I think it may be time to wind up this conversation as all it does is stoke further division. The British people were asked whether to leave or remain, I voted to remain, however, the decision has been made and we are out. This mean leaving...

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I think it may be time to wind up this conversation as all it does is stoke further division. The British people were asked whether to leave or remain, I voted to remain, however, the decision has been made and we are out. This mean leaving the EU, this means leaving the single market and leaving the customs union. Lastly I would add that both Labour and the Conservatives have explicit leave manifestos in their last election and all sides both left and right agree the will of the British people must be respected or there will be a blood bath. In terms of the final results of negotiation why speculate, as it is the EU 27 that decide on the terms, no party can bring pressure on the EU to arrive at any decision. I feel the media greatly exagerate the effect of Brexit on all of our lives, take a step back, society has a collective consciousness of the time before the EU and we were all fine. I see little point in a second referendum when over 80% of people in this country voted for pro-Brexit parties we already know the result. Everyone take a chill pill and calm down, perhaps don't watch news for three months then you won't be effected by biased media for or against whipping up division

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The will of 52% of the population, the other 48% voted remain. The media certainly haven't spent as much time as I have in reading through the treaties, and debunking the Brexit arguments as a result. Why is it the Brexiters can threaten a...

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The will of 52% of the population, the other 48% voted remain. The media certainly haven't spent as much time as I have in reading through the treaties, and debunking the Brexit arguments as a result. Why is it the Brexiters can threaten a bloodbath, your words, yet the other half of the country must turn the other cheek, I don't like bullies and they won't convince me on that basis.
Back to the good old days?, they might have been back in the 50's when I was born, but by the 70's we were a basket case, are those the days you are refering to?, better remove the rose tinted spectacles.
I only read the biased media to research their latest lies and then debunk them.
Since this is a London forum and the majority for remain was far more than 52%, why should we give up fighting?, last year took its heavy toll on me, which means I can only research now and no longer actively campaign but it doesn't stop me from defending and promoting the cause I stand for and which is about to be denied for my limited time on Earth and for all subsequent generations that have no vote in the matter and will not enjoy all the benefits I have had.
If I wanted to be as nasty about this as the Brexit supporters have been, then Nissan can close their car plant and relocate to its biggest market (EU) so Sunderland realises it has just voted to be unemployed, followed by London demanding back the £20Bn we pay to the rest of the country, including the DUP payoff, note that half of that paid the entire EU bill for everybody. At this point N.I. will realise that it needs to stay in the EU and votes to join a United Ireland, it doesn't need Westminster permission, unlike Scotland, as it already has it as part of the agreements.
But then I am not a nasty person and won't join them in the gutter, not yet anyway, but when push comes to shove then I will lower my standards to their level. Treason? maybe but they can't lock up 48% of the population, that is civil war. If they proceed in this dictatorial way, ignoring FACTS, we won't remain nice about it any longer.

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But I'm not a Brexiteer I voted remain, however I recognise that ship has sailed and the decision is made. We live in a democracy and we must respect the outcome, this does not mean we need to accept or adapt or amend any part of the...

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But I'm not a Brexiteer I voted remain, however I recognise that ship has sailed and the decision is made. We live in a democracy and we must respect the outcome, this does not mean we need to accept or adapt or amend any part of the process. But to leave the EU means we are leaving the single market and customs union. In terms of the negotiation I agree in a full and healthy debate around the issues having accepting we are leaving. I point out that it is the other EU countries who decide what is and is not possible. My view is Brexit is settled the country has moved on and we need to be dealing with a balanced austerity and the result of the last general election. I didn't say that before joining the EU all was rosey, but equally you cannot suggest that leaving the EU we will be destroyed, we have a perfectly good working democracy, it was the balance between the state and the unions that created issues. I think the media storm needs to move on from Brexit and stop fanning division within our great country.

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AlisonPrice wrote:

" Sorry but in or out of the EU is not going to pay the rent or put food on the table."

I think leaving the EU and the Single Market will decrease the number of jobs available - certainly in the financial sector, but...

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AlisonPrice wrote:

" Sorry but in or out of the EU is not going to pay the rent or put food on the table."

I think leaving the EU and the Single Market will decrease the number of jobs available - certainly in the financial sector, but elsewhere as well Our major car industry is not 100% UK owned and our various car manufacturing partners from France, Germany & Japan joined primarily because we are in the EU. So - there is a great danger that leaving the EU will indeed not help to pay the rent or put food on the table.

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The Mayor is failing to represent Remain-voting London because he is not pressing for a referendum on the terms of Brexit

The 2016 referendum was a valid democratic act. So the Government is right to take Brexit forward.

But the Leave...

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The Mayor is failing to represent Remain-voting London because he is not pressing for a referendum on the terms of Brexit

The 2016 referendum was a valid democratic act. So the Government is right to take Brexit forward.

But the Leave campaign did not have a manifesto. The Leave campaign as a conscious policy decision let different campaigners propose different ideas for post-Brexit Britain. While I am sure that every Leave voter knew what they wanted, none knew what they would get. None knows even today. The general election did not help - both main parties promised what we might call aspirational visions of the Brexit we would get. We will only know what Brexit means (apart from Brexit, obvs) when the terms of the settlement have been agreed with the EU.

So the 2016 result is provisional. No-one takes a project from idea to implementation without reviewing the project plan. So there should be a referendum on the terms once these have been agreed with the EU. The options would be "Brexit on the agreed terms, or Remain?"

Write to your MP asking them to obtain a referendum on the terms by amending the Government's next bit of Brexit legislation. Find her/his e-address here:
http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

More on my Facebook page: Campaign for the Real Referendum - on the Terms of Brexit.

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Please ,Please, Please
We are leaving the EU.
We will go through a divorce process, from experience this will involve lots of name calling, distribution of wealth and the kids will be upset.
Don't keep trying to change the path it does not...

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Please ,Please, Please
We are leaving the EU.
We will go through a divorce process, from experience this will involve lots of name calling, distribution of wealth and the kids will be upset.
Don't keep trying to change the path it does not help, get on with the job of promoting London, England, United Kingdom, our places, our products, our people.
Fortunately we are not going to have more and more referenda until we get the right result. We are leaving. We will be fine, the world will not end, the sun will keep coming up in the East and setting in the West, we will keep paying taxes.

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Totally agree.

And please, please stop misinterpreting a vote for Labour as a vote against a so-called "hard Brexit". It is not. It is a vote against a Tory vision of a small-state, low-tax, deregulated future. It is a vote against...

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Totally agree.

And please, please stop misinterpreting a vote for Labour as a vote against a so-called "hard Brexit". It is not. It is a vote against a Tory vision of a small-state, low-tax, deregulated future. It is a vote against welfare cuts, food banks, NHS cuts, education cuts, etc.

The out-of-touch elite think the only thing voters care about is Brexit. Sorry but in or out of the EU is not going to pay the rent or put food on the table.

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Thank you for all your comments.The Mayor recently posted his views on the future of EU nationals in London on his Twitter account.Talk London

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The rhetoric coming out of Downing St has been aggressive and demanding, it is been unhelpful at best, belligerant at worse. Someone ought to remind them that we lack the gunboats and have no aircraft for our lovely new carrier.
As of June...

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The rhetoric coming out of Downing St has been aggressive and demanding, it is been unhelpful at best, belligerant at worse. Someone ought to remind them that we lack the gunboats and have no aircraft for our lovely new carrier.
As of June 23rd 2016 the EU nationals living here thought their lives were safe, the following day when the results came in this all changed and it was only after then that EU nationals arriving in the UK knew we were leaving.
Now we get a 5 year proposal from the government, that is playing with peoples lives and that is not the British way of doing things. As far as I am concerned we should have said, right after the result, that any EU national living in the UK could remain and come and go as they wish. But no, lets us be belligerant about it, threaten their lives and wreck them as much as we can.
I got fed up explaining how the ills being blamed on the EU were the direct fault of our own government and eventually it will all still be the same and too late then to change our minds.
London will suffer as a result and on that basis we should be demanding that the £20Bn we send to the rest of the UK each year is kept in London to mitigate our losses, well at least in the boroughs that voted remain anyway, note that £20Bn is twice the £10Bn that was sent to the EU so £10Bn is the very minimum we should keep, we did after all fund the EU on behalf of all the UK. If people really think this is a sovereignty issue then London wants its money back for the same reasons, we don't want unelected bureaucrats in Whitehall making decisions on our money either.
London should be given more control over the people it wants and needs while we look after our EU residents, not give them an 85 page form to detail their entire life history if, unlike me, they can remember it all.

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I don't have strong feelings about the issue of who can and cannot stay after Brexit. You put your case very well and I respect your view.

However, I don't think we can go around meting out financial punishments to communities who voted...

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I don't have strong feelings about the issue of who can and cannot stay after Brexit. You put your case very well and I respect your view.

However, I don't think we can go around meting out financial punishments to communities who voted this way and that. London has lots of pockets of acute financial need, for example people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. We need to pay out on the basis of need, not how the majority of people voted in a given area. It is also important to remember that many of the people who work in London actually live outside it, in places where most people voted to leave the EU.

My late mother was a citizen of the USA. She was granted permanent residence in the UK after she married my father. She subsequently stayed in the UK for 30 years. She worked here, payed tax and, at various times in her life, she received Child Benefit, tax credit, Income Support and the state pension, just the same as any citizen of the UK. The only thing she couldn't do was vote. (She wanted to vote UKIP!) She did keep every single bank statement she ever had since she arrived in the UK, just in case the British authorities wanted proof of how long she had lived here. However, she survived the immigration system and millions of other UK residents from outside the EU have done exactly the same. If people from the rest of the EU have to apply to become permanent residents, I'm sure they will manage just fine, too.

I think there are pros and cons about Brexit. It is true that the economy will have to stop endlessly growing. (I sense some changes in the economy already, though I doubt Brexit is the main reason.) However, my personal view is that the pros of Brexit outweigh the cons and that's why I voted to leave the EU. For example, I think there will be a considerable improvement to the current housing situation in London.

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You made a valid point about people from outside the UK and later the EU, but EU citizens have/had the same rights as UK citizens and I haven't kept all my bank statements, utility bills, payslips etc either, made worse by the fact I moved...

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You made a valid point about people from outside the UK and later the EU, but EU citizens have/had the same rights as UK citizens and I haven't kept all my bank statements, utility bills, payslips etc either, made worse by the fact I moved to the EU, destroying my past in the process and due to family circumstances back here I had to return and now because the return it has hastened my health problems I am stuck.
I was being tsarcastic about excluding boroughs but quite serious about the outflow of money from London, it did in the end send out more than twice the cost of the EU to the country.
Our needs in London as you have stated include Grenfell Tower and that £20Bn will reclad and fit sprinklers to every block in London, give out funds to schools (that are having grants cut, NHS (London), police, fire and everything else that is short of funds and still leave cash in the bank.
So I fight and campaign for London as should every other Londoner on this issue, only NI can leave the UK of its own choice, that is part of the Good Friday agreements, Scotland like London cannot leave so we must fight our own corner and not be used as a cash cow for the rest of the country to milk, even if May has bribed the DUP, probably out of London money in the first place.
As for improvements to London housing, well we can stop foreign speculators that don't live here, many countries have laws against foreign ownership of property, pity we didn't bring in our own laws, as we could have done even in the EU. We could equally have dealt with the benefits outflows by legally restricting them to only UK resident dependents, so much that was wrong is the fault of our own government and so a sledgehammar has cracked a nut with shrapnel in all directions.

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Can we please stop looking at negatives, stop looking at how we can change decisions made and stop trying to go against the democratic process.
We are leaving the EU and it is very much a time to move forward, look at the prospects and...

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Can we please stop looking at negatives, stop looking at how we can change decisions made and stop trying to go against the democratic process.
We are leaving the EU and it is very much a time to move forward, look at the prospects and opportunities that will present, shout about how wonderful our country and city is, how great it is to do business here, how great it is to live here, how great it is to visit.
We have so much more to offer than we are currently talking down. Theatres are full, tourist numbers are up, restaurants and hotels are busy, shops are trading well, the city is booming, we have some of the best infrastructure of any capital city, we have some of the best architecture, public spaces, people, events and attractions as compared to most of the major cities around Europe. stand on the rooftops and shout about it.
we have an elected mayor here that should be carrying out this role on our behalf, unfortunately he isn't so we must.

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What "Against the democratic process" ???
The British public are ALLOWED TO CHANGE THEIR MIND

As was demonstrated in the General Election, yes?
Why should they not be allowed to change their mind over Brexit, given the lies & fantasies...

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What "Against the democratic process" ???
The British public are ALLOWED TO CHANGE THEIR MIND

As was demonstrated in the General Election, yes?
Why should they not be allowed to change their mind over Brexit, given the lies & fantasies promulgated by Farage & BoJo?
Eh?

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I believe that leaving the EU will seriously damage the UK economy.

Just because it is "..the will of the people..." should not make it so if it is actually against the interests of the UK. We have not had a referendum on Capital...

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I believe that leaving the EU will seriously damage the UK economy.

Just because it is "..the will of the people..." should not make it so if it is actually against the interests of the UK. We have not had a referendum on Capital Punishment because successive UK governments do not want to bring back the death penalty and they know full well that there might well be a majority in favour. (Capital Punishment, by the way, does not mean just living in a major city with poor infrastructure...)

You state that London has some of the best infrastructure of any capital city and that is true - but it also has some of the worst as well. Not enough money over the decades has been spent on infrastructure and we are paying the price now. We should take a lesson in this regard from our European friends. It is a fact that successive UK Governments have allowed our rail networks to be owned by interests outside the UK, meaning that we pay a high price for our travel and keep the prices down in other countries. See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/18/foreign-state-owned-railway-…

You state:
"Theatres are full, tourist numbers are up, restaurants and hotels are busy, shops are trading well, the city is booming, "

Well, many ordinary Londoners cannot afford theatre, restaurant and hotel prices because their income goes mainly on housing, food and travel! With the UK Pound down against the Euro, it is only EU visitors and wealthy Londoners who can afford these things.

Ordinary people will not benefit from leaving the EU - quite the contrary.

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It shows the weakness and lack of drive with this government.
Firstly we knew it would be a bumpy ride but all this government want is £££££.
This year long wait to say all families from EU can stay with 5 year residency should...

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It shows the weakness and lack of drive with this government.
Firstly we knew it would be a bumpy ride but all this government want is £££££.
This year long wait to say all families from EU can stay with 5 year residency should state any child receiving benefits must reside in the UK.
They could also use the term "permanent residency". As was my wife from Malaysia who has lived here over 45 years.
I should add that anyone within two years of living here gets a serious criminal conviction they should be expelled. Non of this depriving me of a family life. You should have thought of that before. The government should not skimp on spending money on setting up new controls etc
I believe there should be free movement with a passport. So if say a Spaniard comes to UK he should have a verifiable address where he/she is staying and so should British people if going to the EU.
People who wish to work here and vice versa should have a work permit.
Another important point:
We will not get a good deal. If we did the two or three other countries who wish to leave will want to also.
I cannot understand why we cannot be like Norway, with a bit of tweaking.

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Stopping EU citizens - and all other citizens from outside the EU - from coming to the UK for free medical treatment on the NHS unless we have a reciprocal arrangement with them.

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Hi all,Once again, some parts of this debate are becoming heated. We'd like to remind users of our community guidelines, in particular these parts:Remain respectful:Please be respectful when posting on the Talk London community; use clear, friendly language and remember most misunderstandings occur because it’s sometimes difficult to convey tone in text.It’s your right to disagree with an opinion, but don’t attack the person or people who hold it and please make your point respectfully. Thanks,Talk London Team 

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I know you think I am trying to "convince" or "correct" you as an individual, but honestly I have better things to worry about in my life than what someone on a web forum thinks - I have simply been putting an alternative point of view to...

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I know you think I am trying to "convince" or "correct" you as an individual, but honestly I have better things to worry about in my life than what someone on a web forum thinks - I have simply been putting an alternative point of view to yours on some of the issues we have been discussing. You really do attach an overestimated view of your own importance if you really think I am trying to make it a mission to somehow "convert" you. So just to be clear for the record, I am merely arguing for what I believe and challenging the point of view that you espouse which, by the way, is exactly what you have been doing with me. And that's fine, surely. We are all entitled to our own views and surely as adults we can discuss the issues on a forum without needing to accuse each other of trying to "convert".

Regards the Government being as you call it "hardline brexit", well we have an election now so we have to see the situation afterwards. I do hope IF the current Government is returned with a massively increased majority that it finally persuades "hardline" remainers to accept that this is what the majority of people want i.e. at the moment remainers keep saying (wrongly) that brexiters had no idea what they were voting for, did not express a view on the "type" of brexit etc. There is actually no such thing as a "hard" brexit and a "soft" brexit. These terms are a construct of nonsense by remainers like Tim Farron. There is either "brexit" or "no brexit". If you stay members of the single market, continue to cede control of your own population numbers to automatic free movement over which your own parliament has no control, and allow the European courts to have supremacy in law, that is not actually leaving the EU, that is remaining within it.

Regards the question of status of EU citizens I was actually trying to be nice to you Alex in trying to reassure you that you won't be deported (God knows why I was trying to be nice given how aggressive you have been to me on this forum), but I won't bother anymore.

You say "there could be a debate on how much migration is "reasonable" if the press and the right wingers weren't acting like absolute thugs about it the whole time". That's exactly what I have been trying to do with you on this forum, have a debate about it, and look how you have responded!!!!!! You identify anyone who believes current levels are far too high as "right wing" and by default "thugs". That sums up the problem with the immigration debate in this country over many years - people on the left always try to say anyone against uncontrolled immigration is a "thug", so for many years people did not talk about it. And now it has reached a crisis point. Personally I think the Government's suggestion of tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, is sensible - these are the levels it use to be before the sudden increase from the early 2000's. If you want a debate Alex about it you can state your own view on a sensible number, but if you want to stay in the EU you can't actually enforce any limit anyway. You give the impression (because you use words like "thugs" etc) that your instinct is that people who think migration numbers should be lower are somehow dangerous. I once heard a Green Party spokesman say he thought present numbers were too low, and we should increase it to at least 700,000 people per year net increase. Where on earth he thought all those people were going to live I have no idea. That's the sort of thinking I call dangerous.

Regards xenophobia what I am saying is that wanting migration numbers reduced is not xenophobic. I don't fear or hate foreigners Alex. I have friends of many nationalities, just because I might not want 1 million more Polish people (for example) to come here over the next 2-3 years does not mean that I don't like Polish people, it just means I don't want to live in a severely overcrowded country. I explain it in these very simplistic terms because your posts do indicate that you think of people like me as xenophobic. You may well want to live in an overcrowded country, but most British people don't want this - and it's nothing to do with xenophobia. A few days ago in a council ward election in Harrow the Conservative candidate beat the Labour candidate and won the seat. This seat is 60% Asian, and has not been Conservative for over 40 years. The Asian vote normally votes Labour, but they are now also sending a message that they support brexit for some of the same reasons I have been describing - they don't want the overcrowding and pressure on rent levels either, they are suffering from this as much as everyone else. I assume it would not even occur to you to think of this Asian community as xenophobic.

I work with 2 EU citizens (French and Portuguese) and both of them tell me life is as normal, and my father's Polish neighbours also say they have had no abuse.

On your cheap NHS point, if we keep growing our population by such vast numbers we will need more and more nurses and doctors to look after the extra people. There are approximately 55,000 NHS workers from the EU - but those 55,000 are needed to care for the other 3 million+ EU citizens living here - including you Alex. So please don't lecture about nurse numbers - we only need so many because of the size of the population. Once brexit is concluded the Government (if it so chooses) can drastically reduce low skilled migration numbers so the population growth gradually slows, whilst at the same time implementing a work permit scheme where it chooses what skills we need - and if we need more nurses then they can issue permits for nurses and health workers. Under EU freedom of movement there was no ability to control the proportion of nurses and doctors in relation to the overall numbers each year - the whole point of leaving is to be able to control and influence such things for the better.

Of course on LGBT rights we have made massive progress over the last 15 years - but that has absolutely nothing to do with the EU as far as I am aware. I am sure you must hate the fact that it was actually a Conservative Prime Minister that brought us equal marriage.

Anyhow we had better let you get back to fighting the election campaign, so I won't post any further as I think we have both exhausted all the issues from our own respective points of view. Good luck with trying to overturn brexit with a new PM on 8 June - after all if 48% of people agree with you then there must be a good chance to change things. Keep denying the effects of mass migration on this country, that is what the current Labour Party is doing and as you can see it's going really well for them!

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Well, you're the one who keeps appealing to me as if you know me, which obviously you don't. I don't care about changing your mind either, but I do reserve the right to defend myself from patronizing ad hominems. "I explain it in these...

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Well, you're the one who keeps appealing to me as if you know me, which obviously you don't. I don't care about changing your mind either, but I do reserve the right to defend myself from patronizing ad hominems. "I explain it in these simplistic terms" - seriously? And I'm the disrespectful one?

Not sure what gave you the idea that immigration is about crowdedness. If some parts of the country are crowded, then surely there are internal factors that could be used to reduce it (such as not displacing people unmanageably far from their jobs with unrealistic rents, building something attractive in rural areas so more people might actually want to live there and not just London, etc etc). It's such an easy way out of a complex topic to say it's crowded because migrants, and you either like it that way or you must necessarily want migrants out.

On that note: yes, it's literally a right wing principle to be against immigration and multiculturalism, or believing at least that they should be "curtailed". And there is a documented overlap between right wingers and xenophobes, resulting in the debate being easily mired in xenophobia and racism. Of course in an ideal situation it would be possible to talk about anything without bias, but we're not living in that ideal situation. Pretending otherwise is literally dangerous to marginalized people.

Labour is defending migration and the EU now? Last I checked Corbyn was a brexit supporter/apologist and pretty much killed off any appeal of Labour as an alternative to Tory. That's their issue.

My life is largely "normal" too. I don't work in professions that are stereotypically associated with EU migrants so I'm not on the front line, and I socialize with a broad range of people in multicultural parts of London. That alone doesn't mean there is no threat (such as the uncertainty of EU citizens' status) or that the country isn't experiencing a high level of hate speech and bigotry. There is a difference between just looking at your immediate situation and taking the context of the whole society into account. I've said very little about my day to day life here and yet you keep making these assumptions. That's not what this is about.

You are missing why I pointed out the nursing shortage. I said as opposed to the promise of the NHS being better off outside the EU (whatever gave brexiters that idea), the hostile climate following the vote has actually resulted in worsening the situation already! That's the relevant bit to this debate, not how political parties and the NHS will scramble to fix it in the future. That side of it is frankly not my fault or problem.

The EU guarantees your human rights because the UK Human Rights Act is an implementation of EU policies, in addition to the UK being governed by the ECHR (both of which May plans to get rid of if she remains in power). There are also several processes for individuals to appeal to EU institutions if their human rights are being violated by an EU member state, which obviously won't apply either if the UK becomes a non-member.

How come you're "not aware" of this? You voted in the referendum, you should have been familiar with what the EU does before making such a sweeping decision as to leave it.

I don't "hate" the fact that marriage equality was legalized regardless of who did it, even if it is by far not the only LGBT issue in the world. (It's just the most "respectable" one, which is why it became acceptable to the Tories in the first place.) You must however be aware that the PM who agreed to it isn't the one who's in power now. Theresa May has voted against or abstained from voting on every LGBT rights issue since at least 1998, when she voted against equalizing the age of consent. That's your Tory party leader now, not David Cameron. If she gets back in following the snap election, do you honestly think your rights are better off with her party than with the EU?

Anyway, let me finish this by addressing the conceit that brexit opponents are irrational and denying facts:

1) There is a high level of xenophobia following the referendum, including a recorded spike in hate crime - fact.

Ad 1) I never claimed all British people were xenophobic or that talking about immigration in itself was xenophobic. I'm saying the way it is currently done in British politics and mainstream media is such that racism and xenophobia have become normalized and common. This is a problem, it is happening, and if all you do is keep denying it and moving the goalposts every time it's brought up ("it happens in other countries too", "some Asians voted for a tory one time", "I spoke to two EU citizens who didn't complain about anything"), it won't be meaningfully solved. I bet all these people would be thrilled about being used as token props in your brexit argument.
I can counter your anecdotes with mine, for instance that the Asian people among my friends and loved ones are remainers and even concerned about brexit fuelling racism against them (irrespective of their citizenship status). That's why anecdotes aren't a scientific sample; they only apply to that specific situation and can't be generalized.

2) Uncertainty of EU citizens' status in the UK following brexit, and the unwillingness of the government to do anything about it - fact.

3) Fascist language in the media and from politicians - fact.
See "crush the saboteurs" just last week, "enemies of the people", "red, blue and white brexit", the "breaking point" nazi poster with Farage, etc etc.

4) Portraying basic principles of democracy (like the opposition being allowed to oppose) as undemocratic - fact.
See every single brexiter crying that questioning anything about the referendum is "undemocratic". It's not. Or May's increasingly authoritarian rhetoric.

5) Increasing divisions in British society - fact. Just look at the demographics of the vote, and pay particular attention to young people being forced to live with something they overwhelmingly didn't support for the longest out of anyone.

6) Scapegoating immigration as the reason for every legitimate problem in the country - fact.

7) Stereotyping immigrants as either job "stealers" or benefit scroungers or somehow both - fact.

8) Tories planning to repeal the Human Rights Act and leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR - fact.

9) Referendum based on misinformation, outright lies (e.g. the £350 million for the NHS) and headlines fanning irrational anti-immigrant sentiment - fact. You can still look all this up.

10) Unchallenged belief that things were better in the past, in spite of all the evidence of improvements made since then - fact. You did it just earlier too.

11) Studies claiming an economic benefit to brexit getting debunked one by one - fact.

12) Brexiters unwilling to acknowledge any problems as being serious and worthy of attention - fact.

I believe a society with these issues will ultimately be worse for everybody, natives and immigrants alike. Now you might disagree with that, not care, or even be willing to make all the above sacrifices just to make sure immigrants also have nothing. That's your opinion, fine, but acting as if all of these issues are made up by EU supporters is just dishonest.

And that's a big irony if you think it's my duty to campaign in a snap election I can't even vote in, in order to fix the very same country brexiters keep saying us foreigners shouldn't "meddle" in!

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It is possible to live somewhere and still think critically about it (or, in brexiter parlance, "slag off"). Just because I need to stay in this country for the time being doesn't mean I'm required to shut up about every single thing that's...

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It is possible to live somewhere and still think critically about it (or, in brexiter parlance, "slag off"). Just because I need to stay in this country for the time being doesn't mean I'm required to shut up about every single thing that's wrong with it - and there are plenty of things wrong. Plenty of people are disgusted with where the country's going, but can't just up and leave this very minute. Leaving on your own terms when you and your partner are ready is a completely different situation from one person being deported for doing nothing wrong. Nothing confusing about this.

Regarding your comments:

"Another irony is your visceral hatred at the fact that so many people (often but not exclusively migrants) have to live in multi-occupancy conditions, often maybe 8 - 15 people in one house, sleeping on floors etc in extreme cases. I agree, its awful. But Alex you don't seem to understand that 15 years ago this did not exist in Britain - this has come as a direct result of mass migration."

If you ever experienced those conditions you'd have a visceral hatred for them too. And yet, despite the fact that I'm the one who survived it until I got my own flat, I don't turn around and blame the issue on the victims. There are plenty of countries with high immigration where these humiliating conditions are not the norm. Blaming it all on migrants is just lazy. The number isn't so high as to completely paralyze the housing market, and thinking there is only one reason the market here is this broken is just unrealistic. Other countries cope with migration.

"you have no idea what a beautiful country Britain was even just 15-20 years ago, how we could all afford our rents, how we could all move around on our roads and trains hassle free. If only I could take you back in a time machine, you would not recognise where you are."

Something tells me this little utopia didn't work out as well as you paint it for anyone other than white, able-bodied, non-LGBT people. But yes, sure, the trains were emptier.

"coupled with the pro mass migration agenda (because you cannot bring yourself to believe in migration control because you think it is automatically xenophobic to do so)"

Stop analyzing my reasons. I don't need to believe something is "automatically" xenophobic if I keep seeing actual, practical xenophobia every day. It's funny you'd call my reasoning lazy when all you've been doing in this discussion is regurgitate the same anti-migration agenda, but somehow that's more legitimate because you say so.

"you just keep posting meaningless political philosophy and empty phrases that will be great for the ultra hard left environment of your university coffee room, but have no meaning in the real world."

As opposed to what, the meaningless right-wing catchphrases ("take back control", "flood of migrants", "red, blue and white brexit", "if you don't like it then leave") that have become the mainstays of the media and politics lately?

"I have asked about four times what you actually want the Government to do to reduce the cost of renting, seeing as you don't want to accept we simply need to dampen demand (i.e. number of people)"

Your "solution" hasn't been tested either. I did suggest concrete ideas in other comments, which you should know since you've been clearly stalking them, but here's some more: introduce regulation of rent prices (oh no, what a commie idea, but it would work). Or, alternatively, stop selling off land to developers who then build "affordable" housing that at £1,500/month for a studio is not affordable, and as a result the new builds stand empty or underoccupied. Thus the ever higher demand and lower living standards in the older builds, as well as the rise in homelessness. Plenty of solutions here that don't involve demonizing immigration.

No one's saying that the EU is free of problems. Claiming that the UK will have less exploitation of poor workers and cheap labor if it leaves the EU has no foundation in reality though, especially considering its current government. The logic for forming the EU was to prevent European countries from waging war with each other, something that had wrecked the world more than once before. That capitalism finds ways to exploit that system doesn't mean the EU in itself is bunk, or that the UK alone will have a better track record of workers' rights. (In fact, the UK's track record is demonstrably worse, but trust brexiters to always pin the blame on everything but the UK. So much for "taking back control.")

One last time: I am not interested in you talking down to me just because I don't share your views on migration being the root of all economic evil. You can just accept we won't agree and stop.

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You really are very paranoid. No one is going to deport you. But you hate the place and are planning to leave when you are ready on your own terms anyway.

On the substantive question of the effects of mass migration you are right, we are...

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You really are very paranoid. No one is going to deport you. But you hate the place and are planning to leave when you are ready on your own terms anyway.

On the substantive question of the effects of mass migration you are right, we are clearly not going to agree. Just for the factual record there is no comparable country in the world that has such migration levels in relation to our size and existing population density. ENGLAND has a population density of c.413 people per sqkm. Contrast this with Scotland at around just 68 people per sqkm. This explains the difference in the Brexit vote between England and Scotland. This is ONS data and note the supporting comment:

"England has become the most overcrowded major country in Europe. Population growth is so rapid that four times as many people will soon be crammed in as France and twice as many as Germany. England has overtaken the Netherlands to become second only to tiny Malta as the most densely populated nation in the EU".

You say in your post that "there are plenty of countries with high immigration where these humiliating conditions are not the norm" - but I am not aware of any countries of our size and present population density that have been adding to their populations at c.350K per year for an extended 15 year period. What matters is how densely populated they already are and what size they are, not a simple comparison of numbers. It would be fine for say Australia, if it so wished, to have migration at these levels because they have an existing population density that is a tiny fraction of what we have in Britain.

You keep dismissing it as if its nothing: "The number isn't so high as to completely paralyze the housing market". I don't know how much worse our housing situation has to get before you will finally admit we are already at the stage of paralysis. Yes your idea of a legal rent cap would help enormously with exploitative costs, I agree with you that this should be done immediately as an emergency measure, but that is never going to happen because the Conservatives believe in free markets in principle so philosophically could never do it, it's only Jeremy Corbyn who promotes this policy but he'll never be elected to implement it - so in practice it won't happen. Not at all sure how your idea of stopping developers buying land will help - yes of course developers overcharge but that is because its a sellers market due to the demand. If you stop developers buying land and building who is going to build the needed homes instead? It might make us all feel better as it will stop greedy companies taking advantage of the situation to make inflated profits, but it won't solve the actual problem.

You keep mixing up xenophobia and racism with a decision / opinion on sensible migration levels. You can't seem to separate the two. All Governments of all countries in the world have to make a decision as to what their immigration policy is - the system, the approximate numbers involved, the protocols etc. It's not xenophobic to have an opinion on migration levels.

It sounds so bitter when you say "something tells me this little utopia didn't work out as well as you paint it for anyone other than white, able-bodied, non-LGBT people". What on earth does sexuality have to do with any discussions on Brexit? How weird to make such a comment. Actually the UK is a great place to be gay, I should know given I am gay myself. Not that this has anything to do with this debate. I only say it because of your stereotyping of Brexiters or anyone with similar views as not only white but now also heterosexual!! You will one day grow out of your belief that white, heterosexual, middle-aged men are the enemy you currently stereotype them to be.

And it's not about trying to make you or anyone agree with my "views" about migration, its effects and its links to Brexit. These issues are a matter of public record and fact. I suggest you do some reading and you can make up your own mind, see:

https://www.migrationwatchuk.org
Office of National Statistics website for the figures
See the parliament website where you can download the briefing papers on the effects of migration written by civil servants to brief MPs

I actually agree with you it's a great shame the UK has to leave the EU, but we have no choice. The EU had a chance to prevent this - when David Cameron tried to conduct his "renegotiation" this was the chance for the EU to reform the freedom of movement principle to give countries the ability to control it. You have to remember Britain has had more inter-EU inward migration than any other EU member state. Other EU countries have not experienced what we have experienced, we are quite unique in terms of the level, and the other EU states should have recognised that the UK was becoming overwhelmed. But they stuck their heads in the sand and the result is Brexit. If only they had the sense to address this I and many others would have voted Remain. It is a shame we have to leave - and on that we can end this discussion with a note of agreement.

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You've got your hardline brexit government with its determination to take the UK out of the EU at any cost, and you keep coming here because you can't get one individual forum member to concede "defeat". You can't force people to think what...

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You've got your hardline brexit government with its determination to take the UK out of the EU at any cost, and you keep coming here because you can't get one individual forum member to concede "defeat". You can't force people to think what you want them to think if they have their own reasons to disagree. Not if 52% voted for this, not if 98% voted for this. Honestly, live with it.

I am not mixing xenophobia with anything. There could be a debate on how much migration is "reasonable" if the press and the right wingers weren't acting like absolute thugs about it the whole time. You can't in good faith argue that xenophobia hasn't shaped the discussion around the referendum, especially when there were so few factual arguments for leaving (but plenty of lies like the £350 million a week for the NHS - instead your vote has already created a nursing shortage because people don't want to live in a hostile environment, well done).

I get you don't care enough about racism and xenophobia to engage it seriously as an argument, so you just dismiss it as missing the point every time. That's your prerogative, but stop telling the people affected by it that they can't recognize it. You are not an authority on this issue just because you think it doesn't deserve being taken seriously.

Until Theresa May has guaranteed that EU citizens won't be deported or otherwise​ discriminated against, me worrying about it isn't paranoia. If it can't possibly happen, why won't she say so? She seems to treat it like a genuine possibility, so your opinion doesn't change anything here.

It's not bitter to say that 2002 wasn't as good for people of color, disabled and LGBT people as today. For instance, you couldn't get your gender legally recognized if you were trans in 2002. Gay men aren't the only LGBT group and if anything, being gay clearly is no guarantee of being progressive. It is not off topic to point out that 15 years ago wasn't some utopia when you brought it up. I was in alive and able to remember things in 2002 - in fact, that was my first visit to London! I remember it being exactly as congested as today. Possibly more if it was before the congestion charge.

Again with the patronizing comments about my presumed age and life experience, none of which you know anything about. I never said white cishet middle aged British men were "the enemy". I said they were privileged in comparison to other demographics, which is a fact, and so would be the people to benefit the most from turning back the clock while others could incur considerable harm or at least reduction in opportunity (gender recognition, marriage equality, etc). There's nothing about this assessment I need to "grow out" of, it's basic sociology and recent history.

What makes you think I haven't done any reading to make up my mind? I just haven't done it from known right wing think tanks like the Migration Watch. You can't possibly be linking me that like it's some kind of factual, unbiased source. You spent your previous comments deriding the fact that I've been applying uni level learning to a real life situation like brexit; assume I know how to read and do research even if we clearly use completely different sources.

On that note, I'm really not the one responsible for formulating London's housing strategy. You might want to look up organizations like Shelter for information​ on what causes bad housing and homelessness beyond "let's blame immigrants". I'm sure the UK's migration levels will drop not as a result of any specific event, but simply because people will realize it's not worth it to break their back working an underqualified job for years before getting a crack at a real one, speak fluent English, have friends and partners in the UK, and STILL be made to feel unwelcome and like they're somehow in the wrong for even trying by the society at large. That should just not be the standard of conduct in an ostensibly developed country.

That's the real "accomplishment" of your brexit vote - eroding values it took decades to establish for an easy fix that will never come. Have no doubt this effect is already taking place. At least, though, have the decency not to keep "correcting" people about their own experiences. That's the minimum I expected here.

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Yet again the Government is focusing on money rather than people. European AND people from other countries should be allowed to live and work here provided they are not living on benefits. The economy will not suffer from lack of labour...

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Yet again the Government is focusing on money rather than people. European AND people from other countries should be allowed to live and work here provided they are not living on benefits. The economy will not suffer from lack of labour because Europeans and British Citizens will apply for work permits. Is our government so arrogant and unthinking to say we will get a great deal? If The Euro government did this it would encourage other Euro countries to leave.e.g. Holland, Greece , Italy and Spain. We have to spend money and have good organisation for allowing us and European people to work in each others countries via work permits.

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I am confused by what you want and actually think now Alex, having caught up reading all the posts. You continue to be extremely agitated about the security of your own status, as if you really want to stay here, but then in other posts you...

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I am confused by what you want and actually think now Alex, having caught up reading all the posts. You continue to be extremely agitated about the security of your own status, as if you really want to stay here, but then in other posts you slag off this country! At one point you actually say something along the lines of "I feel this country is grossly overrated - the standard of living does not match the costs". On the later description Alex you are sadly right in many respects - the cost of rents particularly in the South East and London in no way reflect the quality of what you get and are so unaffordable that people have to live in multi-occupancy, but the reason for this is mass overpopulation, caused by the mass migrations of peoples to Britain over the last 15 years. Market forces mean high demand, which supply cannot possibly match, pushes prices up and quality down. It really is that simple.

Another irony is your visceral hatred at the fact that so many people (often but not exclusively migrants) have to live in multi-occupancy conditions, often maybe 8 - 15 people in one house, sleeping on floors etc in extreme cases. I agree, its awful. But Alex you don't seem to understand that 15 years ago this did not exist in Britain - this has come as a direct result of mass migration. Our country has changed massively over this time period. I assume you were not here 15 years ago as I think you are probably quite young, you have no idea what a beautiful country Britain was even just 15-20 years ago, how we could all afford our rents, how we could all move around on our roads and trains hassle free. If only I could take you back in a time machine, you would not recognise where you are.

You make some extraordinary comment that because we are an English speaking nation and because we "told the world the UK and US were great places to live" then we should "reap what ye shall sow" regards mass immigration. I'm sorry but who exactly told you the UK and US were amazing countries and you MUST come and live here? Who forced you and other people to do that? That's in your mind. When we all see the migrants (largely African or Middle Eastern) standing at Calais telling journalists they are determined to get to Britain by any means even risking death, this is not because British people are telling them to come here, it's because of their own self generated belief that the streets of London are paved with gold, which in relative terms compared to where they have come from is probably true.

Your politics are so left wing (all this anti capitalist stuff all the time) coupled with the pro mass migration agenda (because you cannot bring yourself to believe in migration control because you think it is automatically xenophobic to do so) means that you are never able to put forward an actual solution - you just keep posting meaningless political philosophy and empty phrases that will be great for the ultra hard left environment of your university coffee room, but have no meaning in the real world. I have asked about four times what you actually want the Government to do to reduce the cost of renting, seeing as you don't want to accept we simply need to dampen demand (i.e. number of people), but you answer with totally meaningless political philosophy, such as talk of "challenging the current model of exploitative business and maybe thinking about something other than capitalism to sustain the future". Sounds wonderful, but totally meaningless, and answer to the current problems come there none.

Of course a love of the EU and hard left anti capitalist politics are a complete contradiction in terms. Unlimited freedom of movement, which we are told is a cornerstone of the EU, enables wealthy people to become even more wealthy (landlords to charge higher rents, business owners to slow and suppress wage growth and expand the turnover of their businesses with more workers and more expansion which delivers more wealth for the OWNERS and shareholders but not the workforce), whilst at the same time free movement makes poorer people even poorer, as it restricts wage growth through increased competition for jobs (an employers market) and it erodes poorer people's disposable incomes through increased housing costs. Freedom of movement is designed to move cheap mass labour from poorer parts of Europe to the wealthier parts of Europe in order to benefit the wealthy business and property owning elite. The EU is a capitalist construct. It's so ironic (and confusing) to hear someone who sounds like a near communist defend it with such a passion.

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@tahorchic: You stated:

"Unlimited freedom of movement, which we are told is a cornerstone of the EU, enables wealthy people to become even more wealthy (landlords to charge higher rents, business owners to slow and suppress wage growth...

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@tahorchic: You stated:

"Unlimited freedom of movement, which we are told is a cornerstone of the EU, enables wealthy people to become even more wealthy (landlords to charge higher rents, business owners to slow and suppress wage growth and expand the turnover of their businesses with more workers and more expansion which delivers more wealth for the OWNERS and shareholders but not the workforce), whilst at the same time free movement makes poorer people even poorer, as it restricts wage growth through increased competition for jobs (an employers market) and it erodes poorer people's disposable incomes through increased housing costs. Freedom of movement is designed to move cheap mass labour from poorer parts of Europe to the wealthier parts of Europe in order to benefit the wealthy business and property owning elite."

Trouble is, leaving the EU will not solve a perceived problem with Freedom of Movement within the EU, because part of almost every trade deal with a specific country has included allowing increased numbers from that country into the UK. Thus immigration from the EU will simply be replaced with immigration from non-EU countries - and we have seen that successive UK governments cannot even control non-EU immigration.

We have also seen now that the UK lacks suitably trained folk in many areas and we need to import folks from outside the UK to fill some jobs. Successive UK Governments have shot themselves (and us) in the foot on numerous occasions - for example, the Tories recently made nurses pay for their own training, even when the final salary for nurses is not that high. The number of nurses applying has gone down as a result and we now have to have nurses from the EU and elsewhere - a problem caused by the UK, not the EU.

Many UK folk do not want to do menial jobs, Eg: picking strawberries and other food or many retail jobs, so we need folk to come in from outside the UK to do those jobs - a problem caused by the UK, not the EU.

Leaving the EU will make the UK economy worse, not better in my view and also those of the 48% that voted to remain in the EU.

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I think the Mayor could help many people by getting them to come out of denial and move forward. So many seem to think they can change the past. The Mayor is engaging with other European Cities and European bodies to make sure London...

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I think the Mayor could help many people by getting them to come out of denial and move forward. So many seem to think they can change the past. The Mayor is engaging with other European Cities and European bodies to make sure London remains one of the world's key cities. This is very positive and in London's interests. There are many though who seem to think democracy does not apply if they do not like the result and rather than working to get the best for London, they are stuck in the past. Someone needs the leadership to help them move forward.

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Hi all,Today, 29 March, following the triggering of Article 50, the Mayor has released a statement calling again for an interim trade agreement to reduce economic uncertainty on both sides of the Channel whilst Brexit negotiations unfold. Following some reassurance to EU citizens presently living in Britain, the Mayor has also called for a cast-iron guarantee that they will be able to stay after Brexit. You can read the full statement on Facebook.Do keep sharing your views with us here on the issues that you feel should be raised with central government in order to secure the best deal for London.Talk London Team 

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I am going to say thank you mayor Khan for actually holding the interests of all Londoners to heart, without excluding those of us who were born abroad from the issues that affect us the most. Don't let up in the negotiations because you're...

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I am going to say thank you mayor Khan for actually holding the interests of all Londoners to heart, without excluding those of us who were born abroad from the issues that affect us the most. Don't let up in the negotiations because you're one of the few politicians who don't trivialize or outright threaten to take away these basic rights, and lots of people (EU citizens as well as UK partners) are relying on whatever difference you can make in what is a very daunting process.

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About 5 min 37 sec ago julesandlola wrote:
" I want the UK to trade with the whole world and not have its stock exchange taxed for every deal no matter how small (the REAL reason for Brexit)"
i am afraid this is a rather typical Brexit...

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About 5 min 37 sec ago julesandlola wrote:
" I want the UK to trade with the whole world and not have its stock exchange taxed for every deal no matter how small (the REAL reason for Brexit)"
i am afraid this is a rather typical Brexit misunderstanding. Yes the EU proposed a transaction tax on all transactions taking place within the EU. Using its seat on the top table, the UK successfully argued against this and the proposal was scrapped. Now we are giving up our seat and much of our influence, the way will soon be clear for the reintroduction of the transaction tax and any transaction that takes place within the EU, irrespective if it is arranged from outside the EU where the UK is heading, will potentially be taxed. Brexit has therefore made the transaction tax very likely. If we had stayed in we could have continued to prevent its introduction.

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This idea that people have changed their minds and we must have another vote...
Am I the only person on here that finds it very odd that hard line Remainers keep saying that Brexiters have changed their mind? Very strange.

I know about 20...

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This idea that people have changed their minds and we must have another vote...
Am I the only person on here that finds it very odd that hard line Remainers keep saying that Brexiters have changed their mind? Very strange.

I know about 20 people who voted Brexit and about 10 people who voted Remain and in my experience NO ONE has changed their mind. Certainly none of the Brexiters I know have changed their mind. Some Remainers seem to think they have or should change their mind - but they haven't!!!! If you ran the vote again the result would be roughly the same.

BUT even if half of people who voted Brexit have changed their mind (which they haven't) you can't keep running a vote. Of course you only have one vote! Do you think the Government should keep running a vote until we get the answer you personally would have liked? If the result had been Remain would you then be calling for the vote to be run again several times just in case anyone who voted Remain had changed their mind and wished they had voted Brexit?! Do you not realise how childish it sounds to keep calling for another vote until you get the answer you want, like a child stamping their feet because they cannot have their own way. Even the Mayor would not be so silly as to try to call for another vote!

I'm so sad for the firebrand contributor on here that they think anyone who believes in controlling migration levels and that our population level is too high is automatically a racist and a xenophobe. I expect their law degree taught them that. There is no point trying to have a sensible discussion with someone like that because such thinking is not rational. The logic of this position is that they don't believe there is any limit to the number of people that can live within any given land space. In that case let's just go fast track for a population of 100 million, maybe 200 million for the UK. Why not? Surely it's racist and xenophobic to believe there should be any limit on migration numbers.

You need to understand that the issue of migration / population is NOTHING to do with someone's nationality. It's to do with the NUMBERS. Years ago when the EU was made up of Western European countries with similar economies / wage levels, freedom of movement worked well because roughly the same number of people went backwards and forwards between different countries. But since the opening up to countries where wage levels are a tiny % of what they are here it cannot work anymore because of the mass imbalance in one direction over the other. The EU should have foreseen this and adapted the policy, but the hard line Europhiles in the EU (who are the real political extremists here) are obsessed with this principle.

One point I must just comment on is this denial about housing costs. A comment was made that "unreasonably high rents aren't the result of population numbers".....do you not understand the principle of market forces, principles of supply and demand? Might be a good idea to swap the law degree for an economics one. If anything is scarce the price of it goes up in a free market. We have a severe housing shortage because our population has been growing by approximately 350,000 every year in recent years. Before this period net migration was at levels of only 40 to 50,000 per year. There was never a problem at these levels because the Government was able to keep up with demand. But no Government, labour or conservative, has been able to keep up with these higher levels. This is why so many EU citizens actually live in HIMO (houses in multiple occupancy) - not only because they can't afford rent levels alone but because there would not be enough houses / flats in the country anyway for everyone to have their own home.

Do your own research on average rent levels in different areas of the UK and correlate that against population growth. Rents have exploded in recent years, at exactly the same time as we started to experience net migration levels of 7 to 8 times what it historically was.

I do wonder how much more overpopulated we have to become before some people realise what is happening. It's because the British never complain! People have now accepted that it's "normal" that you go on the M25 in the middle of the day on a Monday afternoon (NOT in the rush hour) and it takes 1 hour to drive 2 miles. People now think this is "normal". 15 years ago the M25 was only like this in the rush hour. Now it is like this MOST of the time. 15 years ago commuters on trains into London could get a seat. Now people phone up LBC radio scratching their head complaining that they have to let 4 full trains go past them in the station on their way to work, because they are so full they can't get on. And they are so stupid they call the radio station and ASK WHY this is happening. Victoria tube station regularly has to be closed because of overcrowding, this now happens regularly in London tube stations sometimes even outside the rush hour, I hear it on the radio all the time and the explanation they give is "overcrowding". I have lived in London my whole life and this NEVER use to happen. Over population does have a consequence.

EU citizens that have only arrived in this country in recent years don't know what it was like before - they think how it is now is normal. It's really interesting if you speak to EU citizens that have been here a long time already and have seen the changes and added pressures, and are also unhappy at the increased rents they are having to pay! I worked with a Romanian who has lived in Britain for 12 years and he told me he laughs at how stupid the British are to let so many people into the country! And one of my best friends is Bulgarian and he has lived in Britain since he was in his 30's and he has just retired, he owns his own house here for many years etc. He voted Brexit.

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If you're going to call people irrational firebrand commenters, it would be nice if you did it to their face. Talk London sends email notifications anyway, so all I see is trying to patronize people without giving them a chance to dispute...

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If you're going to call people irrational firebrand commenters, it would be nice if you did it to their face. Talk London sends email notifications anyway, so all I see is trying to patronize people without giving them a chance to dispute it. Kind of like the overall treatment of any brexit critic.

I only started with the strong wording AFTER getting personally attacked by leavers, including insults, "get out of the country if you don't like it", "don't tell me how to speak my language" after they got my pronouns wrong, "London would be a better place if you didn't live here", the lot. I see the admins have deleted most of those threads, but that doesn't fix the fact that brexiters are by default aggressive and happy to stereotype people they've never met solely on the basis of their EU nationality.

What's irrational to me is the stubborn refusal to acknowledge that xenophobia is a massive problem in this country right now. You had Farage posting in a recreation of a nazi poster in the referendum. You have a prime minister who keeps on going as if EU migrants have by default no skills and no right to have a say in what happens to them, despite the fact that almost a year after the referendum they haven't been reassured of staying (which was, by the way, one of the false promises made by the leave campaign). You have critics of the government being demonized in the mainstream media and by internet trolls alike. If you look at the front pages of the metro and the like, I've lost count of how many xenophobic headlines they had - and that's not talking about something like the Daily Mail or Express. When judges upheld an established legal process that should have applied anyway, they were branded "enemies of the people". Finally, the all time high in hate crime is not made up either.

All of that is stuff that demonstrably happened. If you don't like hearing it or think it's not important, fine. But there is nothing irrational about pointing out it exists.

Than again, you've just said law is irrational, so maybe there's no point discussing this either.

The pressures on public services are the combined result of austeeity, unchecked capitalism, and people being forced to live miles away from where they work due to no policy addressing the unsustainable rise in rents. Blaming it all on new immigrants is blaming the victims that are the worst affected. Your 12 year EU resident only proves that some people forget their own pay difficulties once they've become part of the establishment.

Feel free to disagree all you want, that's about what I expect. But the patronizing tone is uncalled for.

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OK so I am not bothering with the insults which are unnecessary or the desperate attempts to deny we are leaving the EU. I believe the Mayor needs to act on pollution levels. All diesel vehicles need a sunset date by which time they will be...

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OK so I am not bothering with the insults which are unnecessary or the desperate attempts to deny we are leaving the EU. I believe the Mayor needs to act on pollution levels. All diesel vehicles need a sunset date by which time they will be banned from London. This will include all Commercial and Public Transport vehicles (including Buses, Taxis and Trains). Additionally whilst Crossrail I will make a great difference, Crossrail II also needs to be built and fares in London need to be made affordable again. The cost of Public Transport in London is unreasonably high and I believe that a payment to lower pollution levels could be used to lower fares, increase ridership and lower private vehicle use. Tackling transport and pollution is vital and achievable.

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I'm amazed how some people are still trying to argue to stay in the EU. The decision has been made, accept it.

As far as the Mayor suggesting EU citizens are granted right to remain BEFORE British citizens are given the same guarantee, let...

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I'm amazed how some people are still trying to argue to stay in the EU. The decision has been made, accept it.

As far as the Mayor suggesting EU citizens are granted right to remain BEFORE British citizens are given the same guarantee, let's just imagine we did that and then the 1.2M Brits were sent back. Our population would grow by 1.2M in an instant. When we are already vastly overpopulated. What insanity. Remainers don't seem to understand that the vastly high levels of rent in England, particularly in London and the South East, is already caused by overpopulation in relation to the housing stock. We have been growing our population at a nightmare rate for the last 15 years, look at the figures. It's supply and demand. I myself know many EU citizens who themselves complain about rent levels, and they share a house between 4-8 people to share the rent as it's the only way they can afford to pay it. And British citizens living in the same area suffer the same rises that landlords impose because they take advantage of the situation.

My father had to move house for 6 months due to a fire (caused by the neighbours which spread) and when he moved back in the landlord's agent actually said to me he is lucky to have such a nice landlord that kept the rent the same because (agent's exact words) "we told the landlord he should subdivide the house into 4 bedrooms and move 4 Polish migrants in there as that would yield 2K per month as each person could be charged £500pm".....my father was extremely lucky as the landlord has know our family for many years and would never do this, but it shows the attitude of letting agents and they were so brazen in actually saying this to my face.

This is what is happening in this country. This is why we have Brexit.
We are the second most densely populated country in Europe after The Netherlands - 3.5 times more densely populated than France, and 10 (!) times more densely populated than Spain. This is why we have Brexit.

Virtually no one believes EU citizens that came and settled under the rules legitimately should be thrown out, but obviously we have to wait until the EU confirms the same in reverse. The PM already tried to sort this and Germany blocked it until after A50. So all these demands should be addressed to the EU. Lobby them to agree it, as they are the ones blocking it thus far, not our Government.

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"I'm amazed how some people are still trying to argue to stay in the EU. The decision has been made, accept it."

And WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE OUR MINDS
- Unlike General Elections, say?
Particularly as the "decision" was based on false...

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"I'm amazed how some people are still trying to argue to stay in the EU. The decision has been made, accept it."

And WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE OUR MINDS
- Unlike General Elections, say?
Particularly as the "decision" was based on false data & deliberate lies by Farage, Gove, Davies & others ...
Oops, as the saying goes

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And even then no one voted on appointing Theresa May or any of her ministers. No one voted to go for a "hard brexit". None of these terms were subject to any vote or referendum, but since it's not happening in Brussels but in London, it's...

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And even then no one voted on appointing Theresa May or any of her ministers. No one voted to go for a "hard brexit". None of these terms were subject to any vote or referendum, but since it's not happening in Brussels but in London, it's all right!

Brexiters need to stop scapegoating immigrants for every problem. Unreasonably high rents aren't the result of population numbers, but of gentrification, the housing agents viewing it as a good thing when prices rise, and the government doing nothing to curb this ridiculous pricing out of everyone on a regular salary out of London. There are many countries with high immigration numbers where the costs of living aren't this insanely high and the standards not this insanely low for what you pay. Unaffordable rents are a policy problem mainly, and immigrants are among the worst affected. You have no idea what so many people go through just to live here.

If British expats living abroad are forced to return, it will be the fault of "hard brexiters" (or as we should really call them, political extremists). Not people who are in favour of the EU.

But the main point is: when someone comes here legally, they can't just be turned into an illegal migrant overnight because of a vote they could not influence. That is a basic human rights issue, it is not up to politics in one referendum. It's shocking that a supposedly developed country refuses to accept something this obvious.

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I would like to address the perception that Londoners are pro Europe following the EU referendum. Using information obtained from the Electoral Commissions website, there were 5,424,768 people registered to vote in London, of these 2,263...

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I would like to address the perception that Londoners are pro Europe following the EU referendum. Using information obtained from the Electoral Commissions website, there were 5,424,768 people registered to vote in London, of these 2,263,519 voted remain. This is 41.72% of those entitled to vote. When put in this context hardly a resounding vote that London is Pro Europe. Yes, those that voted leave was less at 1,513,232, but more importantly those that failed to vote total 1,648,017. I would argue that these are the forgotten people, there are many and varied reasons why individuals don't vote, but in the main I believe it's because this group of people feel disenfranchised! Being in or out of Europe makes no difference to them. Being governed by London or Brussels is irrelevant to them.
So can we please stop trumpeting that London is Pro Europe and if we are going to use percentages in claims about London's population lets at least include all of the electorate and be factually correct!

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Hi Folks -

Thanks for all your views. We're really enjoying reading your opinions on this challenging issue.

Some parts of the debate are getting heated, and whilst we encourage a range of opinions, we'd like to remind you of some of our community guidelines: "It’s your right to disagree with an opinion, but don’t attack the person or people who hold it and please make your point respectfully"

Remember, in this discussion we're trying to find out what you think the Mayor should focus on in his continued discussions with the central government. It has been decided that the UK will be exiting the European Union, and the Mayor wants to make sure that Londoners get the best deal possible in that process through his engagement with the Brexit Secretary and the Prime Minister. What does that deal look like to you?

The Talk London Team

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OK I have just read this post NOW: 8.20pm. Point taken. I will shut up from now on.

Apologies that I posted some comments before reading this post. I see you posted it 4 hours ago, but, as I say, I only just read it NOW.

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Thanks for saying this, but I wish the team had done more to moderate the debate. Time and again yesterday I was getting notifications of the above user replying to every single comment I made with almost nothing but ad hominems, ranging...

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Thanks for saying this, but I wish the team had done more to moderate the debate. Time and again yesterday I was getting notifications of the above user replying to every single comment I made with almost nothing but ad hominems, ranging from telling me to shut up or get out, random assumptions about me as a person, inciting other users to "gang up" on me in other threads, and finally culminating in the implication that EU citizens/remainers are violent even though it's the leavers who are behind the rise in hate crime in the UK. I should not be getting this sort of abuse when commenting on an official Mayor of London website with a reasonably negative opinion of something that can ONLY affect me negatively. Intimidation and name-calling is not a heated debate, it's just harassment.

(I did call their comments xenophobic but that's literally a description of what they said, not a personal attack. That's the entire problem, brexiters being unable to differentiate between criticism of a widespread negative trend in society versus an attack on themselves as a person. But it's not anyone else's responsibility to teach them the difference.)

Since the thread got completely derailed, I'd like to at least have a go at answering your question now: create a climate where EU citizens and young British people who voted remain feel like there's any point in staying. Initiatives like the "London is open" campaign help, and I suppose it's not as bad in London as in the rest of England, but the messages from politicians are clear in that EU citizens aren't even being thought of as people. The idea that we should be quiet and criticize nothing during these dehumanizing "negotiations" that have the potential to ruin lives is ridiculous, but that's exactly what keeps being used to shut down debate. People who are directly threatened by brexit can't by definition say anything positive or even neutral about it, because brexit is the thing that jeopardises their lives. Until that is understood and not just met with constant vitriol, there can be no meaningful debate.

I think London should definitely have exceptions to whatever draconian immigration policy the conservatives are cooking up, not just for practical/economic reasons but also because the majority of Londoners have been shown to support remain (and if you're going to question that mandate, you better be ready to do that for the whole referendum). I came to the UK thinking that diversity was one of its main values, and it would be nice if at least London retained that if the rest of England is determined to send anything positive that used to attract people here down the drain.

The Mayor's call for EU citizens to remain in London needs to be backed by concrete guarantees that won't leave people vulnerable to deportation (and it's ridiculous that deportation between two European countries is something we're suddenly having to worry about!) or even more deliberate hostility from institutions. Since London drives the economy in the region, it should be possible to get those guarantees by negotiating strongly for them.

Finally, just to prevent any further trolling, of course I'm aware that not ALL British people are xenophobic (otherwise I'd have no job, no friends and no relationship here). But at the moment it is very hard to see any long-term future here, and it's very likely that non-UK nationals as well as younger Brits will just move abroad if the spiral into hatred and divisiveness continues, regardless of any negotiation outcome with the government. The brexiters will of course consider that a win, but to anyone else the country and London in particular will be the poorer for it.

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