Confusion of VIs

Ironically it will have pretty much equalised by the time we actually leave the EU.

It isn't popular in Parliament but then neither is Leaving. The reality is it represents the best deal we could get after two years of negotiation. If the EU want the UK to Remain they would need to give some concession to justify a. having the vote, and b for people to justify changing their mind to themselves. That said we have now passed the point where even if no one changed their mind, demographic changes alone would have tipped to vote towards remain.

Twenty years ago identify checking for issue of NI numbers was far weaker than it is now. Back then it was relatively easy to obtain multiple ids and harvest the benefit, some people managed to have over 10 ids but I doubt it would be possible today and certainly not for immigrants who must have a biometric id.

Getting access to EE workers was actively encouraged, Mervyn King's argued against using the transitional controls so that we could gain "first mover advantage". However, nobody actively wanted benefits seekers the just thought the numbers would be too small to worry about. Remember this was just before the introduction of working tax credits, another example of the lack of joined up thinking that plagues governments

I don't know, as I had left the civil service by then but on the face of it I don't think there is any linkage. Cameron's deal seems overcomplex and I suspect was probably worked up by his team with little or no input from the Home Office/DWP. It might have achieved the same outcome but looks, as it proved to be, too complicated to sell to the public. I doubt more than a few percent of Leave voters were even aware of its existence.

There would be no actual payment, for UK citizens it would be a notional payment made on behalf of 16 year olds by the government. As long as the government accounts logged it on an individual basis, it could be requested from migrants who wished to have immediate access to benefits. As I said, the finer details were not worked out but legal advice taken at the time concluded that it was compatible with EU laws.

No there would have been a separate payment made at whatever level the UK goverment decided was appropriate back in 2001 it was suggested this should in the £10k-£15k range per adult. The details were never worked up as the government dicided not to pursue it.

1. You surely cannot stay in you denial loop for ever. I thought we ended with my suggestion you take up the issue with the BoE, OBR, IMF etc. You could start with the head honcho himself: Comparing the current state of household finances with forecasts made by the Bank before the referendum, prepared on the basis of a remain vote, Mark Carney told MPs that household incomes were now significantly lower than expected. “Real household incomes are about £900 per household lower than we forecast in May of 2016, which is a lot of money,” he said, referring to the total lost growth for incomes in the two years since the 2016 referendum. Business leaders say economic nationalism is biggest growth threat   Read more  Speaking in front of the Treasury select committee of MPs, Carney also said the economy was 2% smaller than forecast before the EU referendum, despite the strength of the global economy and the Bank’s emergency cut in interest rates after the Brexit vote. A couple more links from the same search The Brexit vote has already cost Britain more than 2 percent of economic output, even before the nation formally exits the European Union, according to analysis by UBS Group AG. Extrapolating the CEPR economists' exercise to the end of 2018 implies a cost to the UK economy of £60bn, or 2.2 per cent of GDP. The economists said their estimates show the evolving costs of Brexit “in an unbiased, transparent, and entirely data-driven way”. Without context the OECD graph is irrelevant to the question of whether the Brexit vote has cost the UK +2% of GDP. Prior to the vote there were several forecasts that had the UK strongly outperforming Germany for the foreseeable future. Some were even suggesting that the UK was on course to overtake Germany's GDP.

1. Yes if you recall we went round this loop before. 2. No idea but the German's are worriers and there is plenty going on to worry about at the moment.

That's true but there are numerous exceptions that enable countries to ensure that FoM works for them. Re the UK's non contributory benefits system, the civil service advised the government that they could introduce a qualifying period for EU immigrants by making a notional contribution for UK residents at age 16. No money would have changed hands but unless an EU migrants government wanted to make a real payment at whatever level the UK had set they would not have access to benefits.

It's a group of 27, the only way to progress the negotiation is to agree on a negotiating mandate and give that to you chief negotiator. Changing that position requires discussion and agreement with all 27 parties so it wont happen unless there is a real gamechanger or a majority of members request a renegotiation. The EU rejected Chequers because they don't trust the UK to negotiate in good faith after we enter transition. Not surprising as Davis practically said that once we were in transition we could ignore any agreements made to get us their.

To be fair May is heading towards a difficult choice, wreck the country or wreck the Conservative party.

Except you have just made it up, based upon a single meeting that "disintegrated into a mess".

The two parts were separated to prevent the UK trying to use the exit payment as a means of pressuring the EU for a trade deal by making clear these were entirely separate issues. With hindsight you would have to agree they were right to do this.

It wasn't conspiracy, it wasn't even a **** up. It was complacency by a government who thought the numbers would be in the low10s of thousands and that they had more important things to do. I know because I was working in the Home Office when the discussions were going on. Of course any restrictions are temporary, people get rights to benefits after a set period wherever they come from. The UK could have quite easily (by a simple accounting change) have implemented a five year qualifying period which would have ended benefits tourism at a stroke.