Re: Harry
Quite. I live in lovely Switzerland. But those not blindly following the SVP and even some of those are distinctly nervous that we will lose some rather useful labour. Just who will staff hospitals, many pharmaceutical, bank and industrial departments? Who will serve us in our rather good restaurants, clean the lavatories and generally wipe our noses and bottoms? Worse still, we shall be back to being trapped on our little patch of Europe, where just as immigrants can not get in, we can not get out. I recall clearly some anguished conversations with, for instance, hotel management staff, lamenting in the pre-treaty days that they could not move to London or Paris to broaden their experience. I recall Swiss waiting in long queues at Heathrow and at Dover, being quizzed about their finances, their return tickets, how long they intended to stay. No fun at all.
My mother, in England, has got a Polish dentist (West of England) and I noticed, last time I was there, a lot of EU citizens making sure services I use are there.
As for the daft claims about immigration: recent figures I saw (not to hand) showed that about half are not from the EU but from Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Were they serious about immigration, that could be stopped over night. But of course, UKIP and eccentric Tories are not intelligent, clear-eyed or serious.
Then should GB pull out, will the return of many of the 2 million expats really be welcomed, replacing youngish, educated workers with ageing, often retired and not so well off, miserable people?
Then again, it is irritating enough for Brits not being in Schengen and so having to show passports when the rest of us do not. Imagine when they are really outside and are trapped on their overcrowded, under-paid little islands. Why would anyone vote to surrender the freedom to live and work anywhere in the the vast area of Europe? Life is about more than business, trade or xenophobia. Business is here to serve us, not the other way around, just as governments and countries are. If we become subservient to them, democracy is dead.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
