Friday 2 November 2018

IMMIGRATION

The appearance of Caroline Noakes, Minister of State for immigration at The Home Office, before the Home Affairs Select Committee the other day found its way onto our national TV screens because of her sheer ineptness and the reaction of Yvetter Cooper, the chair of the committee who was shocked at the way Ms Noakes planned to deal with EU employees after a no-deal Brexit (HERE). 

Noakes said employers would have to check EU citizens had the right to work but admitted she didn't have the foggiest idea how they would do it!

The Home Secretary has now stepped in to refute what Noakes had said to the committee, telling Robert Peston:

"We’ve just got to be practical. If there was a no deal, we won’t be able to immediately distinguish between those Europeans that were already here before March 29, and those who came after — and therefore as a result I wouldn’t expect employers to do anything different than they do today … There will need to be some kind of sensible transition period".

The3Million, the body that represents EU citizens in the UK tweeted this:
It's a shambles, but one we should get used to. We are still in the realms of the theoretical, the paperwork and planning, predictions and forecasts, hopes and fears. All we can see ahead is the great amorphous grey fog of Brexit. If we get a deal and a transition period some of the fog will be pushed back by a couple of years, maybe more, but at some point the theoretical must give way to the actual.

When that happens, the Home Office's systems along with those at HMRC, Customs, DEFRA and other departments of state will really be tested and it would be a surprise to me if they all work flawlessly from the first day.

The disruption to systems and procedures that have taken years to develop and are intricately linked to each other in many cases will impact us all in ways we can't even begin to imagine.

As remainers at least we will be able to say "don't blame us".
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