A Manifesto for Lord Mandelson- 5
Labour markets
Underlying position
The very dilemma that confounds so much of British policy, are we more American or European? makes the country irresistible to the prosperous world’s footloose youngsters. We offer an EU-lite to North Americans - the history and culture without the unfamiliar languages or baked-in corruption and red-tape; and a US-lite to the rest of the world - the freedom and urbanity, without the dangers of gunplay or baked-in racial antagonism.
Couple this with brand-name universities, free-ish labour markets and a languid work-ethic and it’s easy to see why the country is such a draw, not just for prosperous youngsters but apparently for the whole world. It is beyond the scope of these posts to address the disaster of the country’s immigration policy, but our underlying attractions give our negotiators, including Lord Mandelson, some top Trumps (oops) to play.
Dealings with the US
The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are 716,000 Brits living in the States, with 55,000 registered as arriving in 2023, compared to 203,000 Americans counted in the 2021 census as living here. All such statistics are approximate and out of date, as government bodies have become reluctant to collect and publish data on the subject.
The current climate makes it impolitic to explore comprehensive loosening of mutual immigration rules. Even so, Lord Mandelson will discover that the Americans will welcome enhanced mutual university exchanges, which pose few problems for us. So too young persons’ work programmes, along the lines of those we currently have with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, calling for the US to modify its visa regime.
We would also welcome easier immigration rules for retirees, for whom Europe is becoming less welcoming. Both sides also have an interest in mutual recognition of professional qualifications, bearing in mind the complication that, in America, some of these are conducted at a state level (insurance), or on a hybrid basis (law).
Equivalent to Europe
There are an estimated 1.2m Brits living in the EU, of whom 71,000 are students and around 210,000 are retirees. This compares to a census count of 3.6m EU expats living here, though this could be on the low side, indeed the reservations set out above apply equally to all this data. And once again the current climate makes it impolitic to contemplate a comprehensive loosening of mutual immigration rules.
Here too, however, there is a deal to be done on youth mobility. Europeans pine for British participation in the Erasmus programme of scholarly exchanges, which was much taken up by their students coming here. A new such scheme would be no skin off our nose, provided qualifications for any transition to permanent residence reflect our economic objectives and arrangements for repatriation are robust. Perhaps such a scheme can be bargained for lightening rules on touring artists: this would benefit our popular musicians, who have more currency in Europe than the reverse. The Europeans are in little mood to revisit mutual recognition of professional qualifications, as they were struggling with this before Brexit.
As noted above, Europe is becoming less welcoming to British retirees, with Spain, for example, mooting a scheme for 100% surcharges on property bought by persons from outside the EU. This is not worth trying to reverse, as even if such arrangements were enacted, future British retirees have options, for example in Florida or Australia.
Negotiating objectives
In general, these posts have encouraged Lord Mandelson to work with his colleagues in leveraging negotiations with the Americans for concessions from the Europeans and vice versa. In this instance, the UK has something both sides want which costs us little. This makes his objective to ensure that our open-handedness in these matters finds reciprocity from our negotiating partners on the other topics in these posts. We set out a framework in our concluding post.
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