So this is the vision that Boris Johnson has promised the voters: Brexit will herald a new golden age for Britain, a new renaissance where the economy will boom, the citizens will be better off, there will be more jobs and wealth and we will be even better off than when we were part of the EU. However, this is a lot harder than originally promised because there is a massive mismatch between what the voters want and what is required to produce the end result. So let's rewind a little and talk about the period prior to the Brexit referendum: the UK voted to leave (mind you it was a close result, 52% to 48%) because there were plenty of Brits who saw no benefit for them being part of the EU. The economy was strong, there were jobs, there were some rich people but these people were poor, they were either unemployed or stuck in very low-paying jobs and they were frustrated at being left behind in a country that was supposedly doing quite well economically. There is a serious problem of inequality in the UK and we're hardly the only rich country with this problem, loads of other rich countries also have the same problem where the rich get richer and the poor really struggle to make ends meet. The Brexit referendum was an opportunity for the poor to make a statement: "hey, what about those of us who are struggling to put food on the table, who are constantly struggling to make it to the end of the month, what has the government and the EU ever done for us? We are not happy and we want you to know it." And unfortunately, Brexit has been sold as a panacea to these people: it blames the economic migrants from poorer EU countries who have been 'stealing' the jobs from the locals, the EU has become a convenient scapegoat for all the problems that the poor do face.
Migration: the great big Brexit red herring
So the problem for Boris Johnson is a difficult want: these people who want Brexit essentially want to stop new migrants from coming to the UK, ideally reducing migration to zero - they have become completely fixated on migration because they are convinced that this would somehow lead to a better life for them and their families if they don't have to compete with these Eastern European migrants for well-paid jobs. This is a flawed theory of course as these Eastern Europeans are filling in gaps in the economy where there is a shortage of locals who have the right skills to do the jobs, such as in the NHS where we have a shortage of trained, skilled staff to perform certain roles. So even if there are plenty of jobless locals living near the hospitals, they simply cannot do those skilled jobs (not without a massive training programme anyway). If Johnson blindly gives them what they want, these people may be happy for a brief moment before the British economy totally collapses and then they would be far worse off, far poorer and a lot hungrier. The problem is that there isn't a correlation between Brexit and wealth inequality - Brexit wouldn't automatically redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor in the UK nor would it somehow magically create wealth for the poor out of thin air. So whilst Johnson delivers the Brexit that he promised (and a majority of the British voting public do want), he still has to deliver economic growth by focusing on managing the economy properly. Now that's a combination that is going to lead to a dumpster fire car crash in 2020, but I actually beg to differ because there's actually a pretty good case study to show how things could work out.
So, allow me to turn your attention to the USA where they have had Trump as president since January 2017 after winning the 2016 elections. Many of us on the left hated Trump from the start and watched in horror as he got elected - we then wanted to see him become the worst president in history only for America to look back in shame for having elected him but that simply didn't happen for a simple reason. The American government isn't just one person, it isn't just Trump micromanaging every aspect of the country from the economy to defence to the environment to border control to law and order to healthcare to education. It seems that he is actually spending a lot of time sending out ridiculous tweets and playing golf, he isn't actually doing that much. In the meantime, behind the scenes and aware from the glare of the media, there are thousands of civil servants in many departments up and down the country doing the hard work, the heavy lifting and making sure that everything works. The government is a huge, complex and sophisticated piece of machinery of which the president is just a cog that gets way too much attention and people do tend to focus on the president because it is such a symbolic role; people often refer to the US president as 'leader of the free world' when really, if Trump was actually running the US economy instead of the thousands of civil servants, he would have probably run it to the ground and bankrupt the country, much like many of his previous companies which were complete dumpster fire car crashes that ended in bankruptcy. But instead, the US economy under Trump has been doing pretty well but no, you can't give Trump credit for that. There's a huge difference between the world of the politicians and the civil servants.
Learning to take a back seat and letting the experts take over
So if you think that the impeachment procedures would mean trouble for the American economy, well actually, it doesn't at all. In fact, the civil servants running the economy might welcome that as a distraction to keep Trump occupied whilst they continue doing what they do best. In fact the more busy Trump is kept dealing with the impeachment trial, the less he will meddle with the economy, the better it will perform when left to the experts who know what they are doing. Likewise, if the voters are thinking that Boris Johnson is this genius who will have all the answers to deliver a British economic miracle, then they're wrong. The fact is he doesn't need to - all he needs to do is to be smart enough to appoint the right experts to the right roles and let the experts get on with doing what they do best. Allow me to give you an example of how I was faced with a similar situation back in 2006: there is a very famous arts festival in Edinburgh every summer but the arts scene is kinda quiet in Edinburgh in the winter. So that year, the Scottish government decided to grant some money for a winter arts festival and through a contact of mine up in Scotland, I applied and was given the funds to participate in a winter arts festival there. The money was pretty respectable and our travel and accommodation was covered by the organizers so it was a fun trip to Edinburgh to do just one circus/acrobatic show. However, I still needed to put the show together and I decided the most sensible thing to do to ensure that the client was happy with the show was to assume the role of the organizer rather than try to make myself the star of the show. I simply don't believe I have the looks, talent or charisma to be the star of the show, as much as I had admittedly vainly toyed with the thought.
Johnson has to somehow keep the masses happy to stay in power.
To be fair, Johnson and his team in government are not stupid - he knows that the British economy must thrive in 2020 in order for his supporters to believe that he has delivered the successful Brexit they voted for, rather than a dumpster fire. He would no doubt put in place the right team to run the economy and have policies that will ensure that the British economy will continue to do well next year. So take the NHS for example, if the health system collapsed under Johnson's government because we don't have enough foreign skilled staff to perform all these jobs in the hospitals, then there would be a lot of anger directed at the government. So the government is going to have to issue special work permits for skilled workers in these specific roles which are considered crucial - they are the government so they get to make the rules and break them when it suits them. So even if they have some kind of arbitrary target to reduce migration, they can then simply change the rules and say, "oh this wouldn't include the special work permits we have to grant for crucial roles in the NHS". As long as they manage the media by sending out positive messages to reassure the public, they can do what the hell they like in terms of moving the goal posts in this process. Likewise, if any other industry would require some foreign workers to do the jobs which simply cannot be filled by the locals, then special work permits will have to be issued, otherwise you will simply kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by allowing the industry to suffer and collapse due to the acute shortage of skilled workers. There will be plenty of challenges to manage this process properly as it transitions from the current system under EU rules - but there's a lot the UK could learn from Singapore in this aspect.
In Singapore, there are different work permits for non-skilled workers (such as your Bangladeshi construction worker, your Indonesian domestic helper) and skilled workers (such as your Dutch investment banker, your Japanese IT specialist) - the visas given out to non-skilled migrant workers do not lead to any kind of permanent residency and after ten years, it can no longer be renewed. This reminds me of the story of the Mukul Hossine, he came from Bangladesh to work in Singapore as a construction worker but found fame when his poems were published. His story is very interesting and I do feel sorry for him - here is a young man who is clearly creative and wants to work in the creative arts, yet the only kind of job he can get in Singapore which comes with the work permit he needs is in construction. Then there is the case of Mohd Yusof (featured in the CNA report) who worked hard as a cleaner for Pasir Ris Punggol town council for ten years from 2007 to 2016, but the government simply refused to extend his work permit beyond ten years due to the rules created to prevent non-skilled workers from settling in Singapore. So the poor guy worked his butt of for ten years, had an exemplary work record, then was fired and sent packing at the end of those ten years despite having done nothing wrong. Then in contrast I have a Dutch friend who has been resident in Singapore for about 7 years and he managed to PR with little fuss because he had come to Singapore as a highly skilled expatriate, on a different visa. He has no intention on getting Singaporean citizenship, but having PR status in Singapore makes it easier for him to change jobs.
In fact Singapore succeeded where West Germany failed - the fact is West Germany did have a similar system called Gastarbeiter ('guest worker') from the 1950s to attract migrant workers to help rebuild their economy after WW2. Originally the programme targeted other European countries like Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece. But after the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, this led to even greater shortages in the West German labour market so this programme was then expanded to include other countries like Tunisia, Morocco and most notably, Turkey. The concept they had was really very simple: these guest workers will come to work a few years in West Germany, earn a decent living, pick up some useful skills then they would return to their home countries once their work permits expired. It didn't go to plan - the West German even offered guest workers who were willing to leave Germany and go back to their home countries large sums of money but very few took up that offer. This was because many of the guest workers from countries like Turkey came from impoverished rural areas and there was little for them to return to whilst the West German economy was booming. Why would they give up the good life in West Germany for a life of misery and poverty in rural Turkey? The West German government weren't prepared to forcefully repatriate these guest workers so many of them eventually gained German citizenship or at least held some kind of right to reside in Germany. This is because Germany has always been very welcoming to migrants, almost as penance for their sins during WW2, under Hitler - that's why in the recent 2015 migrant crisis, Germany had gladly accepted many more refugees (mostly from Syria and Iraq) than other European countries.
The context of the UK in 2020 is quite different from West Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, so post-Brexit it is likely that the UK would adopt a Singapore-style two tier work permit system to fill the gaps in the labour market. The UK economy will need a mix of skilled and unskilled migrant workers to fill these gaps in the labour market and different kinds of work permits will have to be issued, as per the Singaporean system. Currently, whilst the UK is in the EU, we had access to plenty of Eastern European workers who are happy to do low-paid work as migrant workers such as picking strawberries and other fruit on the farms - this is extremely hard labour which barely pays the minimum wage, but they earn a lot more doing this kind of work in the UK than say back in Bulgaria or Poland. So who is going to pick the fruit on the British farms after Brexit then? The answer is simple: probably much the same people since there is already a well established system in place, but they will be issued temporary work visas that will allow them to work for a limited amount of time rather than live indefinitely in the UK. The key to making this system successful is to place the onus on compliance with the employers so if a farmer is found to be employing workers without the right paperwork, then the farmer should face a huge fine and a prison sentence. That would scare the farmers into complying with the new law and if the migrant workers realize that they can't get paid work without the right papers, then they will also by the same token comply with the new rules. This system is already in place, so as a landlord for example: it is my responsibility to check that my tenants have the right to live in the UK and if I rent my property to someone without the right paperwork, I would be fined.
Trump's wall and Brexit: no more than hot air and rhetoric?
So within that context, this Conservative government isn't going to crash the economy, even though I don't like them, I'll give them more credit than that. No, instead they are going to make sure things keep running normally in the economy whilst feeding the media plenty of 'good news' stories to make it look as if the people who have voted for the Conservatives are rewarded for that choice. It is one thing to release a press release that has headline-grabbing exciting news, it is another to actually follow through and deliver. The best example of that is of course Trump's fabled wall on the Mexican border - he keeps talking about it, he has been talking about it since his election campaign and more than four years later, there's still no sign of it. Whilst this promise of a southern border wall with Mexico is nothing more than hot air that hasn't materialized in anything, it makes a great story for the Trump's PR team to spin it into something his supporters like to hear. Given the logistical challenges of building something like that, not to mention the astronomical costs of building such a wall, it is unlikely that it will ever be built but hey, his supporters really don't mind or care - they just like the idea of having a president who spouts that kind of rhetoric. By the same token, Brexit is our 'border wall' because it serves the same purpose: to keep migrant workers out (whether they are from Mexico or Eastern Europe): ultimately, it is just symbolic. So even if we are officially out of the EU, there will still be plenty of migrant workers in the UK on work permits in the long run - the only difference is that these migrant workers might also come from other non-EU countries as well like India, Russia or China depending on what kind of trade deals Johnson gets with these countries.
Hence if you might be wondering if it would therefore be easier to move to the UK to work here after Brexit? Well in short, the answer is yes but it depends pretty much on your individual circumstances. Already, a large number of non-EU nationals live and work in the UK - these people generally fall into two categories: highly skilled migrants who have no problems obtaining a work permit and those who are married to a British or EU national. So for example, I have a friend Angelique who is French and working in the UK, but after Brexit, it is likely that she would have to get her employers to sort out the necessary paperwork to obtain a work permit for her to continue working in the UK in the long run after Brexit. Now since EU nationals would face the same requirements as non-EU nationals in obtaining a work permit, the question facing Angelique's employers would be if they would be better off replacing her with someone from India or the Philippines instead, who may do the same job for less money and be willing to put up with tougher working conditions. Then again, Angelique has to prove to her company that she is a valuable member of the team, that she is extremely good at her job and replacing her post-Brexit would be foolish move as they would have a hard time retraining someone new to do her job. A lot of this would depend on the quality of Angelique's relationship with her employers and how happy they have been with the quality of her work. There is a lot of uncertainty for EU nationals (and their partners) currently living and working in the UK, especially since they are likely to be subject to much stricter rules in post-Brexit Britain, when an EU national would be subject to the same stringent requirements as someone from Singapore or Malaysia.
We don't know if someone from Singapore would have a better chance of getting a work permit in the UK after Brexit - currently, it is possible of course and there is a sizable Singaporean community here in the UK. But let's hypothetically say, the UK strikes a trade deal with Canada but as part of that trade deal, the UK would have to give Canadian nationals an easier route when it comes to working in the UK. So imagine if that takes the form of a special 4 year work permit, with no conditions, no strings attached, no need to have a job offer, just apply and fill up the forms with your Canadian passport and it's a privileged you're entitled to as a Canadian. Then that would put Canadians at the front of the queue ahead of everyone else. Certainly such a scheme wouldn't be a bad idea if it was reciprocal - it would give young Brits the chance to go live and work in Canada for a few years whilst there's no fear of Canadian economic migrants moving to the UK since Canada is a very rich country anyway. The best case scenario for Singaporeans is for the UK to have a comprehensive trade agreement with Singapore that would involve schemes that facilitate easier movement of labour between the two countries. It would be interesting however to see if the UK tries to do a deal like that with China - sure China is an important trading partner, but the British public would be very wary of letting in economic migrants a poorer country like China. That would be a highly unpopular move politically as that's the main reason why Brexit happened in the first place - it is this irrational fear of many local jobs being 'stolen' by migrant workers from other poorer countries.
So in the best case scenario, yes Singapore does get on one of those schemes and it thus becomes far easier for Singaporeans to find a job in London. But in the worst case scenarios, the UK picks a whole bunch of different trade partners for special trade relationships and Singapore is not on that list - guess what? You're not worse off than the current situation where EU nationals are at the front of the queue when it comes to competing for jobs in the UK. But in any case, as I had explored in a recent post about life in three cities for your average Joe, life in London isn't a bed of roses and unless you have secured a really well paid job here in London, you probably don't want to move here. London will continue to thrive as one of the world's financial centers but the streets of London are not paved with gold. But then again, if you have what it takes, if you are determined to get rich or die trying, then this is the place to be. Certainly, there will be good jobs available here in the UK and those gaps are no longer going to be filled by EU nationals, so there will be far more opportunities for people from places like Singapore. But so much depends on what kind of trade deals Boris Johnson's government will have to strike with various countries around the world and the EU after Brexit and let's see what the future holds in 2020. In the meantime, I'm just going to focus on working hard and making hay whilst the sun shines: I have a good job and have the chance to make decent money. But if you're a young person out there looking for a job, watch this space as it probably would be quite interesting for you if it will become easier for you to move to London.
So that's it from me on this topic - what do you think? Would Johnson start doing trade deals with countries all over the world from Canada to Singapore in 2020? Or would he have Brexit in name but still negotiate some kind of deal with the EU as not to disrupt the current system and arrangements? Or do you think that he will be an incompetent idiot who will push for a no-deal Brexit, only to deliver a dumpster fire Brexit where everyone would be much worse off? Do you have any faith in Johnson as a PM - would he triumph or fail? Leave a comment below please and many thanks for reading.
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ReplyDeleteSorry I hit post before I was ready, take 2: yes you're right. And basically my point is that even if Angelique does the settled status thing, trust has broken down to the point whereby she thinks that the whole work environment would change. So imagine we fast forward a few years and we're in a situation where the UK has a trade deal say with India and we have plenty more Indian expats here (sounds familiar? just like Singapore eh?) and she's having to compete with Indian migrant workers on price, then she's worried that she would have to compete on a completely different playing field, where the goal posts have moved, whereby she isn't just competing with EU nationals but with Indian nationals for example. So even if she does have the right (settled status) to live in the UK, she won't be able to keep her job if they do replace her with an Indian. After all, she works in IT and so much IT work is outsourced to India these days. And of course, people like Angelique would've preferred Corbyn to have won, as they think that the pro-Brexit government would be unkind towards people like her after Brexit.
ReplyDeleteI need more coffee...