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Recruiting from the EU in the event of No Deal

Daniel

Hi all, Happy new year! 

Has anyone seen any definitive guidance from the government about what the position will be for recruiting from EU Countries if there is no Brexit deal? I had been working on the assumption that there would be a lengthy transition period where free movement rules would essentially continue as before. It now seems that No Deal is becoming increasingly likely, as it appears that there has been no movement from either side on the Withdrawal Agreement. Will I be able to recruit from the EU post 30th March if there is No Deal? Will EU applicants need to apply for a visa/work permit and be treated the same as other 3rd country citizens?

  • in reply to Daniel

    To be exact: David Cameron wanted to keep his Euro-sceptic radical back-benchers quiet, so promised a referendum he fully expected to vote "stay". Unfortunately (for him and the rest of us) the timing was coincident with a peak in middle-eastern immigration to Europe, fastened on by the media and the likes of UKIP to create an impression of hoards of immigrants pouring through Dover unchecked. Add in the protest-vote discontent with extended constraint on public-spending and there is your marginal vote for exit.

    But the unsavoury truth is that we have nothing unique or of special value to offer Europe other than our service industries like banking, which are neither irreplaceable, or immovable (to Dublin for a start), and that is the reason why we struggled for years to get INTO the (then) "Common Market" in the first place. So why were they EVER going to concede a "sweet deal" for us to stuff two xenophobic fingers in the air and walk away from them?

    There was never going to be a scenario of Europe begging us to stay, or offering a blank check for future trade. Look at the reality and ask "why would they?"

    Even if you choose to believe we can do better alone (trading with Trump's America and China?....We wish!) A great exit-deal from Europe, was NEVER on the cards.

    What is happening in Westminster now is petty party-politics led by two egotistical dogmatists, nothing to do with democracy, or national interest, or even common sense. It is shameful, destructive and divisive, and whatever the outcome we will be a damaged, divided and diminished Nation because of it.

    From once being the object of admiration and aspiration, we have turned ourselves into the object of ridicule and derision. "Deal or no deal"? No. The question now is: "Future, or no future?" and for myself, my now-grown children, and their children also, I dread the almost inevitable answer, whatever the decisions in the weeks to come might be.

    That is my opinion and I respect others may think differently; however I have no further comment to make on the subject.

    P

  • in reply to Peter
    Peter, I think this is the best summing up of the situation I have read.
  • in reply to Peter

    Ouch! This is why I've tried to avoid discussing opinions on Brexit and just asking if anyone has any information. There are plenty of forums I can go on if I want to be ripped to shreds over Brexit!

    We can discuss it at length if you like Peter, but I do think that scare stories are overblown. We signed up to a Common Market in 1975, but the EU was always going to be about a political project. I don't think that most British people want to be part of a 'United States of Europe' we just want to be friends and trading partners with Europe. Brexit is just getting us back to what we thought we were signing up to in the first place. It is not a 'xenophobic two-fingers to Europe' but a wish to restore sovereignty and independence to our parliament.

    I would also note that Euro-scepticism is not only the preserve of 'radical, right-wing Tory back-benchers.' There is a long history of anti-EU feeling on the Left, e.g. Tony Benn, Michael Foot and of course Jeremy Corbyn.

    Brexit will be like the Millenium Bug, we'll look back in a few months and wonder what all the fuss was about!

  • in reply to Daniel

    I think we should - as Daniel implied in his opening above - that we stick to the implications of a possible No Deal on recruitment. (Although we can only speculate).

  • I am studiously avoiding the politics of this, but I think the essence of if will pivot round one of three outcomes - one, the deal proposed by the PM is agreed by the House, and therefore the transition arrangements are in play. This is exceptionally unlikely. Second, there is no deal, at which point we realise that there is currently no agreed Plan B. Regardless of the regulations surrounding it, and how quickly a solution, points or skills based can be cobbled together, I think that the likelihood of an EU national choosing to come to the UK range from slim to none, certainly in the short term and until there is clarity one way or the other. Current arrangements cannot continue, as we have no clarity on whether free movement of British citizens will continue, so its not status quo, and at the moment not even quid pro quo. The third option, which looks more likely, is that all bets are off, and not only don't we know the decision that may be taken, at the moment it looks likely that the House will drive the agenda rather than the PM or the Government, in a welcome outbreak of democracy which looks more likely than not to lead to a General Election and - as a minimum - an extension.

    From my own experience the impact of the uncertainty is clear and prescient now, and I know for a fact many EU nationals are leaving the UK, leaving behind attractive jobs - but with no-one to fill them.

    I hope I have avoided a partisan view point...
  • in reply to Dermot John Cole
    We can only wait to see how events play out. Will May resign if she is heavily defeated? Would this mean a Brexiteer PM put in place or a General Election? Will the Grieve-led rebels 'take back control' and cancel the whole thing?

    One can only assume that some clever people in the Civil Service are war-gaming every possible outcome. May is at pains to say that it's 'her deal, no deal or no Brexit' but I would hope that a responsible government is prepared for every eventuality.
  • in reply to Daniel
    Daniel

    I hate to break it to you, but after 7 years in Whitehall where I was lucky to learn that neither Yes Minister or The Thick of It are in any way satirical, I can assure you that they are not. We are 2.5 years past making the decision to leave, and creating the requirement to formulate trade agreements, immigration policy et. with every other trading block and country in the world - and unless its happened this morning, we have none, and two months to do it in. There is no trade or freedom of movement backstop if there is no deal - movement of people and goods stops immediately.
  • in reply to Daniel

    The difficulty (in reality) is that when PM May says " it's 'her deal, no deal or no Brexit'" she may (with minor concessions, amendments or moderate changes) be actually right. Its hard to see why the EU will give much more ground (after two years of negotiating and without clarity of what we actually want. Its hard to see indeed what "concessions" would significantly change opinion in the HoC.

    Therefore it probably is down to one of those three options, either in March or after another delay.

    And I am not sure that a general election (at least if you believe the current opinion polls) would result in a significantly different result on Brexit - unless you believe that the other 27 have a much better deal up their sleeves which I don't.

    Therefore I think most employers should be basing their planning on one of PM Mays three options.  So we can at least work on some planning based on those options to allow us at least some time to think about what we will do.

    The other semi-HR link is about negotiating (a long lost skill in many HR folk) and how to recognise the power balance and how to take your various stakeholders on the journey to the possible rather than the aspiration.

  • in reply to Keith
    Any why would, or even should the EU concede? Britain's current position is akin to cancelling your golf club membership fees, then begging to keep playing till a point in the future which we cannot predict, then getting annoyed that that's not acceptable, then burning down the club house..