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Tories are screwed if they do get us out
As no deal Brexit crashes the £ further and we all pay more for everything
People will realise they were conned, while Farage, Odey & Johnson's hedge fund backers make a killing off our misery
Pretty sure they wouldn't need to go to Eastern Europe to know what people are being paid.
It was a conscious decision to permit the A8 countries to have immediate access to our labour market to fill workforce demands and reap the economic benefits.
Like it's been a conscious decision to not utilize EU laws in regard to FoM.
Entirely the fault of the UK government.
Do you think that scaring away one of the last major heavy industries (pharma) that we have, after brexit is going to be better than the neoliberal status quo?
Go down your local sink estate and ask there. Or maybe pop into some of the homeless people's tents in your high street before they get kicked out in the morning.
Entirely the fault of the UK government.
Could someone explain how the arrival of pre-educated, fit, healthy EU people willing to do jobs British people don't want to do has been bad for the British economy or indeed bad for Britain.
Their employers aren't complaining
Their landlords aren't complaining
They are contributing more to social security than they are drawing
They improve the demographic balance
They invest in Britain (or did until their future was put in doubt).
Could someone explain how the arrival of pre-educated, fit, healthy EU people willing to do jobs British people don’t want to do has been bad for the British economy or indeed bad for Britain.
It's not all jobs that people didn't want to do though, just check out how the day's rates have dropped in the construction sector since cheaper EU labour arrived. Great on a macro economic viewpoint but no so good on a micro economic level.
Tories are screwed if they do get us out
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Therefore, a way to minimise the risk for PM BoJo is to "back" the people, at least this way they have a chance of more than half the population backing him/them.
Try to double cross the people again they will be gone! History! Gone! Do it I dare them! (in Samuel L Jackson's Pulp Fiction voice 😆)
Great on a macro economic viewpoint but no so good on a micro economic level.
Which is a failure of government
Scapegoating the EU for our own failings is what brexit is all about tho
Bercow as caretaker PM??? It's an idea that seems to be gaining some traction.
No pointy beard for me, and can't fit in skinny jeans either.
But enjoy your blue passports, not many more benefits to Brexit, or have I missed them?
Could someone explain how the arrival of pre-educated, fit, healthy EU people willing to do jobs British people don’t want to do has been bad for the British economy or indeed bad for Britain.
They are not jobs that British people did not want to do, they were jobs that British people could not afford to do. British people were not prepared to live 4 to a bedroom in order to be able to work for minimum wage, like many economic migrants did and continue to do.
You will always find people to do any job for the right money. But the wages were kept low because there was a constant stream of people coming in willing to work for three to four times plus currency change that their native country.
Im not blaming the migrants, id do the same but the powers that be should have identified this and acted on it before Farage’s momentum became unstoppable
They are not jobs that British people did not want to do, they were jobs that British people could not afford to do.
They are very often jobs British people did not want to do. When they chose their education and training they chose not to train as nurses, carpenters, plumbers, cooks... .
As for the building sector. In a country with a shortage of housing and a housing stock that needs completely overhauling to meet thermal insulation levels required to meet government promises on being carbon neutral in not many years it really is the UK government artificially driving up house prices, driving down standards and driving down labour prices with its own landlord and house builder (land bank owner) favourable fiscal policy and laws.
And to be fair on chris2lou He is French and ignorance & xenophobia have been front & centre of the brexit movement for some time- I have have EU colleagues upset by the blatant bigotry
When they chose their education and training they chose not to train as nurses, carpenters, plumbers, cooks… .
That's assuming every one has the opportunity or even the ability to train for whatever they want. I know plenty of people who've been in the building trade all their lives and are fit for manual labour only. In some less well of parts of the country there's still a shortage of that kind of job. A guy from Europe arrives who digs better holes for £20 a day less takes their job. Guess how they, their family and friends voted and will keep on voting.
Nationally, there is a shortage of workers in the construction industry. Of course, in many areas of the UK the opposite is true. Those coming to the UK to fill these roles tend to go the areas where there are shortages, and yes, they make themselves mobile when others won’t by accepting living standards that no one should have to put up with.
That’s assuming every one has the opportunity or even the ability to train for whatever they want.
This is a failing of government
Brexit fixes none of it, in fact makes it worse
Apprenticeship numbers collapsed after tories privatised Learndirect, FE outside of Uni has been neglected for decades.
It's far easier for government to scapegoat the EU than accept responsibility for their own mess.
Remarkably people fall for it & still think Johnson is looking out for them
A guy from Europe arrives who digs better holes for £20 a day less takes their job.
Then complain to your government not the EU as the British government is in full control.
Other European countires have legislated to prevent labour dumping and the UK can too. My local legislation say that people have to be be paid the minimum wage here wherever they come from and wherever they are employed so a Spanish company operating in France has to pay French labour rates not Spanish labour rates. It's up the UK government to legislate.
EU law says no racism, and discrimination on the basis of nationality is included in that EU legislation. Blame your UK government for not applying EU directives on discrimination.
This is a failing of government
Brexit fixes none of it, in fact makes it worse
Maybe you are right. But its not like those people were not warning the goverment. They had plenty of time to try and fix the problem but chose to ignore it. The people got fustrated and undervalued and thats how we ended up with Brexit.
Very true. Now, what happens next?
What happens next?
They replace all the EU migrants with brown people who they can pay even less.
They replace all the EU migrants with brown people who they can pay even less.
This.
But l dont blame anybody for voting Brexit, in reality what else could they do?
l dont blame anybody for voting Brexit, in reality what else could they do?
Very true.
Depending on where you live, your vote at every other national democratic event can be totally ignored. But again, how will Brexit help?
The “fed up of being ignored” vote was no doubt sizeable at the 2016 referendum. But what will be improved, beyond a temporary sense of being enabled, in the lives of those people when we leave the EU? And shouldn’t they be given the chance to confirm in a vote that the way we are leaving (cooked up without consulting them) is preferable to them against keeping EU membership. If they vote the same way, and we then leave, would that not give them further franchise?
There are plenty of reasons for people voting Leave in 2016. There are plenty of reason why people might vote that way again in another vote. But always beware anyone saying “the people have had their say, they must never have their say again”.
But l dont blame anybody for voting Brexit, in reality what else could they do?
Vote remain or abstain.
See Javid has been still saying the govt has a paln to avoid the Benn act. I'm assuming that this is just a ruse to force a VONC that they would lose to avoid BJ goin back on his claim of a guarenteed exit
The plan is probably to break the law, but to do so so close to the wire that the courts can not act fast enough. And then to argue that they acted in good faith and thought their cunning ruse would be ruled legal… after we’ve left the EU.
I dontthink the mind being forced to seek an extension
& just blame it all on parliament/ judges/ remoaners
its all about creating a division & making sure others get the blame
But l dont blame anybody for voting Brexit, in reality what else could they do?
What else could they do about what? Tabloids fear-mongering? Boris Johnson lying? What is the burning issue that ‘they’ needed to address?
And is that ‘issue’ a perception or a reality? I suggest that is the first and only port of call regarding ‘what to do’ in any situation. What say you?
Depending on where you live, your vote at every other national democratic event can be totally ignored
care to explain?
But l dont blame anybody for voting Brexit, in reality what else could they do?
Uhhhhh - join a political party, lobby for policies that help them and then vote for that party in a general election?
Instead of not voting or voting for raging Tory throbbers like Cameron and then complaining.
Depending on where you live, your vote at every other national democratic event can be totally ignored
care to explain?
First past the post innit? Unless you live in a marginal constituency your vote is not going to change anything.
Edit - two slow
Instead of not voting or voting for raging Tory throbbers like Cameron and then complaining.
The only thing their complaining about is that we haven't left yet.
And shouldn’t they be given the chance to confirm in a vote that the way we are leaving
They don't want another chance, they see another referendum purely as a mechanism to overturn the original vote.
It would be nice if the leavers here had the honesty to write "I" or "we" instead of "they.
They don’t want another chance, they see another referendum purely as a mechanism to overturn the original vote.
I repeat …
…always beware anyone saying “the people have had their say, they must never have their say again”.
Anyone pushing the idea that past votes can not and should not ever be “overturned” by subsequent ones need to be scrutinised. Always ask why.
“We are not leaving Europe, we are just leaving the EU”
https://twitter.com/foreignoffice/status/1178597896192700416?s=21
Maybe you are right. But its not like those people were not warning the goverment. They had plenty of time to try and fix the problem but chose to ignore it.
It's not a matter of time though ...it's a case of accepting that we may have to give up everyday luxuries like a coffee/tea on the way to work or someone else making their lunch, driving etc.
Ultimately someone has to make the tea/coffee/lunch and ultimately they also need to eat, live somewhere etc.
just check out how the day’s rates have dropped in the construction sector since cheaper EU labour arrived.
Your going to have to do some citation as there's little evidence that incoming migrant labour has pushed pay rates down ( though TBF that is as an average, not specific to the building industry ), despite it being intuitively logical.
We have almost full employment, and very high rates of employment before the referendum. In that environment, how could wages be pushed down?
Have you tried getting any trades in to do work on your house recently? I managed to summon a plumber eventually last year, the third British one I tried, after about 4 phone calls and several messages, then eventually I went and knocked on his door. Despite settling the bill promptly he didn't return a call from a colleague to service our boiler at work ( that turned in to a replacement ), and didn't return my messages to do another boiler service for me at home. Clearly he's charging too little if he has so much work he can afford to ignore requests from returning customers.
Anecdotal, but many I spoke to were pleased to have trades from the EU, because they actually answer the phone and turn up when they say they will.
One British guy who came to look at the boiler at work threw his toys out of the pram when we told him he would have to provide an invoice before we could pay him. Said he didn't want to do business with us. Same chap mentioned to one of our guys when he was here that he'd done 40 boiler replacements last year. Wonder how much tax he's paying? Dodgy ****.
@Del the effect of lowered wages has been shown by a few repeatable source but only at the lower end of the market.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/
Other European countires have legislated to prevent labour dumping and the UK can too. My local legislation say that people have to be be paid the minimum wage here wherever they come from and wherever they are employed so a Spanish company operating in France has to pay French labour rates not Spanish labour rates
I think that's missing the point if the work in question is not minimum wage work.
A quick Google produced:
https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/
So to an extent you are correct, but only to the same extent I am (:
Anecdotal, but many I spoke to were pleased to have trades from the EU, because they actually answer the phone and turn up when they say they will.
I know someone who voted leave for exactly this reason - he was fed up of loosing out on jobs to eastern Europeans because English employers assumed they would work harder for less money.
A serious question for any of the leavers on here – what is your view about an entire football team of judges unanimously finding that our prime minister has acted unlawfully?
The Prime Minister: "Proroguing parliament is nothing to do with brexit"
The Supreme Court: "You can't prorogue parliament for five weeks without good reason."
Leavers: "TRAITERS THWARTING ARE BREXT"
Which is it? Was the proroguing brexity or not? Can't have it both ways, it's schrodinger's advisory referendum all over again.
Do the ends justify the means from your perspective?
I don't understand the question here, you're going to have to explain what "ends" and "means" you're referring to.
About that end of October deadline that everyone knows is just a campaigning pledge, not something you can reliably plan your life/career/business around…
https://twitter.com/anguswalkertalk/status/1178624413543088131?s=21
A guy from Europe arrives who digs better holes for £20 a day less takes their job.
And that's the thing isn't it. If you're losing job opportunities because someone is better at it than you are, that's on you, no-one else. Doesn't matter whether the other person is from Poland, Bangladesh or Dudley.
They don’t want another chance, they see another referendum purely as a mechanism to overturn the original vote.
And why would they be concerned about that?
We're told constantly that it's "the will of the people." This being so, they should be not just welcoming another referendum but campaigning hard for it. It'd shut up those pesky remoaners for good and kill any opposition stone dead.
And if, in fact, it is no longer the will of the people, don't you think that it's rather important that we should find that out before continuing?
Because shouting the will of the people whilst knowing that it isn't would be somewhat dishonest, n'est-ce pas?
It became glaringly obvious to me some time ago that most of the people shouting about "democracy" and "sovereignty" don't actually care about either of those things, half of them demonstrably don't even know what the words mean. They just want to win.
Anecdotal and mostly London based:-
1. Plumber mate fed up with trying to run his one man plus apprentice business and keep family plus mortgage fed up with competing with Eastern Europeans quoting way below the going rate - so voted brexit.
2. Builder mate, runs small firm, fed up with trades wanting day rates equal to professional fees due to skills shortages, so happy with Eastern Europeans bringing costs down.
3. Me personally visit 100 plus construction* sites pa & see many sites dominated by Eastern European workers, so if supply has gone up, day rates must have come down. *big sites not housebuilders.
I can well believe that statistics tell another story but we all that they don't paint the full picture.
Me - staunch remainer but willing to understand brexiteers reasons
Anecdotal and mostly London based:-
1. Plumber mate fed up with trying to run his one man plus apprentice business and keep family plus mortgage fed up with competing with Eastern Europeans quoting way below the going rate – so voted brexit.
2. Builder mate, runs small firm, fed up with trades wanting day rates equal to professional fees due to skills shortages, so happy with Eastern Europeans bringing costs down.
3. Me personally visit 100 plus construction* sites pa & see many sites dominated by Eastern European workers, so if supply has gone up, day rates must have come down. *big sites not housebuilders.
I can well believe that statistics tell another story but we all that they don’t paint the full picture.
Me – staunch remainer but willing to understand brexiteers reasons
One way to deal with that would have been to increase the professionalism within the industry and force non-UK plumbers to undergo exams to work in the Uk as a plumber. If we made it like having to apply for equivalence with the GMC that would make it more difficult for many.
Would UK workers have to pass the same exams?
Would UK workers have to pass the same exams?
It’s simpler just to crash out of the EU without a deal. That’ll show them foreign plumbers.
Plumber mate fed up with trying to run his one man plus apprentice business and keep family plus mortgage fed up with competing with Eastern Europeans quoting way below the going rate – so voted brexit.
Hmm. That raises an interesting question. What defines 'the going rate'? In most businesses, the rate is set by supply and demand. How is this different? There are lots of jobs that don't earn enough to support a family. Why are plumbers any different?
This is partly devil's advocate but partly not. I mean everyone should get a living wage. But at the same time we are a market economy and it has to function as such to some extent.
My guess would be that yes, UK plumbers would have to take the same exams. If they are competent enough to do the work well and deserve them, they would have no problem.
The difference being that the UK plumbers could take that qualification at 16/18 as part of their state provided education.
One way to deal with that would have been to increase the professionalism within the industry and force non-UK plumbers to undergo exams to work in the Uk as a plumber.
And call it gas safe perhaps?
But at the same time we are a market economy and it has to function as such to some extent.
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how's that going to make you feel?
To be honest I think the affect of leaving the EU is going to be a far great wage suppressive than competing with EU migrants but that's not so easy for some people to understand..
I wonder how the Germans viewed the influx of UK construction workers in the 80s?
auf Wiedersehen, pet?
Then complain to your government not the EU as the British government is in full control.
Other European countires have legislated to prevent labour dumping and the UK can too.
Well done for catching up, we said this over 3 years ago.
the effect of lowered wages has been shown by a few repeatable source but only at the lower end of the market.
I didn't read any references just the conclusions but this doesn't actually seem to address the issue of how many of the lowest paid jobs are real jobs in economic terms.
By that I mean the numbers of these jobs seems to far exceed the economic numbers of customers that can actually afford a service on a regular basis.
Just randomly chosen but
https://www.statista.com/statistics/755284/whitbread-costa-coffee-employment/
Just a single coffee chain employs nearly 20k employees ... our small town has numerous coffee shops from Costa to Nero to Starbucks to ... and a load of cafe's, sandwich shops and resto's but I have no idea who would actually earn enough to pay 2.50 (or whatever it is) for something worth 25p on a regular basis...
We have more taxi's than seems possible and lots of other services that equally seem to be services that only a top few percentile earner would think of in my childhood.
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
*It seems to me like things that were an occasional treat back in the 70's and 80's to people who considered themselves working class are now a regular part of life... but the only way those services can be cheap enough for the masses is by paying even lower wages to those that do them.
The next step in the process is to ask why these issues (if issues they are) were not discussed at length and addressed before the stupid referendum. I believe the standard answer to be ‘The PC crowd wouldn’t let us demand that migrant workers should be qualified, otherwise they’d call us racist, and anyway what about car washers, and fruit-pickers, stealing all our jobs?’... etc etc
It all sounds true if you feel it hard enough in your gut. Right?
It was always going to be this way in the UK, after half a century of tabloidism what else could it be? Makes me sick. Counter-anecdote (defers to Mrs Rider)incoming. I’ll be back.
And call it gas safe perhaps?
No, a proper charter - with the esteem that being chartered entails. Not some shitty sounding “gas safe”. Something youngsters can feel proud to achieve.
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
Eh, does not compute?
*It seems to me like things that were an occasional treat back in the 70’s and 80’s to people who considered themselves working class are now a regular part of life… but the only way those services can be cheap enough for the masses is by paying even lower wages to those that do them
Cafe Nero and Starbucks aren’t employing people below the minimum wage or even less than the independent cafes - they operate on the economy of scale.
But you touch on a good point, the UK working classes still have a decent amount of spending power - at least compared to the rest of the world. The bloke who was banging on about wanting £1k a week is a good example of what I consider to be quite pervasive entitlement in this country, the British expect their lives to be better than everyone else’s on the planet simply because they are British. Why does someone automatically deserve the equivalent of 52k a year in purchasing power in today’s economy?
What defines ‘the going rate’? In most businesses, the rate is set by supply and demand. How is this different?
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how’s that going to make you feel?
Are these not basically two cheeks of the same arse?
As someone who isn't a plumber but rather may occasionally require the services of such a trade - along with the vast majority of people in the country - someone coming along and undercutting what is essentially a monopoly is a good thing, is it not?
The likes of Tesco have decimated the "nation of shopkeepers" we used to have ~40 years ago, but unless you happen to be a shopkeeper it's a net benefit to everyone else. People vote with their feet, if they'd all rather pay more for their weekly shop and spend half their Saturday trailing round a dozen different shops then we'd have boycotted the big supermarket chains. But we haven't, because most people seemingly are all in favour of supporting local businesses until it hits them in the wallet.
What's the "going rate" for a plumber these days, assuming you can even get one? A quick Google would suggest £30-£50 for the first hour (here in the highly affluent North West), fixing a dripping tap comes in at £95. You could fix two dripping taps per day and pull in four grand a month, I'm in the wrong profession!
Unless you live in a marginal constituency your vote is not going to change anything.
Hmm. Have to say I disagree. Because.
The main parties (e.g. the Tories) take notice of how minor parties (say, UKIP / Brexit / Farage's next right wing disgrace) are doing and adjust policy if they think they are losing votes.
Hmm. That raises an interesting question. What defines ‘the going rate’? In most businesses, the rate is set by supply and demand. How is this different? There are lots of jobs that don’t earn enough to support a family. Why are plumbers any different?
This is partly devil’s advocate but partly not. I mean everyone should get a living wage. But at the same time we are a market economy and it has to function as such to some extent.
OK, to play devils advocate to your devils advocate.
Its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you don't declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the "going rate" if you do a shoddy job.
Could be any or all of those reasons. But for all of them, to shrug your shoulders and say "its a market economy" is more than a little bit hard line Tory.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you don’t declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the “going rate” if you do a shoddy job.
But what does any of that have to do with immigrant workers? There's nothing to stop our home-grown plumbers from doing any of those things either (aside perhaps from the overseas family bit, and that's probably a fringe case). I've had plenty of substandard / cash-in-hand jobs from "professional" tradesmen over the years, none of whom looked a bit foreign, and "you could earn more money if you work more" should hardly come as a shock to anyone.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you don’t declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the “going rate” if you do a shoddy job
While all these statements are true, are they real? Is this happening?
Certainly the British plumber wasn't declaring his earnings properly I would bet...
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
Eh, does not compute?
People think they earn more than their taxi driver.
But what does any of that have to do with immigrant workers?
Nothing as such. Molgrips was talking about (or I thought he was talking about) under cutting market rates and implying (or I thought he was implying) "so what?"
People think they earn more than their taxi driver.
Though I don't think I've ever heard a plumber charge by going "how much do you usually pay?" (-:
I think that’s missing the point if the work in question is not minimum wage work.
There's a "convention collective" for each type of job which includes a pay scale. Britain could do that too.
And you leavers clearly haven't understood what Britian is trying to achieve with Brexit, it wants to undercut Europe. It want's to become a low tax, low wage, low health and safety, unregulated work environment. And Barnier isn't stupid, his job is to protect the 27 from unfair competition, and that's why the deal will never be a fantastic or easy deal.
The UK construction industry is going to be revolutionised by the Brexit true believers… high quality jobs for all…
https://twitter.com/indeox/status/1178637955214299136?s=21
It's logical isn't it, once they manage to get us back to the 50s, there'll be loads of revolutionary new technologies like calculating machines and internet pipes and the like to take advantage of over the next couple of decades.
I'm quite looking forward to having a few 3 day working weeks, too.
What other treats do we have in store?
Maybe some massive inflation to increase the value of our cash savings?
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how’s that going to make you feel?
I fully appreciate it's an issue. But what's the alternative? If you allow a group of people to set their own income levels and not allow any other competition, isn't that allowing them to run a cartel? Why should plumbers make more than anyone else? Teachers, care workers, nurses? If there's demand for plumbers then why should we restrict supply to keep prices inflated?
I am in no way a hardline Tory* - I am pretty left in my sentiments, but we do need an element of market economics in general.
As for allowing 100 molgripses into the country, this is exactly what happened in my area of work which is IT. 20 or so years ago everyone realised you could offshore** work for far cheaper, so that's what they did. Projects are quite likely to fail, quality is quite likely to be low because of the business model this practice created (not because there's anything wrong with foreigners). There are still local jobs for native IT people but there is far more work for us to fill and likewise we are far too expensive for business models.
So we don't have legions of unemployed IT staff, nor do we work for peanuts, but the economy has grown to the point where it depends on the offshore workers - if we didn't have them we simply wouldn't be able to do as much stuff and our economy would shrink. And they'd have no work so theirs would too.
Not quite sure where I'm going with this but are plumbers keeping their wages artificially high by restricting demand? What about the poor sods who can't afford to get their heating fixed?
It's ironic that what plumbers seem to be asking for is protectionism, at the same time as many leavers denouncing the EU as protectionist.
* I think it would be better if everyone's heating and power were provided by a central authority from generation to point of use - pay for your usage and the state fixes everything else like telecoms used to be. Why should anyone make a profit from your basic need to drink, cook, keep warm or see in the dark? Not exactly luxuries are they?
** either the work is sent offshore or teams are hired from offshore outsourcers who pay their staff peanuts and don't give them decent worker protection by either country's standards.
I think what this is from an economics point of view is a problem with full employment. Sure, there's a shortage of plumbers, but people aren't training to become plumbers because they already have work. So we have a shortage.
Immigration has allowed our economy to grow too big to operate without it. Without immigrants we'd have the opposite of unemployment - a shortage of workers.
I spent 5 years attempting to address the skills gap by working with small employers in engineering, having secured government funding for apprenticeships but there was a prevalent 'cake and eat it" attitude with many employers, they wanted it all on a plate and more - even to the extent that they didn't want to pay apprentice wages and had a bit of a Victorian work ethic to their apprentices, not understanding that they'd have to spend a day a week at college getting an education rather than doing "stuff" - they were just paying apprentice wages so they could get cheap labour and fail to give them a job when they finished. At the other end of the scale, many large retailers re-designated employees as "apprentices" to they could get subsidised funding as well as pay them below minimum wage. Of course none of this was due to the EU, but Government policy and structural cuts made 20-30 years ago. The notion that we can re-generate / grow our industries without immigrants is laughable as we have chronic shortages in all technical skills areas approaching 50,000 year simply due to an ageing population.
The notion that we can re-generate / grow our industries without immigrants is laughable as we have chronic shortages in all technical skills areas approaching 50,000 year simply due to an ageing population.
There are immigrants at the skilled and unskilled ends of the workforce, and low unemployment. We can reduce immigration at one of these ends but not both at the same time without population growth some other way.
"House of Commons Exiting the European Union Committee"
"The consequences of “No Deal” for UK business".
If you don't to read it all skip to conclusions - though the subsequent pages (Formal Minutes) may also be of interest.
Well, that’s proving to be a delightful read....
For those skimming… please can I draw your attention to “Labour mobility‘.
Many people ‘think’ that freedom of movement of workers is more beneficial for countries with less advanced economies than it is for countries such as ourselves and Germany. But any advanced country with a significant service sector needs freedom of movement to successful ‘export’ services at any significant volume. So restrictions on working across borders will hit our economy hard. Very hard. Because we are so reliant on exporting services for our balance of payments. And yes, when the economy gets spanked, you will be as well. If you work in construction, you will not be immune.
Now, go back to talking about plumbers. But, oh, if anyone local can recommend someone reliable to service our boiler… we’ve had another guy let us down. Cheers.
But any advanced country with a significant service sector needs freedom of movement to successful ‘export’ services at any significant volume.
Do you have a source/examples for us? (serious question)
My experience is of working in Switzerland. Took several days to get a work permit, and cost £1500 (for the service). Then I could only do limited things and I only had about 10 days or something. Longer required a different permit with more justification and expense. Some colleagues ended up falling foul of tax treaties and such as well. It was annoying and costly but not a huge blocker in that particular circumstance. But then, I work for a global company with a presence in Switzerland.
Meh....utter nonsense according to “Mary (Brexiteer) on recent LBC phone in”, that’s nothing but project fear shouted from the rooftops by remoaners who wish to ignore the democratic vote of leavers who knew they voted for no deal...leave means leave.
So I guess we should just leave and accept the will of the people?"..............
.....aye that’ll be ****ing right🤬, I’ll personally hound every ****ing dickhead leaver till they either admit they were wrong or till they exit this mortal life. Utter ****ing idiots who deserve to be dragged out of their insular existence and tarred/feathered/thrown in a ****ing pit.
As an aside the brother of one of my closest mates (sadly died last year due to osphegeal cancer) has spent his entire adult life (30+years) in the civil service from international trade to deputy/high commissioner postings and he is now in one of the most dangerous Middle East posts you can get, but I can’t mention where obviously as it’d jeopardise his career and the talks we have had over the past 3odd years would terrify you as to his opinion of what is coming/planned for this country if no deal passes, he’s moved his family out of the UK in preparation.
We are ****ed if no deal comes to fruition ☹️
Then I could only do limited things and I only had about 10 days or something. Longer required a different permit with more justification and expense.
Switzerland isn’t in the EU.
We are **** if no deal comes to fruition
Johnson will get to play at being King of England for 5 years though, so you know, swings and roundabouts.