Britannist

Polish and other eastern european workers send large parts of their salaries back home. It has been proven that they spend less over here and are putting far less back into the British economy than would be the case if British workers had the jobs they hold over here.

EU countries can only stop eastern european workers coming to their lands for up to 7 years (under EU rules). This means that as those entry bans come to an end (in places like Germany) the eastern european workers here in London (as an example) will go to Germany to work instead. It is, of course, just 40 miles from the Polish-German border to Berlin. Much more convenient for them to work nearer to Poland. Some of them will even be able to commute to work in Germany and then cross the border back to Poland after a day's work.

When Germany is forced to let in the eastern european workers (and other EU nations too) when the 7 year entry ban (on them entering some EU nations) finishes - we can be sure that many of the Polish will go from the UK to Germany to work instead.

We will, therefore, be left in the positon of having NO large workforce of Polish cheap Labour. And NO trained British workforce to replace them.

People like this opinionated person posting to this forum using what many would see as the tasteless name 'S****all" simply do not appear to have the depth to understand these things or to think that far ahead.

Internationalist

Debate is fine but I think that comment is a bit below the belt. :shock:

Britannist

The person I refer to is being very opinionated (which can be seen from the sharp tone of the earlier postings from that person). I also do think that inclusion of what many people would say is a swear word in the name used by the poster leaves much to be desired. If it was meant to be funny, not everyone will be laughing.

The person I refer to does not appear to be thinking long-term (as MigrationWatch and the Centre for Policy Studies are) regarding the economic effects of the eastern european worker influx on this country. MigrationWatch and the Centre for Policy Studies warn that these people will cost this country more than they are allegedly putting in - in the long term. Anyone who can't see that could be accused of possibly not thinking long term.

I have not actually accused S*****ll of not thinking long term nor of lacking depth - I simply stated that the poster did not appear to have these abilities in relation to debate of the particular item under discussion.

Soddball

How lucky for us both, then, that you choose not to give one.


By that logic, you are presumably going to meet all 28 million British workers before you decide that they should have jobs instead of Poles.

Since you have studied their information in such detail, I would be very appreciative if you could furnish me with the relevant investigative material.

Your perspective on immigration is statist and authoritarian. It is not libertarian, and libertarianism and Thatcherism are not far apart.

Why attempt to paint my views as 'anti-British worker'? They are not. There is nothing 'anti-British worker' about saying that British workers need to shape up and skill up to meet the demands of business. It's far more 'anti-British worker' to claim that they should somehow receive privileged treatment - since that simply insulates them from reality in the way that the unionist protectionism does. The long-term consequences will be far worse.

Britannist

Thank you for your constructive reply.

I have to say that I am genuinely surprised at being described as statist and authoritarian. I have not been called that before. I see myself as pro-free market and 'libertarian' (except on abortion which I am strictly against).

Regarding your request for information to back up my claim about the views of MigrationWatch and the Centre for Policy Studies - I need a little time to find the floppy disc I have which contains the details you ask for.
I'll come back with quotes of what they say a little later this evening.

Soddball

I wholeheartedly agree with you Robin and am sorry to hear of the loss of your business. It is always painful and must have been very difficult for you.

An important point that you raise, and one that I have not mentioned (but perhaps should have done) is the level playing field. In Robin's case, he is required to subscribe to enormous amounts of regulation and bear significant governmnent-imposed costs that his rivals do not. As a result, they undercut him.


Unfortunately, fairness does not come into it. The rapacity of market forces are the ultimate arbiter.

These are all reasonable points. The only one I disagree with is the idea of being too old to retrain - I have a client who will be 90 next year who, after 60 years of being mum, gran, and then great-gran, set up her own online artwork distribution company when her husband died a couple of years ago and she was left largely penniless. She does extremely well and has just bought a holiday home abroad! I admire her pluck and she reminds me every time I see her that nobody is too old.

As I said above, it is hard. I was fortunate in that I didn't have a family to support. You are probably not in that position.

The current increase in house prices is primarily caused by our delectable Chancellor. When he looted the private sector pension fund, people started casting around for new investments. Rental property is the way they plan to pay for their future. I'm one of those caught outside - 5 years ago I could have bought a house, now I can't even afford a studio flat. I rent.

I don't agree that immigration is a primary cause of house price rises, since most of those immigrants will be on lower wages, unable to buy, and will rent.

We are no longer in a world where the former is possible. We have to deal with the world as it is, and as it will become. The government could do us a great many favours to give our workers a real chance - but they will not.

Soddball

It was not meant to be funny - except perhaps to the terminally starved of humour. It is an online moniker I have used for the last 6 years. I use it all over the place. If you find it offensive, then I suggest you stop using the entire internet, listening to the radio or watching TV because I heard worse on Radio 4 this afternoon.

I am being opinionated. This is, after all, the internet.


So you haven't accused me of not thinking about it, you've just said I'm not able to.

If you look at my earlier posts you'll notice that I advocated two critical policy changes that I think would lessen the impact of migration. Where are yours?

We cannot simply shut our doors and pretend the problem will go away. The only way these problems can be beaten is by being better. A brain race, rather than an arms race, if you will.

Internationalist

Er, I think somehow Britannist and I have swapped places in your quote here. :?

Soddball

I am sometimes quotally incompetent. My apologies.

Moving Target

A real shame Soddball - a sensible post. I must admit I was rather enjoying your discourse on Literature, the Trade Union movement and free market economics.

The Poles seem to be generally good sorts but this is not the issue. The real issue is how large scale immigration impacts upon the social and economic welfare of the UK.

There is a view that Polish workers are harder working and they are certainly cheaper. I'm not sure how this has been tested, however the former is not altogether borne out economically. GDP per capita has actually reduced since the Accession countries were given access to the UK labour market.

This however might be sign of the disadvantge of having a bigger labour force. It will produce more output, it does not increase output and income per head. Cheap labour removes the pressure on employers to raise productivity, this in turn will make living standards grow more slowly, as actually has happened since immigration accelerated.

Add to this the idea that immigration is necessary to fill 'shortages,' although this seems plausible it is not neccessarily correct. In a free labour market, pay rates rise to the level needed to persuade domestic workers to acquire the necessary skills or perform an unpleasant job. For example there was a shortage of nurses as long as their pay kept low (and nurses were siphoned off from the Third World). Since nurses pay rose, the shortage has disappeared.

Further, there have been many reports about the effect of the lack of UK standard qualification of Polish tradesmen.

Access to the UK for Polish people is obviously attractive - the journey into Heathrow is 4 hours at most. Add to this that the schools teach English as a foreign language (not Russian any longer) and that there already is a sizable Polish community, whom settled in the UK after the Second World War, to welcome them.

There must however be some truth that many of the Polish arrivals are 'go getter' types. Mind you at 21 if I'd been sure of a bar job or labouring on a building site in say France or Germany at effectively 5 times the going rate for the UK, I would have done it for a few years, sending the money back home.

The Welfare State may look very different today than how Beveridge planned it (but funnily enough as a percentage of GDP, welfare expenditure is lower in the UK than in Poland) - but it's aims were and are noble enough. The issues facing the UK are more complex than a few chavs. To be honest I'd rather ensure dole scroungers and the like are robustly helped into getting off their arses than simply written off as scum. Anyone who's doesn't actually pity these poor f*ckers who have £50 a week to live on, in some dodgy hellhole inner city council estate does in my opinion really need to get out more often.

Surely the best solution for all is a welfare reform programme like that recently undertaken in the USA, instead of importing cheap transient labour.

There is nothing sustainable in terms of community and long term prosperity for the UK as a nation to simply become a market for legions of transient workers to move in and out of. The concept of the 'race to the bottom' is well observed, as are studies showing that working conditions and other life quality measures are worsening. Higher housing costs are a result of the increased population demand. Indeed the much vaunted economic benefits of opening the labour are on closer inspection rather elusive.

Indeed for it's faults I'd much rather the UK carried on for some time yet than was bulldozed in the name of a European labour market.