EU immigration row / time to get out

[Little John]

A brief aside: the population of Poland is 38.5m, Bulgaria and Romania combined about 27.3m. 500,000 Poles came here over several years, and while it may have led to some problems in certain areas, they also contributed a great deal economically. They are most certainly not the reason we had a financial crash. Let's not kid ourselves that a million new people are likely to turn up in January, or indeed that they are somehow the biggest threat to our prosperity. They're just ordinary people trying their best in a crazy screwed-up system. There are far more important battles for us to fight, and people who are far more deserving of our ire.

Nobody on here has suggested that any immigrants of any origin are responsible for the financial crash. That would be a ridiculous suggestion and so I am not sure why you felt the need to inform anyone of this.

Secondly, please define how the last major wave of immigration over the last tens of years has benefited our economy as you have implied? What exactly do you mean by "benefited"?

In terms of how many people come from Bulgaria and Romania, you are in no more of a position to say how many will come than anyone else. It is probably reasonable to suppose, however, that it will be in at least the hundreds of thousand unless there are serious impediments to their arriving. The reason is simple; no matter how much our pay and conditions are deteriorating here, those pay and conditions are still a lot better than where many of those Romanian and Bulgarians immigrants are coming from. They would be daft not to come. I would do the same if I were in their shoes. All of the people I know would not blame them for coming. However, if they do come in large numbers and end up undercutting and undermining pay and conditions yet further in the process, then there are plenty of people in this country who will come to blame them, as irrational as that may be.

It's easy enough for upper white collar professionals to look down on the complaints of everyone else to such immigration because they will be the least affected by it or, to the extent they are affected, will be in the best position to globally relocate themselves in response if they need to. For everyone else, they have nowhere else to go and so if there is a mass influx of people who economically undercut them, they're screwed. This has already been happening and is certain to worsen in this next wave of immigration.

The plain fact is, the people of this country (the majority of whom fall into the "nowhere else to go" category) have not been asked for their permission to allow this to happen and so, irrespective of what you (or I) may or may not consider reasonable, who are you (or I) to deny the people of this country the right to say no to such an influx of new mass immigration?

Finally, you are erecting a false dichotomy when you imply that the choice is between allowing this immigration to occur or not recognising who our real enemies are. It is entirely possible to hold both positions since I consider it is both imperative that we halt further mass immigration and also recognise any potential or actual immigrants are not our enemies, but that the people who orchestrate and manipulate the lives of both us and those immigrants are.

It is the lack of a rational immigration policy that is in the interests of the majority of the people who already live and work in this country that is leaving a dangerous political vacuum that is being filled by the deeply unpleasant right wing UKIP and is also causing the arsehole Cameron to jump on the UKIP bandwagon in the hope of bleeding some of their votes from them.

[Tarrel]

Also, is it actually in the interests of Bulgaria and Romania that loads of their medical staff are going to emigrate?? It is potentially disastrous for the people of those countries too (those who actually stay home...)

The Romanian Prime Minister shares this concern IIRC.

[stumuzz]

madame defarge list ?

Ahh. French.

Yes it could happen there!

[AndySir]

It's a little strange to read posts claiming the rise in inequality in the UK will lead to conflict and decrying the super rich as evil for locking their wealth away while simultaneously claiming protection for their own wealth against the unwashed tides of eastern europe. Massively uneven distribution of wealth only a moral wrong when you're on the wrong end, it seems.

In theory expansion of the EU opens up new markets - a whole new slew of consumers who might be persuaded to shop at Tescos and choose EDF as their supplier. I mention this as no-one else seems to have considered it relevant - the clear intention is to keep the growth party going by expanding the Eurozone with all the positive and negative that brings.

I still support it, in principle, although I note that those who will reap the benefits from this expansion will not be the ones paying for the problems and pressures that large scale immigration will bring.

[stumuzz]

I mention this as no-one else seems to have considered it relevant - the clear intention is to keep the growth party going by expanding the Eurozone with all the positive and negative that brings.

Interesting, I come to roughly the same conclusion but by a different route.
To me it's all about efficiency, making the the EU/USA (oceania) more able to compete with the rise and rise of Asia. I have no doubt that the average Joe will be competing with the average Joe in Asia in twenty years time. The political turmoil will be savage, benefits cut, higher educational expectations just to get a minimum wage job, more state work for those who cannot find work.

There will be advantages as well.

[biffvernon]

Boston, Lincolnshire, seemed to make the news yesterday. The arrival of our East European friends has resulted in Boston market having the best fruit and veg stall I know of. Folk who value good food are a great asset to our cultural enrichment.

[marknorthfield]

Hi Steve. I was hoping to instil some sense of perspective. My point in including the financial crisis line was simply that there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to improving the lives of ordinary working people than this overheated debate about immigration. And no, I wasn't 'erecting a false dichotomy' (that tickled me), but then maybe you missed the nuance of my second sentence? Forgive me for not writing an essay, but I was about to go to bed.

Regarding the economic contribution - for that is the word I used, not 'benefited' - I'm sure you don't need to be told about the recent UCL report. Slightly amusing to see the guy from Migration Watch making up statistics in that BBC article.

No of course I don't know how many will actually come, but I still think it worth noting the combined population of Bulgaria and Romania is not quite three quarters that of Poland. It's also worth noting that in 2004 the UK was only one of a few countries opening up their labour market to Eastern Europe, with others installing 7-year transitional controls; that won't be the case this time, as 8 other countries are doing the same as us, including Germany and France. It is rather more reasonable to assume that the combination of the above factors will lead to a rather less dramatic change than occurred last decade.

I certainly have no right whatsoever to dictate UK policy on immigration or EU membership, but I don't quite see what you're getting at there. I happen to believe an EU membership referendum would be a good thing, and I'm pretty sure I've never said otherwise. But the point of a debate on a forum like this is to exchange opinions and (hopefully not misleading) information, ideally in a friendly manner. That's all. Going into full-on attack mode in response to one paragraph seems a little unnecessary.

Sure, there are some people who see the issue in entirely non-xenophobic terms. I'm glad to hear you're one of them. Doesn't mean I buy your argument that we don't have a rational immigration policy. We may well not be accommodating the increased numbers as well as we should, but that's a separate discussion. I'd argue that EU immigration is a convenient fig-leaf for political parties, newspapers and talk radio to bang on about in preference to far more deep-seated and unpleasant realities about power and finance in this country.

And before you ask, I'm not a white-collar professional. Perish the thought.

[emordnilap]

Monbiot gives you a taster.

Jesus f****** Christ, it just keeps getting worse.

I know. Peoples' money, rights, possessions and freedoms are being quite systematically removed. In most cases, it's so stealthy as to be, errm, 'acceptable' - take a little from this group, the rest don't care. Take a little from that group, the rest don't care and so on. It's a very deliberate and steady downhill slope.

The TTIP is not being properly discussed and, I suspect, won't be.

[Little John]

Hi Steve. I was hoping to instil some sense of perspective. My point in including the financial crisis line was simply that there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to improving the lives of ordinary working people than this overheated debate about immigration. And no, I wasn't 'erecting a false dichotomy' (that tickled me), but then maybe you missed the nuance of my second sentence? Forgive me for not writing an essay, but I was about to go to bed.

Regarding the economic contribution - for that is the word I used, not 'benefited' - I'm sure you don't need to be told about the recent UCL report. Slightly amusing to see the guy from Migration Watch making up statistics in that BBC article.

No of course I don't know how many will actually come, but I still think it worth noting the combined population of Bulgaria and Romania is not quite three quarters that of Poland. It's also worth noting that in 2004 the UK was only one of a few countries opening up their labour market to Eastern Europe, with others installing 7-year transitional controls; that won't be the case this time, as 8 other countries are doing the same as us, including Germany and France. It is rather more reasonable to assume that the combination of the above factors will lead to a rather less dramatic change than occurred last decade.

I certainly have no right whatsoever to dictate UK policy on immigration or EU membership, but I don't quite see what you're getting at there. I happen to believe an EU membership referendum would be a good thing, and I'm pretty sure I've never said otherwise. But the point of a debate on a forum like this is to exchange opinions and (hopefully not misleading) information, ideally in a friendly manner. That's all. Going into full-on attack mode in response to one paragraph seems a little unnecessary.

Sure, there are some people who see the issue in entirely non-xenophobic terms. I'm glad to hear you're one of them. Doesn't mean I buy your argument that we don't have a rational immigration policy. We may well not be accommodating the increased numbers as well as we should, but that's a separate discussion. I'd argue that EU immigration is a convenient fig-leaf for political parties, newspapers and talk radio to bang on about in preference to far more deep-seated and unpleasant realities about power and finance in this country.

And before you ask, I'm not a white-collar professional. Perish the thought.

I'm not in the best of moods lately and I think it is coming across in a number of my posts and so I need to keep an eye on that Mark. My apologies mate.

I just get so pissed off that the terms of debate are framed such that the only place left for concerns about immigration is the right-wing nutter camp. Thus, for those on the liberal, Guardian-reading left who like to trot out the conflationary line that all concerns about immigration are really coded racist tendencies has, to my mind, actually exacerbated the problem of a latent racism building once more in our society. It also plays directly into the hands of globalist corporations and their lackey governments to be able to portray the same conflationary picture of anti-immigration/racism. The debate gets effectively shut-down and the big boys get their cheap labour. The bottom line is that all of the people I know who don't have a problem with the mass immigration we have experienced are people who, for one reason or another, are not affected or have effective economic responses at their disposal and all those who do have a problem with it are those who have been directly economically affected by it and do not have alternative economic responses at their disposal. By and large, such people tend to be poor and less well educated and so their voices are either not heard or are dismissed. All of which leaves them vulnerable to the poisonous message of the extreme-right.

If you want to know what would make me far less concerned with mass immigration, here's a few things that would need to be in place:

1) An absolute standardisation of pay and conditions across all participating countries.

2) An absolute standardisation of political freedoms across all participating countries.

3) Any job to be offered to a resident of country before it was allowed to be offered to an economic immigrant. This difference of provision could be relaxed at the end of a given time period

4) Any social housing to be offered to a resident of a country before it was offered to an economic immigrant. This difference of provision could be relaxed at the end of a given time period

5) No specialist economic or cultural provision to be offered by the state to economic migrants. Refugees migrants should expect to receive specialist provision, however.

Then, there are far more difficult to overcome issues such as:

6) In the case of our own country, an end to the lack of self respect for our own indigenous Anglo Saxon culture, what is left of it. I am an English, Anglo-Saxon Northern working class man man and I am sick of my class of people being shunted to one side like an embarrassment.

7) Standardisation of economic performance across different participating countries, This, in turn, would require ever greater political and economic convergence of those countries. A united states (in this case) of Europe, in other words. Which then leads onto the final issue:

An absolute willingness on the part of the part of the peoples of those countries that all of the above standardisations and convergences take place.

Little of the above are in place, and those that are have been put in place without the consent of the people in many cases. It's all bullshit.

[emordnilap]

Monbiot gives you a taster.

Jesus f****** Christ, it just keeps getting worse.

I know. Peoples' money, rights, possessions and freedoms are being quite systematically removed. In most cases, it's so stealthy as to be, errm, 'acceptable' - take a little from this group, the rest don't care. Take a little from that group, the rest don't care and so on. It's a very deliberate and steady downhill slope.

In fact, coincidentally I just clicked on an article by Golem, who discusses this very issue (my bold).

In every country I can think of, the sovereignty and wealth of the Nation, which was once the embodiment of the power and will of the people, is being butchered and sold to the highest bidder. Everywhere, the Nation and the people within it, are under attack. Not from without by terrorists but from within. Because in every country the people who run the State have largely decided they no longer wish to serve the people but prefer instead to serve the interests of a Global Over-Class.

Of course we are not encouraged to see this clearly or if we do, certainly not to speak of it to others. And many of those we might try to talk to, do not want to hear.

Many of us prefer instead to find what warmth we can in the false and threadbare beliefs fed to us by the quisling elite of the State

Apols if the link has been posted here before.

[marknorthfield]

European immigrants have worked hard but they have also remitted huge sums of the money that they have earned back to where they come from. That is money that is lost to the British economy. How is that good for the average Briton?

OK, a little number crunching. Presuming every one of those 500,000 Poles sent £5K back to Poland every year (unlikely, but it will do for the sake of an example). That's £2.5 billion. In contrast, the tax gap per year (avoidance and evasion) is somewhere in the range of £34-120billion. Yes, some Poles may contribute to that, but probably not much. I know which figure bothers me more.

But more to the point (and lest I get accused of further FD erections), if some of their earnings after tax go out of the country, so what? It's their money to do with what they will. Should no one travel to the continent and spend money there, out of patriotic duty? Would you prefer the money to go into bank or pension funds with dubious investment practices? (Most of them.) Maybe they'll simply consume less as a result of having less disposable income. Maybe they'll cycle/walk more and not drive or fly very much. Who knows?

[marknorthfield]

Thanks for the response, Steve. No time to reply properly now as I'm abt to start work again. I'll mull over what you've said, you can be sure.

[jonny2mad]

I actually do things like pick veg, I also have a provable record of working crazy long hours in bad conditions .

So when I see ads or reply to adds and get told sorry we are only hiring poles or bulgarians it kinda annoys me, but at the same time I see the funny side of things because I can see where its all heading.

labour forecast 13,000 poles would come to the uk but 500,000 actually came.

Too be honest I hope they will make the same underestimate again, I have stocked up on popcorn. What I'd like to see is all of europes roma to head to lincolnshire and go and live with biff .

It would be interesting to imagine what actual numbers would upset the people of this country that they actually did something. I imagine they would need to be mighty high and most people would leave the country before they did anything to halt immigration .
Thats what the 800,000 ex londoners did they didn't try to fight because their taught not to fight, they just packed and moved .

I wouldnt worry about ukip or the far right they are a joke, the main partys wont do anything neither will any party of the left .

[clv101]

It's a little strange to read posts claiming the rise in inequality in the UK will lead to conflict and decrying the super rich as evil for locking their wealth away while simultaneously claiming protection for their own wealth against the unwashed tides of eastern europe. Massively uneven distribution of wealth only a moral wrong when you're on the wrong end, it seems.

Indeed. Sad but true.

[UndercoverElephant]

It's a little strange to read posts claiming the rise in inequality in the UK will lead to conflict and decrying the super rich as evil for locking their wealth away while simultaneously claiming protection for their own wealth against the unwashed tides of eastern europe. Massively uneven distribution of wealth only a moral wrong when you're on the wrong end, it seems.

Indeed. Sad but true.

The accusation of hypocrisy is totally unwarranted. Where did I say that a massively uneven distribution of wealth between rich countries and poor countries wasn't morally wrong? I didn't, so stop putting words into my mouth. What I said was that there are too many people on this island already and the arrival of a few hundred thousand more of them will be a disaster.

The question of why some countries are richer and some poorer is a very complex topic, and not directly related the moral status of stumuzz's 20 houses and the people's he is forcing into rent slavery for life so he can stuff ever more money into his own bulging bank account. In some cases this inequality is due to things that are indeed morally wrong and ought to be changed, but that doesn't mean completely free movement in a borderless world (which is again another issue). In other cases it is to do with the poor countries in question being totally culturally backwards, and that is not the fault of people in the rich countries.