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[Politics] Brexit
- Thread starter KingstonSeagull
- Start date
Neville's Breakfast
Well-known member
GT49er
Well-known member
A cosy evening for two discussing how to deal with scumbags?Not me..I guessed correctly then
Is there a prize ?
Neville's Breakfast
Well-known member
Pass.......
Who says I am a leftie and did I mention White British or the poor for that matter in my comment? No I did not and my quip was largely tongue in cheek but with a hint of reality. I am sure we all have seen or know someone who makes you feel embarrassed to be British? Secondly, I have recently read a book recently "Marked for Death" about the RFC in the first world war. In the book it describes research done not in britain about pilot physiology etc and flying that was often dismissed by the british because it was felt that we were different or better in some way and that is clearly is poppy cock. However, the same feeling of British superiority whether consciously of subconsciously does often come across in some of the postings on here largely from the leave side. I find that trait that seems to be part of our national psyche a little disturbing!
From this you might be able to deduce that I was for remain because we didn't get to be the 5th largest economy by not being part of the EU and we already had a remarkably good membership deal. Being part of the single market our GDP grew by 69% not far off the usa which grew by 71%. Japan over the same period grew by 19%! More British people and British Nationals are in work than ever before and there probably isn't much flex in the British working population to supply the needs of a growing economy that's what migration helped address. Basically a growing economy needs migration so if Brexit is a success then migration will still be something we will have to live with! Issues around Housing and the NHS were often cited by the leavers as issues that would be helped by leaving the EU but these are just domestic issues and nothing to do with the EU. These are clearly issues that could be addressed by our domestic government but aren't because of politics and the housing crisis and NHS funding are something of our own making by our voting choices and cannot be laid at the door of the EU.
However, the British people have decided for better of for worse that we are to leave the EU. The full implications of this may not be known for many years to come. Indicators could be the steady drift of manufacturing across to the EU, rising unemployment, slow down in growth etc. But my thinking is that we may never know whether it will be a success or not because we wont how better or worse it would be if we had stayed in! The evidence of history suggest we would have done better in but that's something for more pointless debate and argument for many years to come!
By the way my political leanings are probably akin to someone like Ken Clarke - just to set the record straight!
Two Professors
Two Mad Professors
Under EU law we must pay for pensioners healthcare in Spain,and the money we pay Spain far outweighs what they reciprocate.Indeed,they are very tardy repaying the costs of their citizens to the NHS.
Two Professors
Two Mad Professors
If the EU is such a massive generator of growth and employment,why do so many of their citizens feel the need to come here.There are plenty of EU countries with a nicer climate than ours!
Neville's Breakfast
Well-known member
Out of interest have you ever lived abroad ? These traits you ascribe to britons were even more in evidence in the countries I lived in in Asia and Europe. They also had class systems even more ingrained than the U.K. (To explode another anti U.K. assumption often made elsewhere). You should try living and working in Chinese societies or in somewhere like Malaysia that has discrimination against non Malays actually backed up in the legal system. Whilst abroad I encountered considerably more supremacist type talk than I've ever heard in the U.K and this was in 'polite society' not just down the pub or hawker centre.
By the way I agree with you that this country needs skilled immigration. If the EU had agreed to limited immigration instead of unlimited then Remain would probably have won the Referendum as this would likely have tipped the balance the other way.. This though would not have suited big business so was and is a non starter. Using race as a cover doesn't change this reality.
GT49er
Well-known member
You'll never know what you're missing!
D
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These smaller EU countries with poor wages and less employment opportunities have done bloody well off the back of the contributions countries like the UK have made over the years, and just to add further insult the same countries who have done the best are the same countries where most of their people have left to come here and work. It's a double win for them. If the same amount of people from the UK went the other way, started tapping in to their own system, it wouldn't be long before their own governments and people where complaining to the EU.
The only reason Spain doesn't have a problem before someone brings this up, is because we generate hundreds of millions of Euros for their own tourist industry, that keeps a lot of their own people employed. The same hasn't happened here i'm afraid.
The EU is a con, always has been, and always will be. It doesn't matter now because soon we will officially leave.
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GT49er
Well-known member
Too late - someone already has!
Most of their people have cone - what a stupid comment
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Neville's Breakfast
Well-known member
Every now and again the standard of debate descends to name calling and insults. Looks like this is one such time. I'm out for a while until civility returns I think.
Limited immigration does have an appeal. The problem is in the application.
Initially it would seem simple to decide which jobs are skilled and which are not, (Doctor in the former category and hotel cleaner in the latter).
The problems arise somewhere in the middle. If you say IT is a skilled industry, that would appear to be true in the case of coders and engineers, and not the case for data input, but there are lots of grey areas. Ultimately the person making the decision is likely to be a administrator in the civil service, withg no experience or knowledge of the job in question, and an element of box ticking occurs, which is both costly in terms of time and money. There's no evidence that such a system works to the benefit of anyone, as evidenced by 180,000 non EU people coming to work in the UK last year.
Having seen in my own industry (HE) the complete car crash that has arisen in respect of recruiting international students from outside the EU (they are included in the migration stats even though they are paying £12-20k a year to attend courses), I have zero confidence in the politicians making the strategic decisions or the Borders Agency staff administering them. The rules are already very complex, and to extend them to EU students once Brexit occurs will increase the paperwork and reduce the appeal of the UK as a place of excellent learning (Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial are in the top ten of the world).
The ultimate consequence is that the students go elsewhere as the bureacracy and idiocy of politicians and bureaucrats is spectacular.
We have a world class university sector which generates over £7 billion a year from 436,000 international studetns to the UK economy it seems utterly stupid to me. However HE is an industry about which few comment and even less give a shit about as 'people are tired of experts'.
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You say skilled but what about the seasonal fruit pickers that the farming industry needs? Also one of the advantages of leaving the EU is the supposed reduction in red tape - never mind the majority of red tape is generated by are own government and not the EU. However, just imagine the red tape,extra staff and civil servants and the expense of running a controlled immigration process? It will be interesting to see how that will work! Maybe we could take a leaf out of a certain Mr Trump's policies we could build a wall and get the EU to pay for it?
The advantage of using EU migrants to do seasonal fruit picking is that they tend to be young, flexible and mobile. It is very difficult to incentivise someone to move from (say) Scunthorpe, Redcar or Huyton to work in The Wash for minimum wage for 3-4 months of the year.
Even if they did want to work, then if they were on benefits the system if very cumbersome (thanks IDS) and it is nigh on impossible to pay the deposit and first month's rent on a flat 100-200 miles away from home for a short term job paying £7 an hour in a town you're not familiar with and have no friends.
Some of the unemployed in the UK are feckless and lazy, but many are not. They are however caught up in the web of forms, bureaucracy and queues at local and national government agencies that give little reason to take on seasonal work away from their regular home.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
And unlikely to complain about being paid less than minimum wage or being housed 5 to a room and being charged exorbitant rent for that or working excessive hours without a break or being disciplined, fined or sacked without their statutory rights.
UK workers generally won't do fruit and veg picking not because they are lazy but because they won't tolerate the working conditions - and quite rightly so.
Or the great British public want cheap food couldn't that have something to do with it as well?
Lets be honest here, they are young because of their age, flexible and mobile because the minimum wage they receive from the farmer is of greater value to a migrant from say eastern europe than a worker doing the exact same job from the UK, France or Germany, there is nothing unique about 'the migrant' as compared to anyone else other than he is receiving a comparatively high wage for unskilled work above anything else he could receive at home.