BS: Labour party discussion

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 05:35 PM

Self interest surely. As Mr T says Mr Corbyn has always been anti EU and against Labour Party policy, but to say so in the circumstances which prevailed would have meant instant crucifixion(in the political sense of the word).

I think the issue was important enough for Mr Corbyn to make a stand over it.....he may yet regret not doing so as Old Labour votes haemorrhage to UKIP.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 06:43 PM

I think he was telling the truth. Why not? So far as the EU is concerned I don't know anyone who voted to Remain who doesn't see it that way - plenty wrong with the EU, but the right thing was to stay.

If David Mameron had had a minimal grasp of tactics Brexit would have been defeated. For example votes for 16 and 17 years would have done, and there'd very likely have been a majority for that in the Commons. He could have accepted calls by the Scots, the Welsh and Northern Ireland for any result to be dependent on all the nations agreeing, on the basis of holding the UK together. He could have pushed for a minimum winning margin for any change.

The Brexit victory was down to David Cameron, not Jeremy Corbyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 06:54 PM

"Only thing about that GSS Corbyn in all probability voted "Leave"

Prove it. You have absolutely no call for saying that. Bloody prove it, charlatan.

So where are we today? Tories breaking every promise on the economy they ever made. Six years on, they can't fix the deficit but still have to screw the poor. They have to borrow billions, the Tory bête noir. "Paying off the deficit" won't happen by 2020 or anything like, as if we didn't already know it five years ago. Osborne, flavour of the month last summer, is yesterday's man. The pound is plummeting day by day. We have a million on zero-hours contracts. Six million on less than the living wage. Job security demolished. Millions on "self-employed," basically so that employers don't have to pay their stamps. Millions on bogus "apprenticeships" which means that, unless you're bloody lucky, you'll be spending your days sweeping the floor and making the tea, on precisely the same pay as you get on jobseekers, only they won't let you have that, will they. Foreign companies threatening to leave. Hard talk from the EU. Up shit creek without a bloody paddle. But never mind. Teribus and his little Englanders will sort us out. It's just that they haven't told us how, yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 06:55 PM

Come on Mr McGrath what would the "Blairite" MP's have done with him if he had voted with his conscience? He would not have lasted two minutes.

Still think he made the wrong choice though, the EU is a capitalist construct designed to keep those rusty old wheels turning to give an impression of economic growth etc.

He wants to "wipe clean" the wrong slate.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:16 PM

Some of us are trying to have a grown-up conversation here, akenaton. So do consider toddling off to Keith's toxic Whither Labour thread, why don't you.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:21 PM

They'd have done precisely what they did do. I see no reason whatsoever not to believe Jeremy Corbyn meant every word he said in the Brexit campaign. Whatever the failings of the EU leaving was the wrong choice, he repeatedly said, and as someone who like Jeremy voted to get out in the previous referendum, I agree with him, and I believe he meant it.

Aside from annything else, the vote gave the Green Light to the racists who infest this country. That would have been quite enough to determine my vote. When Brexit actually kicks in, rather being on the horizon that's going to get worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: bobad
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:21 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 11:21 AM

As ever, you don't know what you're talking about. There's a nice thread that Keith started where you can go and say your stupid things to your heart's content. Leave this one alone is my advice until you can say something constructive and of substance.

Subject: RE: BS: Feelings = Facts
From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:48 AM

The whole point of my last two posts, Stu, is that I AM "giving it a rest," so your non-moderatorial injunction is not appreciated, thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:26 PM

The value of PMs is that they allow personal squabbles to be carried out without messing up threads. They don't belong here. When they take place in a thread beyond a certain level, that's generally a signal for moderaters to close things down.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 07:46 PM

Do you seriously think Mr McGrath that "racism" was the driver for the thousands of Labour voters who voted for Brexit?

I cant believe that you are amongst those who see any attempt to regulate the numbers of immigrants coming into this country as simply "racism".....that is an extremely insulting position to adopt.

As a socialist, I would have thought that the infrastructures of the countries from which the mass immigrants originate would be a concern to you? Do you think that our parasitical use of immigrant labour which leaves these countries short of people to run their public services and maintain their infrastructure is in line with socialist thinking?
I think that we and they should be training our own people so that they can contribute fully to each society.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 16 - 08:56 PM

Bobad's post is based on his complete misunderstanding of earlier exchanges. I'm not surprised, but don't blame me please, Kevin!

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 06:49 AM

Wanting to regulate the numbers coming into the country is not racist per se. But, in the referendum campaign, the leave side's narrative on this was very racist. A poster depicting a long line of refugees, mostly black and nowhere near the UK border, had the leading light of the leave campaign, Farage, standing proudly in front of it. The message of the poster was that we had to get back "control of our borders." Well we already have cast-iron control of our borders apropos of refugees. Ask the thousands in the Calais jungle or the millions in camps in Turkey or Lebanon how easy it is to get across our borders. The poster was deliberately conflating the refugee crisis with the perfectly legitimate movement of EU citizens in order to come here to work, who are not mostly black and who don't form long snaking lines. A racist lie. It's also lies to claim that EU citizens come here to live on benefits. Overwhelmingly they do not. Pro rata, the numbers of immigrants who are on out-of-work benefits are minuscule compared with the numbers of UK citizens in that position. Immigrants are blamed for "driving down wages," when the reality is that wages are always decided by their UK employers. Immigrants are blamed for the housing crisis, when the reality is that successive governments have, for decades, failed to build anything like enough houses. Immigrants are blamed for putting a strain on the NHS, when the reality is that the Tories are letting the NHS go to the dogs (compare waiting times now with waiting times pre-Coalition, for example). Next time you visit a hospital have a quick butchers at the staff in every department, then still tell me that immigrants are "putting a strain." Yes we don't train enough doctors and nurses (along with lots of other skilled workers). Oh yes, you can bet your arse that there'll be plenty of exemptions for them to come here to work when we finally "take back control" (though, of course, we'll never see the day...)

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 07:58 AM

My point wasn't that all those voting for Brexit were racists, but that much of the campaign was racist, and that opposition to racism was a very good reason to vote against it, in anticipation of the likelihood that a Brexit victory would encourage racists - which has turned out to be true, with a significant increase in attacks on immigrants, including killings, one in my home town.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 08:08 AM

And now the pound is plunging to long-time lows against the dollar over fears about brexit.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 01:38 PM

I'm reminded of a post I made about how some people were remarking that the fears about Brexit had been exaggerated, about a man jumping from a skyscraper overheard ib the course of the fall ro be sying "Well, it's all right so far." We ain't seen nothing yet...

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 03:48 PM

Grow up the lot of you....you lost, what about your precious democracy which you just love to spread around the globe?

Wouldn't you just love it if the economy collapsed, we all went back on a three day week and the kids were starving?

Might just give you all a smidgen of credibility back.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 04:32 PM

Grow up the lot of you....you lost (emphasis mine)

Aha! Ake is adopting The Professor's Mantra!

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 16 - 06:20 PM

No I wouldn't, aken. I hope I'm wrong in thinking those kind of things are only too likely.

I didn't like quite a lot of things about the EU. I just thought it was the better choice. And there are some things I valued, such as some built-in protection for workers' rights, and against any attempt to bring back the death penalty. And also the guarantee of freedom of movement between countries.

On the other hand I don't like the restrictions on public ownership and so forth. I'd like an extension of democracy, which in some cases would mean an element of federalism, and in others the reverse, a reduced role for Brussels.

But that,s done and dusted. We're out (possibly not you, aken, up in Scotland, because I suspect you might well end up back in the EU, either in an independent Scotland, or in some kind of deal).

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 02:13 AM

The EU, thoroughly corrupt, totally unaccountable, spendthrift and inefficient. We have been in it for 43 years continually bleating about things being wrong with the EU as MGOH has done on this thread. The argument put forward by the politicians is that we are better off as members of the EU as we can change things from the inside. In the course of those 43 years we have managed to change S.F.A. - How long do want to give it? The EU continues to be - Thoroughly corrupt, totally unaccountable, spendthrift and inefficient.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 03:38 AM

I'm sorry if my last post came across as grumpy and ill tempered Mr McGrath....I wasn't referring to you personally, and I know that you are a decent and thoughtful person, but surely the issue of "free movement of labour" is the crux of the problem.

In the future, no matter what government is in power, all our citizens will have to contribute to the best of their abilities. We will be unable to keep millions on benefits, the health service will be shaken to its roots and will be taken back to what was visualised by the founders. In short we will be forced to live within our means.

I hope this will also mean a change in our economic system to allow us to concentrate more on building a society in which every last one of us has a real stake.

Short term confidence tricks like "free movement" will not sustain our country for any length of time, while, as I said earlier denuding other countries of the labour required to service their own infrastructure.

The mantra of financial aspiration must not be the only driver, surely humanity is better than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Stu
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 06:54 AM

People have been coming and going to and fro these islands for thousands of years, including people from asia, africa and closer to home of course.

This petty nationalism and xenophobia is sickening.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 07:10 AM

Sorry Stu, but the inability of some people who should and do know better, to grasp the point, is just as sickening.

Never in our history have we had to absorb immigrants at such a high level and over such a limited timespan....at a juncture where our public services are under such extreme pressure.

You know that very well, yet harp on about racism and xenophobia as if you were personally the moral arbiter.

I have seen neither on this forum and very little in real life from thinking people.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 07:15 AM

Stu - 05 Oct 16 - 06:54 AM

"People have been coming and going to and fro these islands for thousands of years, including people from asia, africa and closer to home of course."

Good heavens Stu you mean that"People have been coming and going to and fro these islands for thousands of years" before we became members of the EU - WOW!!!!! - Staggers back in amazement - Guess what Stu they still will continue "coming and going to and from these islands" after we leave, only then we will have a say in who comes.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Stu
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 08:35 AM

They won't if your xenophobic government carries on like this. Friends from the EU and the US who live and work here at the moment are feeling very unhappy and unwelcome in the current climate in the UK. This might not matter to a couple of right-wing little Englanders like you and Ake, but not does to those of us who value our diversity and common heritage.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 09:32 AM

The EU, thoroughly corrupt, totally unaccountable, spendthrift and inefficient. We have been in it for 43 years continually bleating about things being wrong with the EU as MGOH has done on this thread. The argument put forward by the politicians is that we are better off as members of the EU as we can change things from the inside. In the course of those 43 years we have managed to change S.F.A. - How long do want to give it? The EU continues to be - Thoroughly corrupt, totally unaccountable, spendthrift and inefficient.

Well I've been in this country for 65 years, and, for at least 43 of 'em, I've been bleating about our own corrupt and inefficient, self-serving and money-wasting governments. I've seen Polaris, then Trident, then Concorde, then the M25, then plans for HS2, more bloody runways, allowing irresponsible and unregulated bankers to run amok to wreck the economy, cash for questions, cronyism, not to speak of expenses claims cheating on an industrial scale, ignoring tax avoidance and evasion on an eye-watering scale - I won't go on. Oh yes, I can vote them out (though, irrelevantly I admit, I've never actually lived in a constituency in which the bloke I voted for got in), but just consider how few people even know who their MEPs are, let alone bother to vote for them. We are part, quite a big part at that, of the setup that makes and changes all the EU laws, so this pretence all the time that it's all done by a distant bunch of unaccountable and unelected bureaucrats is simply not true. Over 95% of EU laws have our full and enthusiastic consent, and, given that we are stuck with the bloody Tories, the only ones of those likely to be discarded are the ones that protect working people from exploitation. Of the very few laws that we don't agree with, we have modified many and had to reluctantly accept very few indeed. That's what being in a club of 28 means. We HAVE changed things by being at the table when undesirable things might otherwise have got through unmodified by our influence. No more of that, eh?. You don't just "change things" once there's a fait accomplis. You "change things" mostly by ongoing negotiation during processes.

Anyway, the IMF are sounding the alarm bells and we might just "achieve" parity with the dollar and the euro by the end of about next week. Four or five months ago I bought my euros at €1.40. Glad I'm not going on holiday this month. That's how much confidence the world has in our brexiting. As Kevin says, the man halfway to the ground from the roof of the skyscraper hasn't noticed any pain as yet. You are that man.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 09:56 AM

Glad I'm not going on holiday this month

Well I go on a business trip in two weeks and the costs are now a good bit above budget...

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 09:56 AM

It may have escaped your attention, Teribus, that we actually NEED the people who come in. Go into the next care home you pass and listen to the accents of the staff. Go into any large hospital and do the same. Try motorway service areas at eleven at night when only your cup of Costa will keep you going. Come down to Cornwall in March and see who's picking the daffs that you buy for a quid a bunch, bogof, from Morrisons (you can buy me a pint while you're at it). Find out who's bringing in the spud and cauliflower harvest in Lincolnshire in August. Then go down to JobCentrePlus and ask if you can have have the claimant figures for true Brits versus immigrants. You'd be amazed. Immigrants are here TO WORK. They are doing insecure, unpleasant and low-paid work, quite often. At the other end of the spectrum they are keeping the NHS afloat, in spite of the best efforts of this scumbag administration to quietly dismantle it. "Control who comes in" if you will, but have you actually HEARD how long it takes to train a hospital doctor from scratch, as if we actually had the training facilities in the first place? I'm not as old as you, but neither you nor I will live to see the day when net immigration falls significantly from today's numbers by dint of any "control mechanisms" we might contrive. It's only the economy, stupid, as it is now and as it always will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 10:11 AM

Had we stayed in the EU, when would we has been able to change the "free movement of labour"; the one issue above all others which persuaded huge numbers of Labour voters to vote out.

Why was this the case? Because poor working class ex industrial areas are always hosts to the most massive influx of immigrants.....not the leafy suburbs of Kent nor the wild and windy cliffs of middle class Cornwall.


But all that is about to change, as they say in Glesca......Stevie!...."Yer tea's oot"! (Peter McDougall.."Just a boy's game")

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 10:27 AM

One confusion is that, while most peple will nod at the comment that there are things wrong with the EU, often they will be talking about different things. That's the problem with talking about "reforms" - the changes which Cameron was trying unsuccessfully to get the rest of the EU to agree to were mostly things many of us would be wholly against, and the changes many would want would be the kind of things Cameron would have opposed.
.............

We should recognise that, while immigration, for all the problems which arise when we fail to make appropriate arrangements for newcomers, is a benefit to this country, that is not so for the countries from which the emigrants come, even though in the short term it can be convenient. Emigration has long been spoken of in Ireland, for example, as "the plague of emigration".

When people who have been born, raised and edicated in other countries immigrate to Britain, those countries, which is most cases are much poorer than us, are in effect subsidising Britain. That is particularly true in the case of qualified and skilled people. There should be some method by which that anomaly can be rectified, with appropriate per capita payments, which could be used to improve employment opportunities - which would reduce the pressure on people to emigrate.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 10:43 AM

Do you believe that more immigration would be even better for the country, and there could never be a point of diminishing returns however many arrive?

There are both pros and cons, but the cons bite hardest on the poorest.

Of course employers decide what wages to offer, but market forces will encourage them to pay less if there are large numbers of people willing to work for less.
It is an established fact that immigration drives down wages, and blaming employers does not change that fact.
We have a massive and long standing housing crisis, and it is impossible for any government to build houses and infrastructure, and extend services at the same rate as our population increases.
You just can not build the equivalent of a small city every year.

(BTW, Cornwall voted 56% for Brexit)

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 11:31 AM

"Of course employers decide what wages to offer, but market forces will encourage them to pay less if there are large numbers of people willing to work for less.
It is an established fact that immigration drives down wages, and blaming employers does not change that fact."

But having laws to stop employers from being unscrupulous would change "that fact." But don't worry, the Tories will now see to it that employment protection laws are degraded. Those are precisely the ones they hate, but which they kept rather quiet about in the campaign. It isn't actually a "fact" at all, is it? Not one spud-digger, not one care-home bottom-wiper, not one daffodil picker, not one chambermaid has the slightest say in what they get paid. The statement that "immigration drives down wages" is just one more sorry part of the racist narrative that hoodwinked so many people in the referendum.

To our resident bollocks-talker akenaton, Cornwall has the poorest economy of all the counties in England. Huge numbers of people in the main industries here, tourism and agriculture, are on part-time seasonal work on the minimum wage. Housing costs are among the highest in the country. Only couples who are both working full-time can remotely afford to rent a two-bed house in Bude or Truro. Buying is out of the question, not least because there are few affordable homes being built. Plenty of food banks here too, and rotten transport links coupled with high fuel prices. If Cornwall were a country its economy would be poorer than that of Hungary or Lithuania. I'm lucky - I've been here a very long time and we moved here to work as two teachers. We are in a small minority but, unlike you, I go around with my eyes open. So I suggest that you check your facts and engage your brain in future before you decide to open your big mouth.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 12:29 PM

I have friends who live in Bude, my great grandfathers family lived for some time in one of the Canal Cottages, my neighbour here in Argyll had immediate family who lived next door to my Great grandfather in Captains Cottage. I am well versed on the carpetbaggers who reside there now.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 12:38 PM

The problem there would be freedom of travel with the UK, aken. It,s not the Poles they should be worried about in Cornwall, it's the English (and the Scots). I can't see how Brexit will help with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 12:47 PM

BTW....Thank you Mr McGrath for at least acknowledging my point regarding the effects of emigration on poorer countries.
A point which has been studiously avoided by people like Steve and other "remainers".

No one who seriously considers themselves to have any understanding of politics could possibly condone such a policy, which according to the right reverend Anthony Blair, was designed to "make us more competitive in the global economy" (cheap labour, which as Keith has said drives down wages of the very poorest in society)
Also remember that the minimum wage is worth at least three times more in Eastern Europe than in the UK.
A fruit picker here earns the equivalent of a factory manager in Poland, but could a young UK citizen keep a home and raise a family on the same remuneration.....

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 12:50 PM

Sorry cross posted Mr McGrath.....off on a hospital visit, but I would be interested to discuss your last point concerning movement within the UK....later..A.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 01:04 PM

I most certainly do not condone the policy. I condemn it. We do not train the skilled workers we need in this country and we try to hide behind a wall of fake apprenticeships that train people to make tea and sweep floors. But you can't train enough nurses or doctors unless you have the training facilities and professionals to do the training, and we do not. It does not help that this government has alienated both professions and demolished their morale. It takes a damn sight more than five years at a medical college to produce a finished doctor. We are in serious trouble over this, and stealing the finest talent from India, Pakistan, South Africa and the EU is unsustainable and wrong.

To buy a cottage on Breakwater Road, including Captain's Cottage, would leave you with little change from eight or nine hundred grand, yet they're hardly huge. Nearly all of them are either let to holidaymakers for vast weekly rentals or simply stand empty for 48 or more weeks of the year. Oh yes, "them and us" is alive and kicking in Bude as it is in all the resorts in Cornwall.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 01:17 PM

I don't the think the kind of carpetbaggers you mentioned aken are taking the jobs of the native Cornish. It's a different kind of immigration, more akin to colonisation. Rather like what's happening in some parts of London, with the kind of wealthy incomers who will never be affected by stuff like Brexit.
..............

It's worth noting that some of the highest Brexit voting areas had relatively few immigrants, for example Sunderlands. It isn't that the jobs have been taken by immigrants, it's that the jobs have been taken away by the economic system we are stuck with. The largest number of immigrants in Sunderland is actually Chinese, predominantly in the restaurant trade.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 01:26 PM

The statement that "immigration drives down wages" is just one more sorry part of the racist narrative

No. It is a fact. Employers will always pay as little as they can.
You could increase Blair's minimum wage, but that would make Britain even more attractive and increase immigration.

Can I ask again if there is any level of immigration that any of you would consider excessive, or is more always better?
Does it matter at all that there are far fewer homes than are needed for the present population and that it is just impossible to build the equivalent of a small city every year?

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 01:29 PM

"We find that the immigrant to native ratio has a small negative impact on
average British wages. This finding is important for monetary policy makers, who are interested in the
impact that supply shocks, such as immigration, have on average wages and overall inflation. Our
results also reveal that the biggest impact of immigration on wages is within the semi/unskilled services
occupational group."
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2015/swp574.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 01:58 PM

You can churn out your racist nonsense until you're blue in the face. If an employer pays an immigrant worker less than he would pay a native Brit worker for the same work, he is unscrupulous and immoral. The immigrant worker has no choice as to his pay level and, most likely, no choice but to accept the work on offer. He has come here to work and support his dependants. The person who has driven down the wages is the employer. Your constant need to blame immigrants for problems in this country is racist. You should be ashamed of yourself. Same with housing. For decades there have been those of us who have lamented the fact that successive governments have failed to build enough houses. But now you're blaming immigrants for that as well. Well I think you should buy a little offshore island, build a twenty-foot barricade all round it and live a miserable existence all on your own. No-one allowed in at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 02:35 PM

"Employers will always pay as little as they can." Probably true. But "as they can" is the important bit.

As for housing, for decades after the war the UK was building 300,000 houses a year. Equivalent of a small city.

As for whether there's limit to how many people could come, likely, but we aren't near that. The thing about immigration is that, an immigrant population bring with them the main resources needed to provide for them - human ability and energy. But enabling them to use that effectively requires a degree of planning organisation and imagination that has all too often been absent.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 02:43 PM

If an employer pays an immigrant worker less than he would pay a native Brit worker for the same work, he is unscrupulous and immoral

Then they are.

The person who has driven down the wages is the employer.

Yes, but how does that help the workers?

Your constant need to blame immigrants for problems in this country is racist

I do not blame them for anything. Please do not try to make this personal again.



No I am not.
There is a dire shortage of housing already, and housing and infrastructure can not be built at the rate our population is ballooning upwards.

Well I think you should buy a little offshore island, build a twenty-foot barricade all round it and live a miserable existence all on your own. No-one allowed in at all.

I benefit from immigration thank you, as do all pensioners, employers, management, landlords, etc.
Those who suffer are the low and unskilled workers, who you might be expected to care about Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 03:06 PM

Good post, Kevin. I can ignore the ridiculous and disconnected one that followed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 03:10 PM

While Keith and I disagree about a number of things about Israel, there is one thing on which I think we would agree. The proportion of Jewish immigrants since the establishment of Israel has been cery high, far higher in fact than the Jewish population at that time,and of course vastly higher than the immigrant numbers in Britain during tge same period.

There have been problems - but overall Israel has managed to deal with this influx as something poitive for it, socially and economically.

It can be done. The fact that we have failed to do it so wellis no reason to dismiss the possibility of our mending our ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 04:34 PM

I am well versed on the carpetbaggers who reside there now.

Carpetbaggers, Ake?? Are they anything like the Mexican rapists, murderers and worse and/or The Muslim Horde that Trump has warned us about on this side of the pond?

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 04:52 PM

That is an interesting angle.

Here's a sort of red alert. I have asked the moderators to close the other Labour thread, which was very toxic and which, unfortunately, a couple of trollish interventions tried to resurrect today. This thread, despite some rather robust exchanges at times, has managed to stay afloat. My personal view is that we've done the antisemitism/Labour angle to death and beyond and I should like to suggest that we *painstakingly* steer clear of it in this thread, despite the predictable future efforts of a couple of people to keep it going. Not that it isn't worth discussing, but, if I've learned anything, it's that it isn't worth discussing further in this thread. I would suggest to them that they are at liberty to start a new Labour/antisemitism thread if they like and if the long-suffering mods will put up with it. I for one would ignore it. And I know that this risks more trollish interventions, but I'm saying it anyway.

Just a suggestion. Over and out!

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 16 - 05:06 PM

The "interesting angle" was Kevin's, Greg, though, naturally, your angles are always interesting! 😂

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 01:46 AM

"If an employer pays an immigrant worker less than he would pay a native Brit worker for the same work, he is unscrupulous and immoral."

Seems pretty straightforward that doesn't it. But that doesn't even show a fraction of the picture and it all depends on who the "employer" is.

Remember the Chinese "Cockle pickers" in Morecombe Bay? Their "employer" was a Triad Gang, they had been brought into the country as illegal aliens and had no say in who they worked for, or what they got paid, or indeed how much of what they got paid they could keep. They were contracted out by the Triad Gang to the Company wanting the Cockles picked.

"David Anthony Eden Sr. and David Anthony Eden Jr., from Prenton in Merseyside, who bought cockles from the work gang, were cleared of helping the workers break immigration law.

Gangmaster Lin Liang Ren was found guilty of the manslaughter of at least 21 people (two further cocklers were thought to have been killed but their bodies were never found). Ren, his girlfriend Zhao Xiao Qing and his cousin Lin Mu Yong were also convicted of breaking immigration laws. Ren was sentenced to 12 years for manslaughter, 6 years for facilitating illegal immigration (to be served concurrently with the manslaughter sentence), and 2 years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (to be served subsequent to the manslaughter sentence). Lin Mu Yong was sentenced to four years and nine months. Zhao Xiao Qing was sentenced to two years and nine months for facilitation of illegal immigration and perverting the course of justice."

Here's how it works:

Enterprising East European crook looks at the market for agricultural workers required in the UK and sets up an office over in the "old country" where things are bad and unemployment is high. He advertises for workers for jobs abroad for wages that are too good to be true in the "old country". In answer to this advert they get loads of takers and the next thing they are whisked off to the UK to which as members of the EU they exercise their right to free movement of labour where they are contracted out, no idea what the unit price is between the employer of these men (i.e. the Agency that hired them abroad) and the person that Agency has a contract with to supply labour, that could well be for UK minimum wage, could even be marginally above it, but the labourer only gets what he signed up for back in the "the old country".

Not quite so simple as Steve Shaw put it is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 03:00 AM

Exactly so Teribus.
The differentials make the whole sorry scheme unworkable, even without the criminal element.

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 04:13 AM

So the immigrants are all potential criminals and the non British employees are all criminals or potential criminals?
***** foreigners eh!!
Has this site finally fallen into the hands of the B.N.P. - it certainly seems like it, reading the racist bile of our three caped crusaders.
The most law-abiding, industrious and ambitious section of the population are the million or so Asians who have moved to Britain to better their lot, more often often than not to be greeted by racist filth such as that being vomited here by our three resident 'Christian humanitarians'.
WELCOME to BRITAIN   
Immigrants come to Britain to escape the effects of appalling conditions brought about by the fact that we, and other wealthy nations flood our shops with goods manufactured in places of work that are dangerous to the point of being lethal, more on than not, for starvation wages.
We maintain slave-like conditions in these countries with our custom and our elected representatives ascertain that things don't change too much by selling arms to the despotic rulers
We are even happy when our P.M. toddles off to pay his respects to a dead despot while a journalist is undergoing 1,000 lashes for suggesting that something is "rotten in the State of Saudi".
Rule Britannia, eh?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 04:20 AM

I questioned whether the immigration rate might be too high.
Steve's response was to call me names, e.g. "racist."
I am no racist. Senior members of the last Labour government, including Milliband, stated that they had let the rate get too high. All racists?
None have you have said if there was any level of immigration you would consider too high.

Meanwhile, low and unskilled workers are faced with their wages being cut if they can find work at all, high rents, no homes for their kids, and health care and schooling massively over subscribed.
If they complain about their plight, the workers' party turns on them and calls them racist.