EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/funfactsandarticles/migration/which-birds-migrate.aspx

Not all birds migrate. A few, such as partridges, never move more than a kilometre or so from where they were born. These are called sedentary birds. But they are in the minority. Most birds will migrate.

The most famous are long distance migrants, such as swallows, which breed in Europe and spend the winter in Africa. But you might be surprised to learn how many others are at it too. Even the blackbirds in your garden in January could well be winter visitors from Eastern Europe.

I think we're singing from the same sheet. So I'm not trying to be a dick here but....

To be clear. I am in favour of allowing anyone who wants to come and work and live here.

By that I take it that you're not/less happy with people to come without money or work and then stay here and not work? I'd say that's control of some sort.

Security as in criminal checks and terrorism checks?

That is a policing function not an immigration function.

I'd disagree and say it's both. From a policy POV I'd guess it's driven more from an immigration perspective.

I disagree with all staements that cast immigration as a worry. They are ill informed and emotional, at best.

100%. That was what I was trying to get at. 1) I don't think that it is a problem in general, and 2) the problems that do exist are application rather than policy (although I do think we are now at the stage that the HO has created policy problems with onerous rules).

Oops. I was quite clear enough in my writing.

By that I take it that you're not/less happy with people to come without money or work and then stay here and not work? I'd say that's control of some sort.

No. I'm happy for people to come and live here whether they work or not.

The same way that I am happy for people to be born here whether they work or not.

If I wasn't, then I would have to be unhappy with the existence of people with severe physical or mental disabilities.

Which would make me a cunt.

No. I'm happy for people to come and live here whether they work or not.

Fair enough, I can see your reasoning. I'm not sure how I feel on that, probably not quite as accepting as you.

Either way like you I don't think it's actually a problem, even if you took the view that there needs to be limited on immigration.

Most have gone home, some of their kids have stayed... My sister still lives there...

Now it's legit to be racist is it also legit to be homophobic and anti Semitic?

From #bbcqt this evening

https://twitter.com/pmohagan/status/784159837273849856

Check out GBP USD right now. Just lost 1.5% and falling.

This is the most amazing article I've ever read. I've re-read it twice now, and I still can't work out what Fraser Nelson is trying to say, but it seems to me he's saying the lurch to the right the Tories have made is the fault of the Remain campaign.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/06/in-this-topsy-turvy-world-remainers-have-become-the-illiberal-br/

And a view from America;

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-nervous-breakdown-of-british-politics/2016/10/05/6ccbed64-8b39-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html?utm_term=.339daad3d09e

It may have been computers reading FT articles!

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/06/british-pound-sterling-crashes-to-fresh-three-decade-low.html

It's quite early in the morning and no cup of tea yet, but it appears to be incoherent. Not in it's message (though probably that too), but in the way it's actually difficult to read. Bizarre.

Basically, nutty Tory Brexiteers believe that the country was voting for Dan Hannan's version of Brexit (neoliberalism writ large), not Nigel Farage's (racsim and xenophobia).

^ Turkeys and Christmas, once again.

BTW, the more I think about this "publish foreign workers": Perhaps the government should publish how many UK owned companies are left...now that we are at it eh?

I haven't seen any particular research for the area. Investment is increasing in the area and hopefully things will improve but a much larger proportion than average of the jobs in the area are unskilled labour.

Unfortunately it's a race to the bottom in terms of pay and working conditions. The root of the problem is the owners of the companies but the cheap, immigrant labour is facilitating it.

I'd agree that tackling immigration isn't tackling the underlying problem but immigration is the visible face of it. Labelling people who complain about immigrants coming over and taking their jobs as racist is ignoring the fact that it is a concern for many people and it is happening.

Oddies is like an East Lancashire Greggs.

The concern is basically "I don't have a job". Fair enough, that sucks.
But, if a local person would take the job, would they also complain?
Or would they introspect and look at their skills sets, or realize they're being screwed and join a union?

"these people come in an take our jobs". YES, so...if a local person takes the job, and you don't complain...then what exactly IS your problem? A job is a job, right?

If you feel people undercut you by taking a low paid job (again, it can happen, 3 living in a house, single etc...) why do locals not do it? [the wage is too low, right? or there are no council houses etc etc]

Questions need to be asked too when people pipe up and complain.Those questions are not asked(and shouting racist isn't asking questions either) because the government doesn't want to fix the issue or engage and admit it's messed up things.

But as an immigrant I don't complain another immigrant also works in my sector and locals also work in my sector. I just want a job.

I think we agree on the issues, and that it should be discussed. But the more I think about this "somebody from another country stole my job" the more I also think it should be a beginning of a conversation, not the end. Currently in politics it's the end :/

So yes let's talk, but let's make it about jobs/exploitation/unions/wages

1. Surely one could argue that a steady stream of immigrants who are prepared to work for less - because relative to their background situation the pay conditions are acceptable -serves to keep wages down, particularly within the service sector. This in turn persuades people that they're better off on benefits, unemployment stagnates, the directors and shareholders at Costa, or wherever, get rich.

2. Immigrants are people like us, no more noble than us, no more vulnerable to racism or being generally unpleasant than us (and conversely just as capable of niceness).

This is not moral issue, it's about what the country can afford and the majority of the population want. If that turns out to be completely unrestricted immigration than so be it.

[Postscript: Miss Trees has just finished a ten-year tenure working in a school that serves mostly African and Asian children, with a couple of Poles thrown in for good measure. In some school years there wouldn't be a single 'indigenous' child in Miss Trees' class, and when there was they were invariably from broken homes - dad in prison and /or on drugs, brothers and sisters by different fathers, mum on benefits, etc. The point is I don't think some people realise how total immigration is in some places. The only 'white people' a lot of these folk have any sort of contact with is with their children's teachers and social services. So whatever benefits immigration might bring to this country, it's not done by way of cultural assimilation - it can only really be economic]

1. Is the role of government- if they mandate a decent, livable minimum wage then this simply cannot be a problem
   

But if we want immigration to really work and people to really mix, we also need to get rid of our racism/prejudices.

Unless a group is intentionally segregated like religious fundies, if people don't mix I doubt it's 100% immigration. [see also the reluctance of parents to put their kids in "black" schools, schools split by religion, xenophobia campaigns...] people not wanting to live in "multicultural areas", when they do the area starts to get gentrified and become "white"...

My point is that your average Somalian, say, has no interest whatsoever in integrating with the 'natives'. They have different interests, different social mores, different moral perspectives. Just like the British ex-pats in Spain don't really have any interest in assimilating with the Spanish. It cuts all ways.

It's not necessarily racism or prejudice, because in a work context people tend to get on. It's more that people like what they know, know what they like. It's actually quite an effort to intentionally diversify ones social circle.

The weird thing is that having fairly recently been in a position of looking for low-paid work, despite applying for 100's of jobs no-one seemed to want to give me one as a 'native' person.

Either:

I'm shit

I'm Not shit but I'm clearly over-qualified and don't aspire to work there

They've had lots of native employees that are shit, don't aspire to be there and are sick of wasting time and money on them

Have a glut of desperate forrins to pick from who might not aspire to be there but have no choice and wilm tolerate even the worst abuse of employment standards in the way that native workers will not.

Or, all or none of the above.

My experience when I finally found a job was that the employer was acting illegally in relation to pay, working conditions and deliberately kept people insecure and unable to get stable hours as a means to better manipulate them. 90% of non public facing workers were foreign, 75% of public facing ones were British and of these there was far higher absence no show rates simply because the work was terrible and the manager/owner a nasty bitch who fired people on a whim.

All in all, it's a far more savage indictment on UK business practices than it is immigration so perhaps that should be addressed before simply chucking out all forrins...

it's a far more savage indictment on UK business practices

Exactly that.

"It's actually quite an effort to intentionally diversify ones social circle." It is, like I point out as areas tend to be/become segregated. I have the same problem, work is way more diverse than where I live...

Is this an issue? Not perse, but as long as there are pockets of human rights abuses (religious groups), increased us VS them thanks to religious schools and "mixed areas" correlate with lower incomes, I think it may be.

Though the beautiful UK class system means society was already split to begin with...

Though the beautiful UK class system means society was already split to begin with...

That's pertinent. When I was working for peanuts in a hotel I had African friends; when I worked in a warehouse more Indian; since plying my trade in offices, Antipodean and Spanish/Portuguese...

Isn't it a truism that first generation migrants don't integrate?

Their children, however, do, even if that integration also brings aspects of their grand/parent's culture into their new home.

The idea that people that arrive in a country must suddenly act in the same way as the natives is ludicrous.