Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Post-exit immigration policy - what should it be?

In case anyone missed it, Labour conference voted this through

  • Defend the right of EU migrants to live and work in the EU under free movement rules
  • Give the vote to all migrants in the UK
  • Reject any immigration system based on quotas, caps, targets or incomes
  • Close all migrant detention centres
  • Guarantee the unconditional right to family reunion visas for migrants from outside the EU
  • End "no recourse to public funds" policies, which prevent some immigrants from claiming benefits
  • Scrap so-called "hostile environment" polices, which restrict access to accommodation and the NHS
 


"We were therefore disappointed to hear Diane Abbott say on the Today Programme - less than 24 hours after the motion passing - that Labour’s immigration policy has not changed in light of our motion being passed."
 
There were protest notices against immigration when Shakespeare was about and they had a very low population due to the plague. Other than the Welch most of us are descendants of immigrants. Today we are overpopulated. Old farts like me are living too long and with artificial intelligence just round the corner the future is dire for all the world's workers. So yes, any increase in overloaded Britain spells trouble, but how you stop it who knows. Maybe a Trump perimeter wall could be built.
 
ferdinand said:
There were protest notices against immigration when Shakespeare was about and they had a very low population due to the plague. Other than the Welch most of us are descendants of immigrants. Today we are overpopulated. Old farts like me are living too long and with artificial intelligence just round the corner the future is dire for all the world's workers. So yes, any increase in overloaded Britain spells trouble, but how you stop it who knows. Maybe a Trump perimeter wall could be built.
Click to expand...
I'm sure this is well meaning but it's welsh and I'm fairly sure that, on the whole, we're as much a mixed bag of heritage as anywhere else. Given the south east economy was based on docks and the valleys and north east on heavy industry, both of which bring and/or require migration
 
Well the Brexit-inevitable is happening - points based immigration.
I for one am sad to see it introduced.
Coupled with other law changes on income of spouses, savings etc, I wouldn't be here if it were around before, nor would my family, nor would many of my friends.
Apologies for bringing the tone down of the population. A better class of migrant awaits.

ska invita said:
In case anyone missed it, Labour conference voted this through

  • Defend the right of EU migrants to live and work in the EU under free movement rules
  • Give the vote to all migrants in the UK
  • Reject any immigration system based on quotas, caps, targets or incomes
  • Close all migrant detention centres
  • Guarantee the unconditional right to family reunion visas for migrants from outside the EU
  • End "no recourse to public funds" policies, which prevent some immigrants from claiming benefits
  • Scrap so-called "hostile environment" polices, which restrict access to accommodation and the NHS
Click to expand...
if there ever is a labour government again it will be interesting if they dare change this policy.
 
Last edited:
After working for 44 years straight and not claiming I am retired now living off my pension.
But Priti Patel sees me as an 'economically inactive' cunt who should do the fruit picking jobs.
Patel thinks there are eight and a half million cunts like me out there, licking her smirking lips at the exploitation possibilities.
Retirement age of 85 coming soon.
 
ska invita said:
Well the Brexit-inevitable is happening - points based immigration.
I for one am sad to see it introduced.
Coupled with other law changes on income of spouses, savings etc, I wouldn't be here if it were around before, nor would most of my family, nor would many of my friends.
Apologies for bringing the tone down of the population. A better class of migrant awaits.


if there ever is a labour government again it will be interesting if they dare change this policy.
Click to expand...
I doubt it. Labour's position on the EU was a major factor in why they just got ground to dust in a GE.

A points based system was always most likely though. I don't think anyone can be surprised that a government who had a stated aim to control EU immigration, introduces measures to control EU immigration. Nothing much changes for non-EU immigrants except the removal of caps and maybe the reduction in required earnings. I think they'll need to replace "skilled" with "required" or something similar and they're going to have to make a lot of exemptions. What's most disappointing is the way they've led with this. Straight out of the blocks ... immigration. That's really not going to do much to change the minds of the "racists and xenophobes" brigade.
 
Last edited:
ska invita said:
What's most dissapointing is that we have a racist Tory government, not what order they do shit in.
Click to expand...

That's also a reality.

What most disappoints me is that the opposition from Labour and the SNP - if the debate on newsnight last night is in any way representative of their respective positions - takes as its starting point the demands and needs of some of the most exploitative employers in the UK Economy. If your idea to build a mass campaign against the Tory plans is to place at its centre a defence of the pay, employment practises and methods of the care sector or hotel chains then you are going towards a dead end fast.

How about the reintroduction of tripartite wages boards for these parts of the economy with a remit to also look at demand, skills, apprenticeships, shortages and pay. How about full trade union rights for these sectors? How about a plan to eradicate youth unemployment based on guaranteed standards? How about detailed mapping of demand and the likely terrain of the UK economy over say, the next 40 years and taking it from there?

If the answer is 'we don't need to worry about the detail because we want free movement - and this is the political priority we will organise around and seek to enter government on' - then we might as well sit back and let the Tories get on with it.
 
Last edited:
Its a recurring theme on here how UK capital exploits cheap labour from Eastern Europe and in doing so driving down wages and conditions for UK citizens. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

My industry (construction) relies heavily on EU labour but is it really unskilled? Construction really should be a hotbed of apprenticeships but you really don't see as many as there should be. Maybe this could mark a turning point? I honestly don't know. I am worried about the short and even medium term though because we absolutely don't have the local workforce or knowledge to build what is required in terms of housing let alone the monster infrastructure projects coming on-line.
 
Spymaster said:
I doubt it. Labour's position on the EU was a major factor in why they just got ground to dust in a GE.

A points based system was always most likely though. I don't think anyone can be surprised that a government who had a stated aim to control EU immigration, introduces measures to control EU immigration. Nothing much changes for non-EU immigrants except the removal of caps and maybe the reduction in required earnings. I think they'll need to replace "skilled" with "required" or something similar and they're going to have to make a lot of exemptions. What's most disappointing is the way they've led with this. Straight out of the blocks ... immigration. That's really not going to do much to change the minds of the "racists and xenophobes" brigade.
Click to expand...

They haven't led on it - they led on the Withdrawal Agreement, then there was a series of spending announcements on buses and infrastructure projects and then immigration.

Basically what they committed to do. You might not like it, but at least let's try to understand what is going on here, why and where they are trying to get to.
 
ska invita said:
Coupled with other law changes on income of spouses, savings etc, I wouldn't be here if it were around before, nor would my family, nor would many of my friends.
Click to expand...

What will be the new income/savings rules for spouses? Do you have a link?

Or are you referring to rules already put in place (the £18.5k minimum salary sponsor requirement etc)
 
Teaboy said:
Its a recurring theme on here how UK capital exploits cheap labour from Eastern Europe and in doing so driving down wages and conditions for UK citizens. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

My industry (construction) relies heavily on EU labour but is it really unskilled? Construction really should be a hotbed of apprenticeships but you really don't see as many as there should be. Maybe this could mark a turning point? I honestly don't know. I am worried about the short and even medium term though because we absolutely don't have the local workforce or knowledge to build what is required in terms of housing let alone the monster infrastructure projects coming on-line.
Click to expand...

Construction is a brilliant example of where the type of approach I am talking about would work. It would of course require a different employment model, an end to bogus self employment practises, greater unionisation, a reigning in of the power of the big companies and action to prevent casualised labour undercutting. Incidentally, it would also require migration to ensure labour supply was in line with demand. I would have thought the faux socialists of the Scottish Nationalists and Labour would be supportive of such an approach?

One of my brothers works in construction, and like you he cannot understand why nobody every highlights the relative lack of apprenticeships and jobs for young kids in the industry. But the current structure of the industry militates against it because employers can pick up and drop labour as they need it. When there are shortages wages rise and when their aren't wages plummet. Casualisation is deeply embedded in the industry and now is as good a time as any to begin to intervene in it. You'd hope Labour would be making these points once they've finished doing the bidding of care home owners and hotel bosses.
 
Last edited:
Teaboy said:
Its a recurring theme on here how UK capital exploits cheap labour from Eastern Europe and in doing so driving down wages and conditions for UK citizens. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

My industry (construction) relies heavily on EU labour but is it really unskilled? Construction really should be a hotbed of apprenticeships but you really don't see as many as there should be. Maybe this could mark a turning point? I honestly don't know. I am worried about the short and even medium term though because we absolutely don't have the local workforce or knowledge to build what is required in terms of housing let alone the monster infrastructure projects coming on-line.
Click to expand...
Most likely outcome: your industry will suddenly have a very high incidence of "illegal" immigrants from E. Europe, who will not be in a position to defend themselves in terms of either wages or health and safety. And the people who run your industry will also use this to attack your wages and conditions.

Sorry, I don't make the rules.
 
ska invita said:
What's most dissapointing is that we have a racist Tory government, not what order they do shit in.

*Excuse curtness, not in a good mood today
Click to expand...
Yeah, "disappointing" seems a wholly inappropriate descriptor of Tory noise about immigration, why would we have expected anything else from a [Johnson-led] Tory administration? "Completely unsurprising" would seem to be a better fit.

Johnson's project is now to use his majority to un-do much of the (long) Blair reform programme and projecting themselves as anti mass-immigration is central to that programme.

In the LRB, that well known leftist trouble-maker,Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet, FRSL, outlines the shape of Johnsonism in his "Après Brexit" piece:

1582106971627.png
 
philosophical said:
After working for 44 years straight and not claiming I am retired now living off my pension.
But Priti Patel sees me as an 'economically inactive' cunt who should do the fruit picking jobs.
Patel thinks there are eight and a half million cunts like me out there, licking her smirking lips at the exploitation possibilities.
Retirement age of 85 coming soon.
Click to expand...
Judging by some of the comments on the threads about BBC plan to scrap free TV licenses for pensioners and old people voted for Brexit dont expect buckets of sympathy
 
Idris2002 said:
Most likely outcome: your industry will suddenly have a very high incidence of "illegal" immigrants from E. Europe, who will not be in a position to defend themselves in terms of either wages or health and safety. And the people who run your industry will also use this to attack your wages and conditions.

Sorry, I don't make the rules.
Click to expand...

That's the construction industry of today you are describing. It's also been the construction industry for a long time - it's founded on casualised labour, no questions asked.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
Basically what they committed to do. You might not like it, but at least let's try to understand what is going on here, why and where they are trying to get to.
Click to expand...

Well that's my wider point. What's happening now was always going to happen. Curtailing free movement from the EU is not, in and of itself, racist, and that's all that's happening with the immigration news today.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
That's the construction industry of today you are describing. It's also been the construction industry for a long time - it's founded on casualised labour, no questions asked.
Click to expand...
OK, so the same with knobs on.

But more than once I've met people who've said, "look the west will need labour, so obviously they can't have restrictive immigration", and I've had to remind them that they can easily have what is (for them) the best of both worlds - labour that is both cheap and (because of its status) easily messed around with.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
That's the construction industry of today you are describing. It's also been the construction industry for a long time - it's founded on casualised labour, no questions asked.
Click to expand...
Not wanting to be all nostalgic but when I left school and worked on sites as a hod carrier unionised sites had holiday pay, travelling time, wet money ( for when you rained off) , sick pay and companies where unions were recognised had apprenticeships.
 
The39thStep said:
Not wanting to be all nostalgic but when I left school and worked on sites as a hod carrier unionised sites had holiday pay, travelling time, wet money ( for when you rained off) , sick pay and companies where unions were recognised had apprenticeships.
Click to expand...

Look at the coverage of union organised jobs now and then. Look at the fate of the union - UCATT. Look at the changed employment models of the big players in the sector. And even in the period you are talking about there was still a queue of workers in Sparkhill in Birmingham each morning waiting to be picked up for a days work. Normally Irish, Italian and workers who'd been given the boot elsewhere.
 
Last edited:
Smokeandsteam said:
Look at the coverage of union organised jobs now and then. Look at the fate of the union - UCATT. Look at the changed employment models of the big players in the sector. And even in the period you are talking about there was still a queue of workers in Sparkhill in Birmingham each morning waiting to be picked up for a days work.
Click to expand...
In Kilburn Monday morning queues subbies picking out who they wanted paying shite cash in hand to work in crap conditions. A lot of the injuries and fatalities on those jobs were single Irish lads living in bedsits working on jobs with no H and S dependent on subbies and gangers. I was involved in two strikes for unionisation , got threatened by lumpers in the first one and was sacked twice by forman on different jobs after the second when grassed up for being involved.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

burtabraham
  • Poll
Should there be an elected second chamber, and how should it be elected?
2 3
Replies
63
Views
2K
Puddy_Tat
Puddy_Tat
Fez909
Japanese attitudes towards immigration vs UK
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
198
Views
6K
krtek a houby
krtek a houby
mojo pixy
Immigration to the UK - do you have concerns?
81 82 83 84 85
Replies
3K
Views
76K
Pickman's model
Pickman's model
scifisam
What MIGHT be better under Labour this time round? (Try to be positive)
Replies
27
Views
822
Epona
Epona
frogwoman
  • Poll
What is the first serious Labour scandal gonna be?
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
196
Views
9K
rasputin
R
Back
Top Bottom