Is it possible to have a sensible discussion on migration these days?
Not if you're the editorial team behind such borderline fascist publications as the Daily Express or the Daily Mail, obviously.
10 Eastern European countries are shortly to join the European Union and if The Daily Spirits of Adolf are to be believed, a virtual tidal waive of shoeless gypsies will engulf you all as a result.
Drives me mad!
Wednesday, 25 February 2004
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You dont think they could have a point? Take Poland, 20% unemployment and a devalued currency. Suddenly they can come work in a country with 2% unemployment and a strong currency without any restriction? They can earn ten times the amount for the same days work. It's fairly safe to assume lots of them will come.
ReplyDeleteany why not? They will be members of the EU, so they should be able to do all the stuff we can do, live and work anywhere else! Anyway, a sizeable percentage of them will do the jobs in the trades, hotels, catering that cant be filled at the mo..
ReplyDeleteSo its all good :)
Oh and there's the issue of social security. Which is a very real issue. The governments even rushing through changes to the system to stop abuse.Sure vagga, that's a different issue. What's pretty certain is that they will come. If you want them here or not is a different matter. A lot of the recent scares about western population make up regarding birth and death rates actually supports immigration as a way to allow us to survive the burden of a growing aged population. Of course that only works if the fuckers come here and get jobs rather than sponge off the SS.
ReplyDeletethey come anyway! (huge amounts of eastern european blokes sell everything from drugs, cigg's to undewear near where i live) Now the government are not going to let them get welfare for ages, but let them work, thus taking them off the streets, so whats the problem. Loads of cheap labour to do the jobs lazy fucks over here wont do? It can only be a good thing?
ReplyDeleteAs I said, if they do work and if there's plenty of jobs for all, then fine, no problem. If they call come and doss on the SS, then you've got bovver. Either way, in response to Brits comments, they will surely come.
ReplyDeleteThey may earn ten times more by working here, but they'll also have to pay ten times more for their food, accomodation and travel. I'm neutral on this, I can see both good and bad things, but obviously there's a bigger picture the EU ministers are working with.
ReplyDeleteBesides, if there was no EU and these smaller, poorer countries were left alone, they'd only self-destruct and we'd be left picking up the pieces, so maybe it's a compromise, heh.Where do you get those cost of living figures from Jay?
The whelk picker incident showed how much we already depend upon foreign nationals to do our crappy jobs. A week before that incident, during the wintery weather, two buses collided on a small country A road at 5.30am. The driver was killed but the passengers were ok. One bus was full of portugese workers and the other was full of czech workers, travelling from Hull to a bacon factory 30 miles away. Every morning. Hull is full of pikey dole scum who wouldn't touch these sort of jobs with a barge poll. The very same Sun reading who'll be banging their bathtubs over this new immigrant onslaught.
ReplyDeletehang on, bring back the real Brit, this sensible moderate viewpoint is clearly a scam perpetrated by someone else !
ReplyDeleteI hate to ask the Q, but what economical benefit to the EU does Poland etc bring ?
ReplyDeleteTsk. You're the second person to say something like that today. DAMN YOU.
ReplyDeleteI get the feeling that the drive behind expanding the EU is all about dreaming of the glory of having a single country/entity which is as big as the US. It just seems flawed to me though, the culture, languages and economies are no where near on a par.
ReplyDeleteSurely there's a point in being your own country as it's worked pretty well for the planet for a fair while now. And the basis of that is normally cultural, governmental and economic - is it not?
So what, exactly, is the reasoning in suddenly lowering the borders with Poland? And meanwhile people like the Scots want to raise their borders and be their own lot, despite being *far* more like the English than any of these countries in Europe...
I saw some economic forecasts that Europe will be a more powerful economy than the US by 2010. It was really salivating about this, like it was a long harboured goal to be bigger than the yanks, to give Europe a legitimacy.
ReplyDeleteDon't these people realise that America is only like it is because they feel so inferior to Europe? They think they will get in our gang by building a worldwide Victorian Empire, with plenty of darkie whacking to boot! :)
To be fair, the Scots generally talk about being a seperate state within the context of a closely united Europe, rather than slinging their hook entirely.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think that the goal of having a closely united European entity - not a United States of Europe, but a group of seperate nations with a common ruling body and common policies on many issues - is a very worthwhile one. Europe spent the entire cold war as a group of bickering and vaguely unimportant states sat between two superpowers on the verge of annihilating us. With the USA and China eyeballing each other on a daily basis, and the USA and the Middle East provoking each other more every week, I think having a strong, united voice for the old western nations is no bad thing at all.
As for the benefits that integrating Poland with the EU will bring... Well, these states don't bring much to the table right now, but given the support of the EU they have the potential to develop into strong, productive economies. Transforming eastern Europe into a true first-world region is a very worthwhile project which ultimately benefits us all by delivering more powerful allies and trading partners. It's not a pipe dream either - look at Portugal and Ireland as examples of nations which have been transformed from agriculturally focused backwaters with massive unemployment and outward migration into strong technological economies.
Although I'm very much a Europhile, and will happily describe myself as European before laying claim to a specific nationality, I do think that we need to be careful to limit the power of the European federation - otherwise we run the risk of ending up with an all-powerful federal government like in the USA, which I would consider very unhealthy. Military issues, for example, should not be farmed out to the EU, except for joint-command peace keeping forces and other such symbolic 'European' missions. However, there is no reason that a nation cannot survive and maintain its pride while adopting many international standards and policies which simply make sense. The smaller European nations have not forgotten their heritage because their currency is now the Euro, or because they now have food regulations dictated from Brussels which bring them almost up to the standard of the excellent German food laws, or because their citizens are free to live and work anywhere in Europe..!..