Another Poll On The Eu

[sunny-dave]

Data from a Comres poll for the Independent on Sunday last weekend - summarised in a nice graphic :

http://oi59.tinypic.com/9fz0g4.jpg

Full data here :

http://www.comres.co.uk/poll/1293/sunday-mirror-independent-on-sunday-poll.htm

Confused or what?

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// wasn't this the whole basis of the British Empire? We go and take over their countries. They don't come here and take over ours ///

Yes but the difference being, after a period they kicked us out of their countries, any chance of us doing the same?

[anotheoldgit]

mikey4444

You must get on so well with your 'close' relatives, if a relative of mine called me a hypocrite, he would not be classed as close no longer.

But to get back to bricklaying in Germany, at that time there was work for many, that is why they encouraged foreign workers, the same cannot be said for the job market here in the UK.

[-Talbot-]

AOG is right, 20 years ago Germany was desperate for bricklayers and the UK have the best/fastest bricklayers.

[DTCwordfan]

Cobblers, AOG, absolute poppycock. There are plenty of reports out there about a hell of a lot of Brits (immigrants or not) that won't get off their fat backsides and do the hard sweat jobs......for example, why are we in Cornwall and Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire/East Anglia flooded with Romanians and Poles as we can't get the manpower for picking flowers and crops. It's the same in the States too, as to gardening, construction work, farms etc etc etc, their immigration from South of the Rio Grande and Canada, Iraq in the north as to graft jobs in the Auto industry.

[Svejk]

AOG, the clue was in the name; gastarbeiter-guest-worker.
Don't expect mikey to address the point, though. Anything that doesn't fit his distorted version of the truth is simply ignored.

[mikey4444]

Talbot...the main reason that so many of our Brickies, Chippies, and Sparks were taking the Ferry over to the continent was because the building industry had effectively collapsed over here, in one of the Tories regular recessions. It nearly broke up my relatives marriage, as he was only coming home every 3 months. Immigration works both ways, although he was always made to feel welcome when he was in Germany.

[Svejk]

And which of these 'hard sweat' jobs, do tell me, are you doing for £6 an hour, DT?

[mikey4444]

DTC...don't confuse people with the facts !

As you are aware, I am familiar with Cornwall too, and my friends down there tell me that without the foreign workers, the spuds and daffs would be rotting in the fields. And this is a County with a high unemployment rate !

[janbee]

The sooner we have a referendum, the better. That way, we all have a say and then we ALL abide by the outcome, whether it be yay or nay. Then we can shut up about it. Yes/No in/out... whatever. Have the referendum asap and let that be an end to it !

[Svejk]

/// and my friends down there tell me that without the foreign workers, the spuds and daffs would be rotting in the fields///
Just like they always used to, I suppose, lol.

[-Talbot-]

Mikey, you are in no position to lecture me on working in Germany.

The fact is that Germany never had the skilled labour to rebuild. If your close relative stayed for 3 months at a time, he probably had a frau.

[mikey4444]

AOG...The "Job Market" in Britain is awash with immigrant workers, because our own feckless, lazy and workshy unemployed won't get out of bed and take the vacancies that these Guest Workers are doing. We have discussed this many times on AB and the facts don't change. Immigrants are here to work, and if there are vacancies, then they will fill them. Thes easiest way to get rid of our immigrants is for our own unemployed to work.

Yesterday, we had a debate on the future of the NHS and its growing problem with an increasing workload due to greater life expectancy. This problem of looking after the elderly is going to mushroom in the near future. Who is going to perform those essential home carer functions, if our people would rather sit at home claiming benefit for doing begger all ?

[mikey4444]

Talbot...no lecturing intended or given, just facts. He most certainly did not have a "frau"...he had a job, which was well-paid, but more importantly there was a job available to have, unlike here at that time. 10,000's of British men were making that same journey, and for the same reason, and they were not embarking on a holiday in Stuttgart.

[New Judge]

"I would assume they do. Just like migrants here, they would have to pay rent out of their earnings. They would not get free accommodation provided by the state, but neither do migrant workers coming to our shores."

Many migrants from the EU take low paid low skilled jobs (the sort of work people already here will not get out of bed for). Tell me, Gromit, how somebody earning the minimum wage can afford to pay the going rate in rent without considerable support in the form of benefits (working tax credit, housing benefit and possibly child tax credit and child allowance). I provided a very quick calculation in response to another question at 22:21 yesterday:

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1374201-2.html

The vast majority of migrants from the EU are in low paid work and need to be heavily subsidised to be able to live here. Meantime we are providing 100% subsidy to those already here who will not do this low pay work because they'd rather stay at home. It's utter madness and there is no overall benefit to the UK whatsoever. DTC and Mikey have both identified this. Cornwall is a classic example where people there moan and groan about their lot, there are areas of high unemployment and so-called "deprivation" but every hotel you stay in in that county (and indeed just about everywhere else) is staffed predominantly by eastern Europeans.

As for the benefits of reciprocal arrangements, they may well be fine for people in professional or skilled occupations, but who is going to move to Poland to dig up beetroots for £1 an hour (and not be the beneficiaries of the sort of support Poles enjoy here into the bargain)?

I don't want to be accused of hypocrisy so here's my take on the EU. I believe it has now exceeded its remit and is causing more problems that it is ever likely to solve. I would like the UK to leave forthwith. I don't mean that the UK should cease trading with other EU nations. It did before the EU existed and many other nations manage to do so now quite successfully. I don't mind not having the automatic right of abode elsewhere in Europe and I don't mind having to present a passport (which I have to do anyway) and possibly obtain a visa to visit mainland Europe. I don't mind having to change my pounds into euros when I visit (a small price to pay to see the UK in control of its own currency). In short, I would like nations in the EU to be just as "foreign" as those outside. Our trade with them will still continue but we will be free to develop new markets (which may be growing, not suffering seemingly terminal decline) to suit ourselves. And I want all these things to apply in reverse as well.

[DTCwordfan]

svejk, I earn more than £6 an hour, and how bl--dy rude of you.

[Svejk]

What's rude about it? You're advocating hard, sweaty work for others. I naturally assumed you were showing them how to do it.

[anotheoldgit]

DTCwordfan

/// Cobblers, AOG, absolute poppycock. There are plenty of reports out there about a hell of a lot of Brits (immigrants or not) that won't get off their fat backsides and do the hard sweat jobs......for example, why are we in Cornwall and Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire/East Anglia flooded with Romanians and Poles as we can't get the manpower for picking flowers and crops. ///

Can't you just disagree without the need to be rude.

But I was expecting this old chestnut to be rolled out, I don't think any of our workers are complaining about about farm workers pinching their jobs.

[mikey4444]

They are in Cornwall AOG, and they are here in Swansea, where Amazon has announced huge increases in seasonal Xmas work. Most of the workers already in Amazon are eastern European, despite the high rate of unemployment here. This problem of our own unemployed staying on the dole, but complaining about foreigners taking "their" jobs is not going to go away, just by the expectancy of pretending it isn't happening.

Make taking a job instead of the dole compulsory, instead of a lifestyle choice.

[anotheoldgit]

Oh if only we could impose such restrictions.

/// White-collar workers, on the other hand, have faced harsher employment restrictions. If, for example, a German firm wanted to employ a Polish accountant, the firm had to prove there were no Germans capable of the job before it could secure a work permit. Some of these restrictions were relaxed a few years ago for particular professions where there was a real lack of workers in Germany, such as engineers or IT specialists, but restrictions remained in most professions. ///