Quote Originally Posted by animallittle3 View Post
Well lets take the free movement of labour within the EU as an example .

Would you agree it's design is to drive down wages for the pursuit of greater profit and weakening workers bargaining power but is dressed up as opportunity and the chance to experience different cultures .

Freedom of movement is one thing but freedom of labour is quite another .

Workers in Spain I believe who worked for Viking Line and Laval were replaced by lower paid workers from within the EU and so they took it to European Court Of Justice who found in favour of the employers , tells you everything you need to know about the EU and workers rights .

Admittedly the Labour Party needs to get its self elected post brexit or it affects nothing on that I share a concern or too with you but campaigning to remain in the EU makes their stance on for the many not the few a bit of an own goal , to say the least .

Out of the EU all a Labour Government needs to do is recommit to the European Convention For Human Rights which isn't a EU creation but established by The Council Of Europe , joining International Labour Conventions wouldn't be a bad shout either where affiliated unions could and should commit to a package of progressive legislation and re-establish trade union and workers rights .

Skill shortages I hear you say and I'm listening Raging .

Introduce work permits for the skills we are short of even if they are temporary .

I’m with you on the tightening up on immigration and allowing for skills shortages for jobs that can’t be filled in the UK.

On that theme, how would you deal with the low skills seasonal workforce and masses of health and care people who effectively prop up the NHS? Or, to put the question another way, what sort of jobs that are currently heavily populated by migrant workers that you would like to change and have them populated by UK workers?

I think we’d both like to improve the pay and conditions of all these jobs to make them more attractive to UK workers who otherwise are not applying for them, but can you see our politicians making this level of investment? Both in upping skills as well as making some very undesirable ‘slog’ work ‘worth it’. In the absence of Kerr, let me devil’s advocate: who would pay for this? Can, for example, seasonal workers in agriculture, already working on very thin profit margins due to our lovely approach to free market capitalism, afford the wage increases that you are counting on?

In effect, I think what you are looking for here is a huge restructuring of economic priorities, that would be ambitious but very expensive, and require a completely different attitude to training and paying a native UK workforce minimum wages that are very much hiked from the current level. I’d applaud that, and be willing to finance it through my taxes. But would the electorate be willing to fund it? Ironically, I would imagine that many of the people citing the ‘migrant wage reduction’ argument have not thought through the radical change needed to overhaul the current system, and when push comes to shove will be the first ones shouting, and voting, us down as the usual big spending, financially illiterate reds!

Lastly: have you read the Migration Advisory Committee report on the impact (+ and -) of migration discussed in summary here: https://www.ft.com/content/797f7b42-...2-17176fbf93f5 It does indeed find a squeeze at lower paid levels, as you’ve argued, but the impact as actually quite minor (5%) in keeping wages low in that worker group. Not sure if you’ve read the full report and what your thoughts are as it does contradict your main argument to some extent.