Brexit, in or out.

[VillaGuy]

Villaguy do you really believe the folk that suffer the wage deflation, or only get offered zero hours contracts or part time work, are swanning off around Europe for a little gap year work after uni, that is Their life, they are struggling, and wage deflation is vast, an example I saw on the tv was a truck driver who was on £14 an hour, then the influx of Europeans came who were willing to work for minimum wage as it's still two or three times what they get at home and he was offered £7 odd or there's the door,near enough a fifty percent wage cut, what is he meant to do ? these people's sons and daughters will follow them into poorly paid jobs and the vast majority will live the rest of their lives on the bottom rung. I'm not saying brexit was right but I can sure as he'll understand why folk voted for it without coming out with this racist pish. Immigration is good there is no doubt about that, uncontrolled immigration is not, even the left are wakening up to that fact, we were told there would be 30,000 max coming here by Blair, the truth is there has been ten times that every year, the pressure that has put on the bottom workers let alone social housing, doctors ,accident and emergency departments that are used as out of hours surgeries now, is just incredible, it's too much too quickly.

It seems to be forgotten in this argument the reason why the UK has a underfunded and overstretched infrastructure, it's due to austerity more than the net contributors that the migrants are, they pay more than they recieve. It's not often brought up (wonder why) but the UK bailed out the banks with public money not much under £1trillion, that's about half of the UKs national debt. But it's easier blaming the problem on people who don't speak the language as first choice, or put out a flurry of spoof documentaries like 'Benefits Street' to create another go-to section of the population to blame all the countries woes on. It's Westminster that's the problem, not over qualified migrants picking potatoes near Boston. The bankers with mates like Murdoch can create public opinion however they want to shift it, they're not bothered if the countries poorest and most vulnerable get the blame as they sit in their offices, the government should have done a better job during the referendum to tell people what is what, unfortunately ex banker pseudo-politicians like Farrage got through to a lot of mouth frothing idiots who don't know their head from their arse.

Lorry drivers aren't on minimum wage, that's nonsense, maybe van drivers but it's not a gruelling job is it? HGV drivers are on £25-30,000 per annum starting salary, with self loader licences and dangerous chemical certificates the wage can go above £40,000, it's not exactly that badly paid. The populist reasoning was simply another tool of gaining control over people, make them think they're changing the establishment when in actual effect it has increased their control over the general population, increase in bureaucracy isn't what I would call a freedom, and that is what it has done when it comes to cross border movements in goods and people.

Fortunately it sounds like single market access will be maintained, meaning freedom in movement (with emergency break) and everything else we had before, just the UK not making decisions on how the single market reforms or moves forward.

So what has Britain gained from referendum? Nothing but division, increase in racism, the death of Jo Cox, and the drop in the value of the pound by a significant amount (another issue when it comes to migrating).

[vmax4steve]

I just had to...it's clouded thinking to the extreme, not one statement is accurate. Unfortunately this we....them thinking has got a hold of society. I'm born here, they aren't.....I'd rather live in another country, does this mean I'm doing so for a nationalistic economic reason? Why can't brits stay in the UK rather than going to France, the US, Australia, Spain etc...(freedom of choice maybe?) Do people move to Spain because of money? People in the EU aren't cut out to be managers or CEOs? What a load of Daily Mail cr*p

I don't read the daily mail or any newspaper, my opinions are my own based on my own circumstances and what I see around me.
Where I work 50% of the press operators are polish, one maintenance engineer is polish, one QC is polish, all the management are english.

I had a good job as a wood machinist before the 2008 crash, then I got laid off and had to work as an agency worker for five years, and everywhere I went it was the same, minimum wage and every place 50% eastern european due to agencies like Blue Arrow setting up offices in Lithuania and Poland to recruit cheap labour, not a polish manager anywhere to be seen, not because they're not good enough, but because they're working as forklift drivers here because they can earn twice as much as a forkilift driver in the UK as they can as a manager in Poland.

This is what free movement has meant since 2004, before that it was free movement between countries of equal economies and the mass migration wasn't happening.
And let's face it, you want to move to Bulgaria because your english money will go an awful long way there, sod all to do with it being a beautiful country full of falcons; why not go to france or germany, just as many falcons there.

[itsnoteasy]

The driver in question was Polish he was complaining about Bulgarian and Romanians and he went back to Poland because of the wage drop, unless of course he's lying on national telly, which anyone who speaks out about it seems to be according to a lot of people, or maybe he's racist who knows.
You are correct about who caused a lot of the trouble in the economy, but they didn't use immigration as a way of keeping power, Prescott has admitted it was Labour policy to have huge influxes of migrants because the vast majority of them will vote Labour, as they were given welfare and housing as soon as they arrived,the trouble is they stuck them in labour strongholds as they assumed these places would always vote labour, but eventually it was too much, and as a back lash ,left leaning working class people voted UKIP, a party that's further right than any lunatic fringe of the Tory party.
I totally Agree with you about the politics of distraction, look at these people making the odd tenner on the side, punish them ,they are stealing your tax money, while all the time they fiddle their expenses and flip their houses all with our money, or dodge their taxes but nothing happens, expenses are higher now than when the outcry happened but no onewants to know, they introduced a rule that you can't hire your wife as your secretary on forty or fifty grand, so what did they do? Just hired each other's wives, nothing changed,no ones interested, no ones looking, but by god you earn a tenner and I , another working class stiff will shop you to the very folk screwing me up the rear as I'm watching you.
When May took power her first speech was ,big business I'm coming for you, and I am for everyone, what did she do? Cut corporation tax and cut disability benifits, what will happen, nothing ,she will get in with a landslide next election because the left is fractured and the right always vote Tory, the only hope we have is for them to tear themselves apart over brexit and that is a real possibility , fingers crossed.

[VillaGuy]

I don't read the daily mail or any newspaper, my opinions are my own based on my own circumstances and what I see around me.
Where I work 50% of the press operators are polish, one maintenance engineer is polish, one QC is polish, all the management are english.

I had a good job as a wood machinist before the 2008 crash, then I got laid off and had to work as an agency worker for five years, and everywhere I went it was the same, minimum wage and every place 50% eastern european due to agencies like Blue Arrow setting up offices in Lithuania and Poland to recruit cheap labour, not a polish manager anywhere to be seen, not because they're not good enough, but because they're working as forklift drivers here because they can earn twice as much as a forkilift driver in the UK as they can as a manager in Poland.

This is what free movement has meant since 2004, before that it was free movement between countries of equal economies and the mass migration wasn't happening.
And let's face it, you want to move to Bulgaria because your english money will go an awful long way there, sod all to do with it being a beautiful country full of falcons; why not go to france or germany, just as many falcons there.

Barring the Alps and the Pyrenees those two countrie are similiar to the UK, a patchwork of intensively farmed fields.... So Bulgaria has other strengths than just affordability. The summers are hot and the winters are for skiing, I just think you seem to think our islands are some kind of nirvana, they aren't. You're right the wage of a forklift driver here is higher than some management position there but that's only a small part of the picture. What's the point of earning 5 times the amount here when you could have a job that offers satisfaction over there and afford a decent house. What kind of accomodation can you afford in the UK on £400 a week, proabaly rental of a place on a council estate surrounded by drug users Money isn't everything when it doesn't go so far. Most people learn this then return bringing back learnt skills with them and invigorating the economies of their homelands. I've spoken to accountants in Bulgaria with no wish to emigrate, some of them have pride in their hometowns just as some of us do.

Do you really believe businesses in the UK will suddenly pay more when they are competing with the likes of China and India who pay workers £1 a day, the world is changing, those lorry driving jobs (taxi drivers) won't be here one day when cars are robotic. That world isn't far away. Accountancy work will end one day, their are already accountancy programmes bypassing the need, theres a whole load of jobs that will finish. But shutting off, pretending this isn't going to happen, leaving the EU isn't going to turn the tide.

I'm sorry you lost your job, but blaming it on immigrants is wrong, as you said you lost your job during the financial crash, there's the blame.

[VillaGuy]

The driver in question was Polish he was complaining about Bulgarian and Romanians and he went back to Poland because of the wage drop, unless of course he's lying on national telly, which anyone who speaks out about it seems to be according to a lot of people, or maybe he's racist who knows.
You are correct about who caused a lot of the trouble in the economy, but they didn't use immigration as a way of keeping power, Prescott has admitted it was Labour policy to have huge influxes of migrants because the vast majority of them will vote Labour, as they were given welfare and housing as soon as they arrived,the trouble is they stuck them in labour strongholds as they assumed these places would always vote labour, but eventually it was too much, and as a back lash ,left leaning working class people voted UKIP, a party that's further right than any lunatic fringe of the Tory party.
I totally Agree with you about the politics of distraction, look at these people making the odd tenner on the side, punish them ,they are stealing your tax money, while all the time they fiddle their expenses and flip their houses all with our money, or dodge their taxes but nothing happens, expenses are higher now than when the outcry happened but no onewants to know, they introduced a rule that you can't hire your wife as your secretary on forty or fifty grand, so what did they do? Just hired each other's wives, nothing changed,no ones interested, no ones looking, but by god you earn a tenner and I , another working class stiff will shop you to the very folk screwing me up the rear as I'm watching you.
When May took power her first speech was ,big business I'm coming for you, and I am for everyone, what did she do? Cut corporation tax and cut disability benifits, what will happen, nothing ,she will get in with a landslide next election because the left is fractured and the right always vote Tory, the only hope we have is for them to tear themselves apart over brexit and that is a real possibility , fingers crossed.

I don't think foreign citizens can vote

Yeah, the whole thing is a mess with politics. I respect whatever way people have voted but I think there's been a lot of lies and misinformation that has led to it, unfortunately we'll still face inequalities that people have been experiencing.

But like I've said it doesn't look like the UK will really leave the EU in anything but name, so for that I'm not to disheartened by the referendum at least (unless hard brexit is a reality

[itsnoteasy]

I don't think foreign citizens can vote

Yeah, the whole thing is a mess with politics. I respect whatever way people have voted but I think there's been a lot of lies and misinformation that has led to it, unfortunately we'll still face inequalities that people have been experiencing.

But like I've said it doesn't look like the UK will really leave the EU in anything but name, so for that I'm not to disheartened by the referendum at least (unless hard brexit is a reality

Look at this graph ( a little way down) that shows the amount of immigrants granted British citizenship , look how it climbed in ever increasing numbers between 1997 and 2007, which just so happens to be the exact years Blair was in power, coincidence? A big one if it is.
http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.a...ts-and-trends/

[VillaGuy]

Look at this graph ( a little way down) that shows the amount of immigrants granted British citizenship , look how it climbed in ever increasing numbers between 1997 and 2007, which just so happens to be the exact years Blair was in power, coincidence? A big one if it is.
http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.a...ts-and-trends/

Most of these weren't from Europe though, the EU again seems to have nothing to do with the naturalisation (right to vote) issue that labour were banking on for re-election. The EU referendum wasn't under labours dictate either but the conservatives

[itsnoteasy]

Most of these weren't from Europe though, the EU again seems to have nothing to do with the naturalisation (right to vote) issue that labour were banking on for re-election. The EU referendum wasn't under labours dictate either but the conservatives

I agree but it all got lumped together in the minds of the electorate, it also proves ( unless it is a huge coincidence) that Prescott was probably telling the truth about Labours policy during the Blair years. I think because it was the first time the people most affected by the mass immigration actually got to give an answer on how they felt about it, ( although the general election gave a massive hint with the percentage of the votes UKIP got, think it was up around 20-25)there wasn't a distinction made about where people came from , just that there was to many of them.
I think the remain campaign failed miserably, Cameron was that arrogant he didn't believe it could happen, and folk got fed up with his scare tactics, he tried it in the Scottish Referendum, he tried it in the general election( vote Milliband get Sturgeon) and like the boy who cried wolf he tried it one too many times , wether what he was saying was true or not no one wanted to listen. It's a mess now, and like you,I don't see it ending soon, especially if they have to vote on it in parliament and then send it through the lords, who will probably add in so many amendments it will be bogged down for years.

[VillaGuy]

I agree but it all got lumped together in the minds of the electorate, it also proves ( unless it is a huge coincidence) that Prescott was probably telling the truth about Labours policy during the Blair years. I think because it was the first time the people most affected by the mass immigration actually got to give an answer on how they felt about it, ( although the general election gave a massive hint with the percentage of the votes UKIP got, think it was up around 20-25)there wasn't a distinction made about where people came from , just that there was to many of them.
I think the remain campaign failed miserably, Cameron was that arrogant he didn't believe it could happen, and folk got fed up with his scare tactics, he tried it in the Scottish Referendum, he tried it in the general election( vote Milliband get Sturgeon) and like the boy who cried wolf he tried it one too many times , wether what he was saying was true or not no one wanted to listen. It's a mess now, and like you,I don't see it ending soon, especially if they have to vote on it in parliament and then send it through the lords, who will probably add in so many amendments it will be bogged down for years.

I think I'm on the same page as you. And to go along with what Facebook has done, banning of fake/falsified news is important for people to not be conned. Free press sounds great, but it leads to manipulated press unfortunately when a third party (cash donor) is concerned. The remain campaign was almost none existent, people who were bothered actually researched from unbiassed sources, unfortunately many people fell for the (false) headlines. Some of the headlines in The Sun or Daily Mail are acts of crime, incitement of hate.

[gavpowell]

Why can't eastern europeans stay at home and help their own economies develop ? after all they're in the EU now, why can't they go elsewhere in the EU, why does it have to be the UK ?

I can only speak from my experience of the Romanian family I met and befriended - he's in my line of work and is a stone-cold genius when it comes to computer hardware and electronics. He is currently back in Romania because I can't afford to employ him, but the Romanian government levies taxes on everything and is run largely by former Communists who are running the place like Putin's Russia. But he and his wife and brother never stop, particularly when they're over here: His mantra is "I didn't come all the way here to waste time." I also have to ensure he only does the work I give him, otherwise he'd do everything for next to nothing rather than risk losing the work.

Romania turns out to be a stunning country but unfortunately it's got the old problem of rampant corruption and incompetence. A lot of Romanians went to Greece for a number of years and sometimes Italy. Oddly enough, there's no option of that now.

[VillaGuy]

I can only speak from my experience of the Romanian family I met and befriended - he's in my line of work and is a stone-cold genius when it comes to computer hardware and electronics. He is currently back in Romania because I can't afford to employ him, but the Romanian government levies taxes on everything and is run largely by former Communists who are running the place like Putin's Russia. But he and his wife and brother never stop, particularly when they're over here: His mantra is "I didn't come all the way here to waste time." I also have to ensure he only does the work I give him, otherwise he'd do everything for next to nothing rather than risk losing the work.


Romania turns out to be a stunning country but unfortunately it's got the old problem of rampant corruption and incompetence. A lot of Romanians went to Greece for a number of years and sometimes Italy. Oddly enough, there's no option of that now.

I know a IT development worker who has worked for IBM in Slovakia, he had worked on satnavs and integrating businesses into the area codes. Basically you're in an area he'd programme businesses that are nearby into the system, like petrol stations, restaurants etc... Having done that job he came to the UK expecting similiar work but experienced the familiar glass ceiling where work required a personality test (exclusion of foreigners), he went back to Slovakia gladly realising his challenge.

Romania is an outlier country in the EU, it's predicted to be a tiger economy at least until the year 2200, it has lots of rare minerals and is a large country geographically for Europe. Big things are expected of it and at this minute in time the country is growing rapidly. You probably know this though

[VillaGuy]

I know the perception of Bulgaria and Romania is that they live out of poorly built dwelling without education or hope, but this is wrong. Wages are rising fast. Adjusting for prices, Bucharest’s GDP per capita is above the EU average. Indeed, the average Bucharest resident is comfortably better off than the average resident of Manchester.

Sofia is the fastest growing city in the EU, with a wage growth of 7% per annum, it's expected to be the fastest growing city in the EU for a long time.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bligh...ritain-forgets

Sofia residential

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bo...w=1366&bih=643

In Sofia they are also planning on several highrises (60+ floors) with an artificial lagoon in the middle, I believe it's being built by Koza a huge company building lots in Turkey and Bulgaria, already one huge project is underway in Sofia called Grand Kanyon, an impressive project. http://www.benoy.com/news/2015/09/be...a-koza-square/

http://gradat.bg/

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

We've lost collectively, gloating about mediocrity is like being a good loser, hardly an achievement. If you're a good loser and are happy with flag waving, I'll leave you to it.

Lol. What?

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

I think I'm on the same page as you. And to go along with what Facebook has done, banning of fake/falsified news is important for people to not be conned. Free press sounds great, but it leads to manipulated press unfortunately when a third party (cash donor) is concerned. The remain campaign was almost none existent, people who were bothered actually researched from unbiassed sources, unfortunately many people fell for the (false) headlines. Some of the headlines in The Sun or Daily Mail are acts of crime, incitement of hate.

What drivel. The bbc, aka the ministry of spin and propaganda, broadcast the party line directly into 20 million homes 24/7.

No concerns there, though?

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

I can only speak from my experience of the Romanian family I met and befriended - he's in my line of work and is a stone-cold genius when it comes to computer hardware and electronics. He is currently back in Romania because I can't afford to employ him, but the Romanian government levies taxes on everything and is run largely by former Communists who are running the place like Putin's Russia. But he and his wife and brother never stop, particularly when they're over here: His mantra is "I didn't come all the way here to waste time." I also have to ensure he only does the work I give him, otherwise he'd do everything for next to nothing rather than risk losing the work.

Romania turns out to be a stunning country but unfortunately it's got the old problem of rampant corruption and incompetence. A lot of Romanians went to Greece for a number of years and sometimes Italy. Oddly enough, there's no option of that now.

You can see why they went to Italy and Greece if it was corruption and incompetence they were after...