Friday, 6 November 2009
Friday, 13 February 2009
British Jobs for Nigel Farage to waffle on about in complete ignorance
British Jobs for British Workers come up again on the latest Question time, giving the unfortunately applicable guest Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, to indulge in the opportunity of spouting off on one of his favourite subjects.
It's a well known fact that EU laws make a direct policy of "British Jobs for British Workers" illegal, as that would be protectionism and discriminating against foreign workers, which would violate the right to work freely - a fundamental breach of EU ethics, not the sort of bureaucratic technicality which countries violate all the time out of malice as much as expediency. Farage therefore gets the chance to foam at the mouth at the evil, British-bashing agenda of the EU, and paint heartrending pictures of the plight of the UK taxpayer paying to fund jobs denied to UK workers and given to scrounging foreigners.
The fact that a two year old with a good application of common sense could spot the basic errors of reasoning here should be worrying to Mr. Farage, but I personally doubt that it is. Actually, I have a good amount of personal respect for Mr. Farage in debate, as he has a knack of saying what he believes and applying good (if normally narrow-minded) reason whilst doing so. So I doubt he does this so much out of casual disrespect of foreigners as sheer ignorance.
Firstly, the most basic question is why foreign workers would be coming over here and "stealing our jobs!!1!" in a time of a particularly bad recession, predicted to be worse for the UK than for the majority of other EU nations. It has already been recorded that more Polish workers are now leaving the country than immigrating for work, and the general trend will only become more enforced during a severe recession: Britain will no longer be an economic haven.
The basic reason for foreign immigration of labour is obviously due to economic advantages: we're an affluent country, capable of offering rich opportunities to those who come here. Therefore in such circumstances, if we're suffering due to the recession, you can only imagine how badly it's effecting those smaller, poorer economies where the foreign workers are migrating from; and how the plight of our taxpayers, on average, financing the creation new jobs of which a few which might just possibly go to foreign workers, pales in comparison. Really, what it suggests is that if there's any issue it's the way the government treats those genuinely seeking a job in a fair and open job market, not the freedom of anyone living in the UK to seek a job. The government's duty should be to support its population in seeking to become employed, not to discriminate on the basis of petty nationality. Foreigners don't cease to be poor because they're foreigners.
The second point in which Farage is clearly talking utter rot is when it comes to the basic agenda of the EU. He rants that "the EU shouldn't decide who works and lives in our country, our government should decide", when the EU's agenda is actually obviously not to "decide" any such thing, and that only we individually should have the right to "decide" any such thing, as Europeans. The EU merely exists to try and prevent governments from doing anything so stupid.
As long as the concept of a United Europe remains (if unfortunately not the practice), the simplest and most sensible solution to our problems of immigration is to give people the freedom to sort it out democratically among themselves - and a vital part of that is to have freedom of movement. Thus, people concentrate on the real issues, such as how to help immigrants integrate and become a productive part of their community, what support to offer them and what responsibilities to ask; rather than whether they have the right to travel across small parts of the Earth's surface. At best, that's an utterly ineffectual and petty approach: if they're determined enough, they'll ignore the rules; if they're not bothered enough to try, then they probably wouldn't have bothered you to begin with. Freedom of movement forces people to face the real issues, rather than hiding behind the safe target of the immigration boogeyman.
Of course, it would all be helped immensely if we actually democratically elected our European commissioners, and held the EU to account, rather than being able to lambast it (quite rightly) for institutionalised bureaucracy and corruption. But what people don't realise is that's the responsibility of national government, not the EU. The UK government could make the democratic election of their appointed commissioner a requirement in an instant, if it had the guts. But of course, all governments fear giving away control.
It's a well known fact that EU laws make a direct policy of "British Jobs for British Workers" illegal, as that would be protectionism and discriminating against foreign workers, which would violate the right to work freely - a fundamental breach of EU ethics, not the sort of bureaucratic technicality which countries violate all the time out of malice as much as expediency. Farage therefore gets the chance to foam at the mouth at the evil, British-bashing agenda of the EU, and paint heartrending pictures of the plight of the UK taxpayer paying to fund jobs denied to UK workers and given to scrounging foreigners.
The fact that a two year old with a good application of common sense could spot the basic errors of reasoning here should be worrying to Mr. Farage, but I personally doubt that it is. Actually, I have a good amount of personal respect for Mr. Farage in debate, as he has a knack of saying what he believes and applying good (if normally narrow-minded) reason whilst doing so. So I doubt he does this so much out of casual disrespect of foreigners as sheer ignorance.
Firstly, the most basic question is why foreign workers would be coming over here and "stealing our jobs!!1!" in a time of a particularly bad recession, predicted to be worse for the UK than for the majority of other EU nations. It has already been recorded that more Polish workers are now leaving the country than immigrating for work, and the general trend will only become more enforced during a severe recession: Britain will no longer be an economic haven.
The basic reason for foreign immigration of labour is obviously due to economic advantages: we're an affluent country, capable of offering rich opportunities to those who come here. Therefore in such circumstances, if we're suffering due to the recession, you can only imagine how badly it's effecting those smaller, poorer economies where the foreign workers are migrating from; and how the plight of our taxpayers, on average, financing the creation new jobs of which a few which might just possibly go to foreign workers, pales in comparison. Really, what it suggests is that if there's any issue it's the way the government treats those genuinely seeking a job in a fair and open job market, not the freedom of anyone living in the UK to seek a job. The government's duty should be to support its population in seeking to become employed, not to discriminate on the basis of petty nationality. Foreigners don't cease to be poor because they're foreigners.
The second point in which Farage is clearly talking utter rot is when it comes to the basic agenda of the EU. He rants that "the EU shouldn't decide who works and lives in our country, our government should decide", when the EU's agenda is actually obviously not to "decide" any such thing, and that only we individually should have the right to "decide" any such thing, as Europeans. The EU merely exists to try and prevent governments from doing anything so stupid.
As long as the concept of a United Europe remains (if unfortunately not the practice), the simplest and most sensible solution to our problems of immigration is to give people the freedom to sort it out democratically among themselves - and a vital part of that is to have freedom of movement. Thus, people concentrate on the real issues, such as how to help immigrants integrate and become a productive part of their community, what support to offer them and what responsibilities to ask; rather than whether they have the right to travel across small parts of the Earth's surface. At best, that's an utterly ineffectual and petty approach: if they're determined enough, they'll ignore the rules; if they're not bothered enough to try, then they probably wouldn't have bothered you to begin with. Freedom of movement forces people to face the real issues, rather than hiding behind the safe target of the immigration boogeyman.
Of course, it would all be helped immensely if we actually democratically elected our European commissioners, and held the EU to account, rather than being able to lambast it (quite rightly) for institutionalised bureaucracy and corruption. But what people don't realise is that's the responsibility of national government, not the EU. The UK government could make the democratic election of their appointed commissioner a requirement in an instant, if it had the guts. But of course, all governments fear giving away control.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Dingdongalistic Reviews
My review site, dedicated (non-committally) to reviewing Doctor Who, Spooks and Torchwood.
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