I find so much of this argument about immigrants/jobs really at odds with my experience and that of my peers.
For context, I am the daughter of immigrants who grew up in a big Italian/Greek/Irish/Turkish community in London. It was one of those disadvantaged, working class fairly neglected places that gets lost in the wider debate about poverty. Most of the families I knew felt they had no safety net (there was no social welfare for people like my parents - it’s a real insult to them for people to think that the 60s immigrants got anything). It was sink or swim.
I worked hard, went to university and came back to the area mid 90s. Lots of European money started to come through as part of project 2000 but at the same time the place filled with people from other wealthier parts of London and it was clear to see what was happening. A college became a university and the tone between old Londoners and educated new became very clear to see. I straddled both sides as a graduate with friends (very wealthy some of them) who were living in this cool, now quite trendy area. My job meant I was visiting the schools there, some of which were in shocking conditions. This is a Windrush area with a lot of the social tension caused by racism, inadequate funding over the years, etc.
I struggled to get a job I could see had much of a future (was diagnosed with a health issue that limited me). My father was very badly attacked in one of the many, random attacks on the elderly that no one was acknowledging at the time. My parents returned to their European country just before full accession and I saw first hand what happened from the perspective of a British person living in London and an immigrant in Europe.
So much is not being acknowledged that directly affected the working classes. It is really a shocking cover up imv. Jobs were not being properly advertised, resources were intentionally going in certain areas only whilst the working class, including myself were being deliberately driven in to an opposite direction. I ended up (when my job in the European city finished) in the European capital. I was with a group of similar women, French, Italian, German and Spanish. It was impossible to get anything in that country as everyone who had a job had got their friends and families in as cheap money flooded into the country and they had the chance to get on the housing ladder.
I spent years doing small, badly paid projects, voluntary work, free work.
No one is acknowledging the ideological change that happened regarding immigrants to the UK. I would support it normally (being the daughter of immigrants) but I also saw the other side. POC, imv particularly lost out here as very few are really acknowledging the incredible racism that comes from European communities. It has always been an issue and families like mine who are close enough to both sides have always seen this and had to walk the spaces in between. Couple that with class and years of neglect for generations in say Newham, then it was always going to end up like this as the working class were routinely humiliated. Have people forgotten the benefit stuff, Shameless, Jeremy Kyle - the get of your backside and find work mantra? I grew up with it, have always followed it but I saw something very different. The benefit systems vary in different countries, there were very different ideas about what was acceptable, there were lots of people who were in the flow of generous money being pushed into the space of those who didn’t. Why was that seen as OK? The Europeans I met were shocked at this and knew that there own countries would not have done this as it was a sure fire way to create conflict in already delicate communities.
The US was pumping free, online courses across Europe as these previously agrarian societies changed rapidly and it was impossible to get into something stable unless you had already been in the system. I was in by a thread. I came back to the London 5 years ago and the damage is really clear. There are a lot of mid 40 ye olds who are just lost. Absolutely lost in terms of having a secure life and anything meaningful and they know it. These are not people who have the skills to take advantage of Erasmus (which o did and loved). They are a huge weight on others in the communities who are trying to keep things together. I was teaching and I can say that the schools felt completely out of control. People are winging it so badly and there is no order or structure just a sense of the whip being cracked. My housemates (and I have written on here about this) include a guy who just couldn’t cope with London and had a violent breakdown we all had to deal with, several academics who think they are changing the system from within and are utterly clueless, a woman who is advising a local university dept about stuff that is completely wrong - illegal even but oblivious to the law as she is so poorly educated she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. The local communitites have been very badly let down imv. (Particularly the elderly).
I honestly have lost so much respect for the left in how it turned on its own so viciously. I am left of center, a Remainer, pro Europe, academic (aspiring) but I have seen both sides and no one was being honest enough to say that Europe vs UK are two competing philosophies. Those of us born of European ideas and faith are testimony to that as we have had to navigate this carefully growing up. I just cannot understand how it was all implemented so badly and I, largely (with some reservations as I knew the Spanish university system well) was in support of it all.