What do remainers think of this!

[Corcory]

6 MPs, members of the commons select committee, paid a visit to Sports Direct's warehouse in Derbyshire the other day.
It is build in an ex mining area specifically to provide work for a community badly needing employment opportunities.
When the MPs were shown around the warehouse they had the opportunity to speak to many of the employees there. None of them were British all of them were Eastern European. Some didn't even speak English. So could easily be duped into taking reduced wages and a reduction in their employment rights! No unions are allowed there.
The taxi driver who took the MPs there told them there are never any jobs advertised around here from the warehouse and that people from the area would love jobs there - well provided the paid the proper wages and gave full employment rights!

Had to go and collect an ill child and take her to hospital.
What I am trying to say is that so many remainers on here say that there is no evidence of immigrants taking jobs to the detriment of UK workers. I am quoting an interview of one of the MP's who was there and she was the one who spoke to the taxi driver. She didn't say that every worker that worked there was Eastern European, only that all the workers they spoke to were. Don't you think that if there were some British workers to speak to that Sports Direct would have made sure the MPs spoke to them.
It certainly is up to the Gov. to ensure that proper work conditions and min. pay are adhered to but I really think that too many immigrants are being exploited and I don't think that's fair.
A friend of mine went for a cleaning job in an office and was offered £5 an hour ' because that's what we paid the last (Lithuanian ) cleaner'.

I feel happy though that op started a thread in EU board asking the opinions of Remainers. I think it's very good idea to keep the discussion open between the two sides. I can demand all the evidence that I like and remain side can post all they want but it takes massive courage to keep the discussion going after months. For both sides. Thanks corcory

I hope your child is ok! That's the main thing.

Sorry crosspoted!
" Don't you think that if there were some British workers to speak to that Sports Direct would have made sure the MPs spoke to them."
I think that if I was among the Sports Direct people on that site, I would keep all the British workers as far away from the MPs as possible. It makes perfect sense that MPsdont figure out what Sports direct is on about. MPs have to respond to their people.why would Sports Direct want that?
As for lower pay and exploitation etc, can I please ask you one question? Do you think there is a chance that EU was actually threatening to come down hard (using the examples from other EU countries) on such exploitations? Could this be one of the reasons why a significant part of British elite wanted Brexit? To keep the status quo? Please think on this too?

And i appreciate your reply even though your child is unwell.

It certainly is up to the Gov. to ensure that proper work conditions and min. pay are adhered to but I really think that too many immigrants are being exploited and I don't think that's fair I think we all agree on that! But it's this government's responsibility to sort that out, the EU are trying already. If you're saying that this is because FoM, I think you'll find many non Europeans fall into exploitation too, unfortunately. That's why it's up to the government to stop companies like this exploiting workers from any nationality.

As for the high amount of Eastern Europeans being employed there. Far from this being 'Debunked' The Labour MP for the area John Mann said last Dec. that if you speak English you can't get a job there and that it is locally called the 'Gulag'. There are 3000 people there and very few if any are British! In an area of very high unemployment.
The advertising of jobs linked by someone was for 4 years ago when the Olympics were on! Not now.
Workers are taken on by agencies, that I think is how they get round the no union situation.

I'm not sure why it would make any difference being out of the EU. Sports direct will exploit workers regardless of where they're from.

I didn't see the uk government trying to fight for better rights for workers and claiming that the eu stopped them. Probably to the contrary.

Well, it's concerning that that's what that MP said the taxi driver said. And I'm sure that if Sports Direct hadn't been able to hire the Eastern Europeans, then any British workers they'd hired would have been treated very well indeed. Damn those immigrants stealing our Victorian workplaces and appalling conditions: we want our zero hours contracts back!

What I am trying to say is that so many remainers on here say that there is no evidence of immigrants taking jobs to the detriment of UK workers

Have they ? Have they really ?

I can't speak for others, but I never believed this, and never claimed it.

What I did - and do - believe is that instances of this happening were not a result if the UKs membership of the EU, but as a wider result of UK (yes - for Brexiters who love British Sovereignty - UK) government actions and policies.

If wages are low, it's because employers know tax credits will top them up. Tax credits are nothing to do with the EU, and the EU would only get involved if the UK - in violation of it's treaty obligations - tried to treat UK citizens more favourably than other EU nationals.

It's precisely because this dishonest "lets blame the EU" trope has not been challenged wherever it is spouted (thank you Murdoch, Dacre and Desmond) that so many peoples "facts" about the EU are anything but.

As referenced on another thread, when leavers have been asked politely to name one EU law the UK has been forced to introduce which has been bad for the UK, they can't. Which isn't surprising (although depressing) since there aren't any.

You don't need to prove your point to me - I accept it. But you will need to prove to me that it's because of the UKs EU membership. And (a la Carl Sagan) if you want me - and my children - to suffer years of economic depression as the UK exits the EUl you'll have to come up with a lot better standard of proof than "bloke says".

Once again, i the UK banned zero hours contracts this would be different, why won't the government just do it? The EU has advised them to do it, but cannot force them until EU legislation has been passed in this. But by then, UK won't have to adhere to a ban on shit contracts as UK will be out! This is going to get much worse without EU,once the repeal bill can pick and choose which employment laws can be thrown out of the window...

Why didn't some one ask John Mann what was he doing to control the situation? And exactly what problems were the Eastern Europeans causing for his plans (he is an MP so it must be on reco d somewhere that he protested again the exploitation of workers?). And why didn't anyone ask him what was going to happen if those workers left the area? Will the overall doom on economy upon Brexit be negated by the rise in opportunity for the locals in his constituency or not?? And what was John Mann not using the example set by the EU countries (references in above posts) to control such situations?was it the easy way out to blame it on availability of cheap foreign workers or was something more sinister was going on?
You see OP, it's a deep deep discussion that needdd to be done BEFORE raising the finger on EU and destabilising the economy to the limit where we have already lost more than what we were hoping to pay into EU for a decade to come and more. And we haven't even left yet.

"What I am trying to say is that so many remainers on here say that there is no evidence of immigrants taking jobs to the detriment of UK workers."

But you haven't posted any evidence which counters this, what you have posted is an anecdote, part of which has been proved to be untrue.

The other thing that you haven't done is post evidence that there is large unemployment in Derbyyshire where people aren't getting jobs because of immigrants.

Which actually there isn't, unemployment in Derby and Derbyshire is at the lowest level since records began.

www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/unemployment-derby-derbyshire-lowest-levels/story-25899527-detail/story.html

There is however plenty of evidence that unemployment of Brtish natives is not caused by immigration:

www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/british-jobs-and-foreign-workers-todays-reports-immigration-and-unemployment#.WCHwzy2LTIU
www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/
www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpb21/reports/HomeOffice06_03.pdf
cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf

Continuing there is also lots of data which shows that the impact on pay is very small, and concentrated in the semi skilled/unskilled occupations, and even then only when there is a 10% point increase in the number of people working in their industry ( note not 10% there is a difference), which has never actually occurred!

www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2015/swp574.pdf

Even then the LSE says that areas that have had higher levels of immigration since 2004 did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers, and in fact there is no correlation between low pay in these areas and low pay of British nationals.

So...

the LSE btw also found about low that:

" The big falls in wages after 2008 are due to the global financial crisis and a weak economic recovery, not to immigration."

What has this got to do with the EU referendum? OP what is your point?

OP, what are you going to do with the facts and stats provided?

I'd be very interested in some counter-stats. And by that, to be clear, I don't mean what an MP and a taxi driver talked about.

"She didn't say that every worker that worked there was Eastern European, only that all the workers they spoke to were"

Well given sports direct's record as an employer I'd imagine they gave any English speaking people the day off, easily done with zero hour contracts...and a situation the EU have been wanting the UK to change for a while.

But hey, don't let logic get in the way of a nice anti-immigration thread.

Vulpe - although unemployment is at record low in Derbyshire, I suspect that that some massaging of the stats has gone on - with casual work and 'self-employment' being rife. As one clergyman said of one of these regions, the jobs being created were not real jobs but 'lasses jobs'. He was condemned for this, but I could see what he meant i.e. casual call centre work instead of well paid industrial jobs. Which means that people are living a very hand to mouth existence, and this is entirely the fault of Government policies.

I'd be very interested in some counter-stats. And by that, to be clear, I don't mean what an MP and a taxi driver talked about.

Funnily enough, on another forum, I asked for a cite for an example of an EU law imposed on the UK to our detriment.

The only response was a link to a YouTube clip of a UKIP MEP (the irony almost hurts) blathering on in a speech to the European parliament. I.e. anecdote.

And as I was taught many years ago, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Vulpe - although unemployment is at record low in Derbyshire, I suspect that that some massaging of the stats has gone on - with casual work and 'self-employment' being rife.

Which has been going on since 1979. So long, in fact, it should be regarded as an established British tradition, and protected from the EU ....

I'd agree, although the lasses jobs comment rattles my cage a bit, the relatively well paid heavy industry manual jobs are not coming back,.

However, the implication in the OPs post is that Sports Direct were hiring eastern European workers at the detriment of British born ones, and that they were driving down the standards that would be offered. Both claims are utterly counterfactual and have been proved to be so.

I do think its important to hold this kind of thing to account

To be fair to Corcory, she is one of the more thoughtful Leavers and has consistently said that she thinks it wrong that other potential immigrants are discriminated against. Which I agree with, but again that is down to Government Policy. Why has Theresa May such an anti-immigrant obsession? Usually the ones who come are the younger and more enterprising with the get up and go that is needed in any country.

That's a fair enough viewpoint, but I think as TM's trip to India shows there will be no changes to the way other immigrants are treated, whatever arrangement is come to with the EU their will still be easier immigration from there, so I do feel that viewpoint was a little naive.

FYI there has been a few things said by the curry industry who were told by Priti Patel that lower EU immigration would lead the lifting of some restrictions for them, and now feel lied to.

Why has Theresa May such an anti-immigrant obsession?

I must admit, this is starting to look the case. It's almost Wildean ... (to give the impression of dislike of immigrants and disdain for the rule of law in one post may be viewed as careless. To give the impression of dislike of immigrants and disdain for the rule of law in two posts begins to look like base nature ...)

She hardly covered herself with glory at the Home Office.

The bottom line is there has always been a nasty racist element to the Tories. I write that not as an accusation, but a statement of fact. My "fact" being a letter the local Conservative council (in London) where I grew up in refusing to organise a Silver Jubilee street party in our section of street because it was felt "the neighbourhood characteristics were not suitable". Or, as our councillor told my Mum (because he lived 4 doors down) There are too many P*** living here . He didn't miss out (of course) as he took his family to the big party at the town hall. His son was one of the kids that said I should go back to my home country because I had a name.

That was 1977, and the magic of Google suggests he was still in office up till 1992.

That's the Tory party Theresa May represents. It's a different beast to (say) the party of Cameron and Osborne.

I used to work in Smethwick. The by-election is still within living memory.

Priti Patel

One of the most obnoxious politicians I have ever seen in action ... which, given how old I am, is something of an accolade. I wish she'd grown up in my street and had dog shit put through her letterbox. Might have stopped her joining the Tories.