Brexit is starting to feel like social cleansing

[Cheekysquirrel]

I’m probably paranoid but I’m starting to feel like there’s an agenda here - surely the government can’t be that useless?
In the event of crashing out those who are already struggling will struggling more. People who are ill or disabled and can’t get access to medications (including me) could die.
Is it over the top to suggest that this is an exercise in allowing the fittest and richest to thrive? By design or by accident? I’m no longer sure.

Improving the "stock" / survival of the fittest.
Looking at British politicians I don't think it worked.

The numbers of immigrants might not be different, but where they come from will. More black and brown faces, more Muslims at a guess. But since Leavers didn't vote because of immigration they will welcome them with open arms.

What about the fact that wages are going up steadily for the first time since 2011? And housing costs are also finally going down
This is because the influx of cheap labour from EU countries has slowed since the Leave vote

Does that not suggest that Brexit is a positive thing?

Amazing! anything positive is down to Brexit, anything negative is "nothing to do with Brexit would have happened anyway"

Anyone seen the piece in Japan's leading business paper stating firmly Hondas decision is down to Brexit?

Wages going up is due to substantial above inflation increases to minimum wage, other wages have to rise or the cook will be on the same wage as the cleaner..... it has nothing to do with lower EU migrant numbers, the low skilled ones are still coming, the higher skilled ones are not or leaving.

Rents are rising and uncertainty in the economy has slowed house prices.

Ugh, can we stop repeating the false fact that immigration causes wages to fall.

In fact the "survival of the fittest" quoted above, isn't that just fascism?

It is not a false fact, which is why I repeat it.

Immigration causes a reduction in wages for the low-paid. The people worst hit are often immigrants themselves.

Immigration does not cause wages to fall for those on average or higher wages. So you may not notice it.

Source please.

And you've still not responded to my comments about house prices and wages in relative terms with the cost of living and other economic factors changing.

I work for a very low wage and I haven't had a pay rise for 15 years. There are no immigrants doing my job. Immigrants are not to blame for my low wages, my employer is. I work in a government department as a very long-term (16 years) temp.

People pay whatever they can get away with. To then blame the most vulnerable in society for this is despicable behaviour. I am sick of all the scapegoating that goes on in this country and I am sick of not being paid properly.

"There is some evidence that higher rates of immigration from the EU depressed wages for the lowest paid and enhanced them for the most highly paid. For the lowest paid — in the bottom tenth of the wage scale — EU migration is estimated to have reduced pay by 5 per cent in real terms between 1992 and 2017, but it raised pay by 3.5 per cent for those in the top tenth of the wage scale over the same period. "

Source FT.
www.ft.com/content/797f7b42-bb44-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5

NameChanger22
I'm not scapegoating anyone and I'm sorry if I appear to be. I believe that immigration is necessary and beneficial.
However, it should be controlled because it is a fact that the free movement of cheap labour from the EU has depressed wages for the lowest paid.
I agree with you that people will pay whatever they can get away with.

Nobody wanted a no deal brexit, not even JRM etc. It's fallen apart badly but from the start, loads of left wing people were in favour of a planned brexit. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't seem arsed either way, and 30% of SNP voters voted to leave.

As for the return of poorhouses, I've heard this online for years without the slightest evidence it'll ever happen.

Drug shortages, if they happen, will affect people regardless of economic background.

Milly, you sound a bit naïve. If you think about it logically for 2 minutes you will see that those who decide pay rates are deceiving you about who is to blame for paying staff terribly. Business has become more and more profit driven and the public sector has become more and more like business. It's all about getting more for less. How can you blame someone who just arrived here for that? I don't think the UK has to control immigration that much, we are not overpopulated at all, we rate very low in population density.

Milly - 5% over 15 years is nothing, maybe 0.33% per year..... you arguing over hens teeth.
Min wage rises are running at twice the rate of inflation.

A fall in the value of the £ pushing up import prices, esp transport/food, it would eat up any notional increase in wages.

The reason business does well in America is because they have a lot more people than we do. More people means more profit. We should be welcoming people here with open arms, valuing the contributions they make. We seem to have a very strong culture of scapegoating and victim blaming in this country.

When looking at the effect of EU immigration on wages it’s best to look at full studies and full newspaper articles. Milly only gave a very limited sliver of the picture.

It is highly complex but as can be seen from Chart 11 in the attached LSE research it simply has never been true that the pay of UK-born individuals is reduced by EU immigration. In fact the reverse is true, EU immigration overall increases wages and prosperity.

Some studies found evidence some isolated evidence of lower pay for lowest paid workers where EU immigration had occurred. I think around the Lincolnshire area. BUT you have to evaluate the effect across the whole country and all pay sectors to see the effect on the economy. In many areas EU immigration increases wages due to immigrants working hard, earning and spending money, using services and generating jobs etc.

Overall detailed analysis shows time and time again that EU immigration brings a net boost to the economy.

Areas of the UK with increases in EU immigration do NOT suffer falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers. In periods where U.K. wages did fall it was demonstrably due to the global financial crisis , not immigration.

EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out in welfare and the use of public services. They therefore help reduce the budget deficit. Immigrants do not have a negative effect on local services such as crime, education, health, or social housing.

https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf

All of the studies show that the impact of immigration is extremely minimal, the author of the bank of England study calls it "infantessimally small" even on the wages of the lowest paid.

www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/how-small-small-impact-immigration-uk-wages

Using the BOE data and immigration data the NEISR work it out as a penny an hour.

The MAC worked out that the impact of increased inflation since the referendum had a greater impact on the real incomes of the lowest paid than immigration had over the previous 14 years.

LSE and UCL studies concur.

There is no evidence that immigration has had any significant effect on the wages of the lowest paid or even really any noticebale effect.

Especially when you take into account increases in tax threshold.

Its one of those things people say to try to sound reasonable in their objections about immigration.

Boris. That's a very interesting article. It says this:

a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants working in semi/unskilled services—that is, in care homes, bars, shops, restaurants, cleaning, for example—leads to a 5.2 percent reduction in pay
A 5.2 percent reduction in pay is very significant if you're on a low income. Furthermore, I would say that in many parts of England, in the last decade, we have had a rise in the proportion of EU workers that is much bigger than 10 percentage points in these particular sectors, wouldn't you?

You have only read one part of it if that is what you have taken from it.

In fact you are quoting selectively, not from the quote from the most recent study, but from one ( by the same authors) from 2008.

Lets quote some more:

" Well, the first thing to note is that a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of migrants working in a sector – the amount needed to generate the “nearly 2 percent” wage impact is very large. Indeed, it is larger than the entire rise observed since the 2004-06 period in the semi/unskilled services sector, which is about 7 percentage points."

So even if you use the old data of 2008 the 10 percentage point rise never occured

Further: "we can calculate that the new paper implies that the impact of migration on the wages of the UK-born in this sector since 2004 has been about 1 percent, over a period of 8 years. With average wages in this sector of about £8 an hour, that amounts to a reduction in annual pay rises of about a penny an hour."

Sorry but your pulling bits of this out for confirmation bias and not reading the whole article.

" we have had a rise in the proportion of EU workers that is much bigger than 10 percentage points in these particular sectors, wouldn't you?"

No, this is explained above.

Immigrations has virtually no effect on wages of the lowest paid, and when accounting for increases in tax threshold has had no impact on real net wages.

You would also be hard pressed to find anywhere that has had a 10 percentage point increase in EU workers in the lowest paid jobs outside of London, as the % of EU immigrants is extremely small in most areas.

Blaming migration for impacting wages is simply a cover for more nefarious views.

Gosh, the socialists are out in force today, aren't they!

How does using economic data make you a socialist?

Or is simply using facts socialist, you know because all right wing theories are based on assumptions that don't work.

Like the laffer curve and trickle down.

It’s like an automated empty-slogan-spritzer - not even relevant to the posts preceding!

To get back to the OP, I think there are definitely Tories who want us out of the EU precisely so that they can cut back on social protection where the EU gives us a safety net, employment rights being the main area.

When I mentioned this on MN at the time of the referendum someone jumped on me and said "but you are saying the EU should be able to stop our democratically elected government from reducing employment rights". Yep, that was exactly what I thought. Democracy has its downside, as the referendum proved.

I think employers are lazy and greedy and don't want to train people and that's why they like recruiting people from overseas who have already been trained. It's too easy for them to say that Brits are lazy and won't work. Even with immigration we have had virtually full employment, albeit that many jobs are part-time or low paid but if you want a job you can get one, barring disability and the like.

As for freedom of movement, what everyone seems to forget is that we are only stopping EU citizens coming to the UK. Otherwise their freedom of movement is unaffected. But ours is stifled.

@MorrisZepp "Drug shortages, if they happen, will affect people regardless of economic background."

No, if you have sufficient wealth, in fact just ordinary savings for a holiday, you can take a short trip to the continent,
then get a prescription from a doctor there and have it filled there
Easy enough to organise in most cases and doctor's fees for simple cases are typically under €50

Several years ago, when my late mum and I were on holiday in Germany, her GP contacted her to say some important test results had been mislaid and mum urgently needed some meds to avoid a stroke.
I just took her to a GP, we got a prescription (visit cost about €25) and then her meds from the chemist the same day.

If more intensive medical treatment is required, take a trip for 2-3 months
Most wealthy people have worldwide medical insurance, private or through their employer, which would cover this

I'm not wealthy, just comfortably off, but my insurance enables me to live & receive treatment wherever I choose, excluding the US