Johann frets because it creates BNP voters.
Laban chips in :
Mass immigration is IMHO the main engine of insecure employment/low wages - and that's what it's there for.
Jon Cruddas pointed out two years back that the govt "tacitly used immigration to help forge the preferred flexible North American labour market. Especially in London, legal and illegal immigration has been central in replenishing the stock of cheap labour across the public and private services, construction and civil engineering."
Immigrant labour "is the axis for the domestic agenda of the Government".
They certainly have a flexible labour market in the States, thanks to mass illegal immigration from Mexico and points South. During the Republican primaries it seemed that every other day some populist anti-immigrant candidate was busted for having an 'undocumented' gardener or nanny. Might be hard to credit, but evil fascist GWB was only stopped from 'regularising' millions of illegal migrants by a revolt from his own party.
Some say mass immigration is the Left's revenge on the working class for the Thatcher years, but that implies a degree of planning and forethought so is unlikely. It's more a cultural thing, but it does neatly coincide with a need for cheap workers.
People like Johann Hari and some Guardian commenters are calling for an increase in the minimum wage as the answer to the "problem" - the problem being that the natives are restless. They've missed the point. Keeping wages low are what it's all about.
(Of course if immigration stopped tomorrow and all the Poles went home OR if the minimum wage was doubled then yes, wages would rise and that would cause a rise in inflation. But to a great extent inflation has been 'hidden' over the last 10 years via a combination of the Chinese miracle (goods) and mass immigration/offshoring (services). In one sense it OUGHT to rise - that would give a truer picture of where we actually are economically. Then we might look hard at our education and manufacturing disasters and start doing something about them)
And talking of restless natives, did you see the State broadcaster doing its little bit for social cohesion on all its news bulletins tonight, with the video (kindly provided by HMG) of the UK Border Agency (60 guys in Clockwork Orange white boiler-suits, backed by police) in action ?"Shocked, scared, confused - 56 workers are lined up"
Putin can't teach this lot anything about media control.
"There are dodgy employers out there who are trying to undercut their competitors and drive down British wages by employing people illegally, so we've come up with this new way of taking much faster on-the-spot action," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne told the BBC.
Ah, those British wages ! Can't you just see Britannia on the coins and the Queen (God bless her) on the notes ? Drive them down illegally and the white boiler-suits will nail you ! (drive them down legally and anyone who doesn't like it is a Nazi).
Thus far has the party of Keir Hardie advanced. But hey, it'll help convince the stupid natives that 'they' are doing something.
(There was also an interesting discussion on utility which alas time prevented me from joining)
18 comments:
In the state propaganda organ - the BBC - Ive noted a few examples where we are persuaded the state is "doing something".
In both Casualty and recently in Dr Who, characters dealing with people they believe to be eastern europeans assure them that they are not part of immigration control and what is more wont report them.
This works on two levels. Firstly viewers are encouraged to believe that an all powerful state apparatus is out there somewhere ruthlessly rounding up illegals (a ridiculous fanatasy I know). Secondly nice people, docs & nurses dont turn in the poor huddled masses to the otherwise all-powerful state.
So Daily Mail readers are assured that yes, really, something is being done while Guardianistas can get a nice warm feeling that their people are in there in the belly of the beast fighting for the little people.
Of course the only thing the all-powerful state is actually good at is telling us crap like this.
I don't think Johann is saying immigration creates BNP voters, he seems to be saying dealing with it badly can help to create BNP voters.
"But whenever I think this, I remember Robert Cottage. In the most under-reported story of the past year, this 49 year-old BNP election candidate was discovered to have stock-piled explosives and bomb-making manuals in his house."
Hari misrepresenting the Robert Cottage case is par for the course. I commented elsewhere as follows on this last August. Bomb making materials = "touch explosives", and bomb making manual = Anarchists Cookbook, Whatever happened to the rocket launchers?
Aug 2007
"The State no doubt would have liked him to get 20 years to demonstrate "even-handedness" with Islamic terrorists. But the case was so feeble that was too shamefaced a course even for them.
1) As one of the arresting officers said, he isn't a terrorist, and that has been borne out by these proceedings.
2) It had been claimed that he had "rocket launchers" and the largest stash of explosive chemicals ever found in a domestic dwelling. The rocket launchers, which are merely empty tubes, quite useless without the 66 mm military rocket, and are the sort of thing people interested in militaria collect. These slipped off the radar screen of course. Whatever happened to them? As for these "explosives" we are not talking HMTD, the kind of thing terrorists use - but at most material that could be used in thunderflashes. One expert witness said that these were "touch explosives", used in jump jacks. In other words hardly capable of doing anyone much harm.
3) When it was put to a jury on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions, he was acquitted
4) Mrs Justice Swift admitted that the "explosives" were intended to make thunderflashes for "deterrent" purposes but claimed that his ideas were "over-valued". Really? Admiral West has said that Britain faces, thanks to mass immigration, a 15 year war against Islamic extremism. Here, given the increase in their numbers, there is of course no guarantee who is going to win, and, as is their wont -the elective dictatorship and its liberal hangers-on, have effectively co-opted the indigenous people of this country into this conflict. We are told that there are 200 terror cells and 2/3000 suspects. We are told that there may be chemical, biological, radiological attack. Muslims rioted quite extensively in 2001.
So therefore on what basis can it be claimed that Rob Cottage's ideas are "over-valued"? If he is indeed paranoid then who has made him so?
5) Mrs Justice Swift gave, as her view, the possibility that "innocent" people could have been harmed. Rob Cottage sought to defend himself and his property. If there was a screaming Muslim mob underneath his bedroom window trying to batter down his front door and he lobbed a thunderflash into the middle of them the chance of innocent suffering would have been exceedingly small. Rob Cottage stored canned food, his preparations were clearly defensive in nature.
6) In view of the threat level the state has admitted to maybe they would like to say when it is permissible to take a few "deterrent" measures in advance. Or is everything to be left to them, in which case it will probably be all just-too-late. Terribly sorry old chap!
7) Rob Cottage had a cross-bow, that's a far more lethal weapon than these ridiculous "explosives", but that's apparently ok.
8) This case was essentially a crock of shxt, and the state has fallen flat on its face. Rob Cottage is an innocent Englishman found "guilty" of taking a few, quite feeble really, precautions to defend himself. "
THAT IS WHY IT WAS UNDER-REPORTED.
"They've missed the point. Keeping wages low are what it's all about."
For some its racial and the goal is the eradication of white people. Livingstone, Jasper and their ilk are/were certainly working hard on this one. And of course we are so lucky to have the Chosen Ones lining up behind an open border policy and agitating for more repression against those who dissent. These zealous warriors for righteousness will not rest until 'the white race is abolished' and if they can make a few quid on the way..oy vey!
I'm not sure I'm with you on this one. Immigration has been welcomed because of Labour's failure to deal adequately with welfare reform and it's addiction to a vast state bureaucracy. If welfare was withdrawn from at least 40% of those now claiming it (now over 5m are 'economically inactive') and taxation reduced and simplified (even Toynbee urges Brown to take the low paid out of tax in today's Guardian), the market will be flooded with British labour.
Immigration has been accepted because many from overseas will do the work that Brits won't do. And it is easier to use them to do it than to upset the Labour heartlands which became wedded to welfare in the 1980's (it was the Tories who pushed lots of the unemployed onto incapacity benefit in the mid 80's - the number has not changed materially since then). These heartlands also tend to be repositories of most of the crime and deprivation you often write about. I recall back int he 80's the left arguing that when men had nothing else to do they resorted to crime. Now, if anyone seks to push communities out of welfare into work, the same voices complain about Govt. being heartless and Thatcherite.
Hari's musings on the economic and housing aspects are downright disingenous, I can't believe he is stupid enough to believe what he says, though maybe he is delusional. If, ultimately, he ends up on a proscription list it will be thoroughly deserved, being told to "f-ck off will be the least of it. However what he implies about the historical legacy of Britain's wartime experience, and Hitler, is exceedingly questionable. The view of history changes over time and look where we are now - we are economically ruined; whatever liberal economic "feelosophers", as Cobbett put it, say to the contrary. We have been absolutely swamped by third world immigrants some of whom are exceedingly alien and dangerous. We are set to become a minority in our own country. And our national identity, which previously required no breast-beating, no great and good sermonising, has been trashed. All that one can see on the horizon is a failed state, with all the misery for our people that implies
None of this would have happened but for WW2. We lost 500000 dead, perhaps as many more terribly injured. Not much of a reward for their sacrifice is the terrible state of the country today, and this is why there is a growing sense of betrayal. Peter Hitchens was recently banging the revisionist drum in either the Express or the Mail.
I am increasingly of the view that Churchill was misguided. He was certainly grossly irresponsible - it was little short of miraculous that the British army was not captured at Dunkirk, which would have been an irremediable disaster. Anyone with an ounce of sense, and not a reckless aristo-gambler, would have sought the possibility of terms during May 1940 when all was collapsing in ruins in the face of Guderian's onrushing Panzers. Churchill was totally cavalier with the lives of the people he was appointed to protect. He knew that the defences against night bombing were nugatory and that the effect of Luftwaffe bombing would be terrible. He knew how weak was RN ASW capability and of the mortal danger of being staved out. He knew that Fighter Command had been brought to the brink of defeat by the first week of Sept 1940..
But he pressed on regardless, presenting Hitler as an implaccable foe who would strip us of all vestiges of our national strength and independence in Cabinet in May 1940(only Halifax put up a bit of resistance, and that feebly). But this simply was not true. We could have almost written our own terms. This following correspondence is very revealing. Churchill went to war on a fraudulent prospectus:
"The Führer's Basic Ideas:
Economic problems are quite different from those of the past. The situation may now be compared with that of the Napoleonic era. In order to achieve economic evolution one must calculate on a basis of wide territories and consider Europe as an economic unit. Napoleon had attempted this, but in his day it was not possible because France was not in the centre of Europe and communications were too difficult. Now Germany is in the centre and has the means of providing communications and transport services.
For the white race there must be two great economic units - Germany, the continental unit, and the British Empire and America as the centre of world economy. England and America now have and will naturally continue to have the biggest navies and they need the oceans for their maintenance. Germany has the continent. As for Russia, Weissauer gave the impression that she should be considered as a potential enemy. The two great groups could resist the encroachments of the Yellow Race.
Weissauer went on to outline his ideas of peace terms.
(1) The Empire remains with all the colonies and mandates.
(2) The continental supremacy of Germany will not be called in question.
(3) All questions concerning the Mediterranean and the French, Belgian and Dutch colonies are open to discussion
(4) Poland. There will be "a Polish state"
(5) Czechoslovakia must belong to Germany"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=137567&p=1205869
Resisting enchroachments is now pretty much past praying for.
Clearly the driving force behind desiring immigration has changed over the years. Initially it was driven by the need to improve the economy.
Today it is driven by the fact that Labour knows that most minorities vote Labour. Truly they are changing the electorate.
The comment section on Hari's article is very good. BNP support does not come exclusively from chavs.
Jockney
Michael,
your point about the five million economically 'inactive' people is spot on. Things should never have got that bad but remember these people are, on the whole, passive.They have been cut off politically.'Excluded' in Nu labour jargon.
It is up to the rest of us to force them back into the political fold and in the process make them see that taking responsibility for their own lives is the only way forward
Jockney
I don't think its primarly about creating a flexible labour market, the Labour party has no place in its heart for that.
Its about pensions, they know that sooner or later there wont be enough young people to pay all the welfare to the rapidly aging population. They are desperate to try to hold that back as long as possible by bringing in as many younger people as possible.
When pensions collapse other parts of the welfare state will go with it, and that will be the end of modern socialism.
"It is up to the rest of us to force them back into the political fold and in the process make them see that taking responsibility for their own lives is the only way forward"
Look if they have got no job, a crap min wage job, very poor education, living in a degraded urban environment, under increasing financial pressure, sinking under the weight of their debts, getting pissed and smoking fags and stuffing themselves with choccy, getting depressed and popping anti-depressents THEN HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY BE MADE TO see that taking responsibility for their own lives is the only way forward, anon?
What a load of liberal of absolutely crass liberal middle class cack.
First thing to do is to burn out that rat's nest called the City of London.
"Its about pensions, they know that sooner or later there wont be enough young people to pay all the welfare to the rapidly aging population."
It's got nothing to do with pensions, dave. This would require long-term planning, and as Wilson said, "a week is a long time in politics". Even more appositely Jack D. Ripper said of politicians:"They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.".
Surely it cannot have passed your notice, dave, that what has happened is the hallucination into existence of an allegedly buoyant labour market through the blowing up of a massive credit bubble. Certainly we now stand on the verge of a return to mass unemployment, which in fact never went away - whatever specious nonsense the spindoctors have spun.
I see this obnoxious toad Hari is banging on £6bn benefit to the economy blah, blah. In fact it is GDP per capita which counts, and the HOL committee didn't find any net benefits. Prof Rowthorn, an economist, has stated, on the basis of gov't supplied info, that the increase in GDP attributable to immigration is actually less than the increase in population as a result of immigration.
Hari, Legrain, Buiter - fools and knaves the pack of them
Sgt Troy,
a lot of these people could be forced to take responsibility for themselves if they had their benefits withdrawn.
A minimum wage job is a good start. At least it is a job.If having a job got you points on Council housing lists people would be forced to work.
Just like saying to criminals:all you are is a fucking a parasitic scumbag.We are giving you nothing except this: a job sweeping the streets and a place in a shitty hostel. And if you fuck that up you get NOTHING.
Jockney
Government policies have created an 'underclass'
"A minimum wage job is a good start."
This is far from necessarily being the case, jockney
"TWO million UK workers are “trapped in a continual round of low-paid and insecure work where mistreatment is the norm” according to union umbrella body the TUC........Commissioners say they were “shocked” both by the extent of “vulnerable” work and that much of the poor treatment they found was perfectly legal. The report says “employment practices attacked as exploitative in the 19th century are still common today” and that the “poor treatment at work that we have found should not be tolerated”.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/business-in-wales/business-news/2008/05/06/exploitation-and-low-pay-for-two-million-uk-workers-91466-20865252/
"Another Lithuanian described being made to work eight to 10 hours a day scrubbing burnt pots in a kitchen at the back of a restaurant. When he objected to being shouted at "like a dog" he was sacked by the employment agency."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/britain-shamed-for-its-immoral-exploitation-of-foreign-labour-439313.html
Force people into this kind of shit and all you will do is make them ill. Min wage jobs at the bottom of the heap are often sub-benefit in terms of mental stress.
"Government policies have created an 'underclass'"
It is the rotten to the core politico-financial elite who have created the underclass whilst enriching themselves. They need to be destroyed to put it bluntly.
As a worker, and a taxpayer, a certain sector of society is doing very well out of fleecing me.
First of all, we have far too many folk chronically unemployed and living off benefits, when the truth is they are perfectly fit for some sort of paid work. But, they would not receive a decent living wage and they are financially better off staying on benefits. So I have to pay for their benefits.
Second of all, the immigrants who have come in have displaced the local workforce by accepting depressed wages. Any tax they do pay is correspondingly low, and we are also paying family benefits to their dependants in places like Eastern Europe. So I end up subsidising them too. Their living expenses are kept to a bare minimum by unorthodox methods such as living on a building site in a portacabin or shipping container, and none of their meagre earnings are spent in the local economy.
All the money for interpreters, ESL schoolteachers, and NHS treatment for these folk is coming from the public purse.
Meanwhile, their employers have been doing rather well out of it all. Their wage bills have been pegged or even reduced, and when the economic slump starts to bite, they will just dump their migrant workers on the state and walk away.
There is no shortage of labour in this country. There is a shortage of taxable wages, and an overload of benefit claimants. Immigration needs to be stopped. Not reduced, or controlled, or addressed. Stopped.
Monty
The CBI are even more pro-immigration than Labour. They think its the best thing ever.
Its all about cheap-labour and driving down wages; keeping the poor at the bottom, fattening the wallets of the rich, and making many people dependent on the Government's good graces.
This is the beauty of the current setup. Big biz gets all the cheapo labour it needs but any time the natives get uppity the anti-racist attack dogs can be unleashed to silence any opposition. Its awesome. The people most apparently opposed to cigar chomping capitalists do their dirty work for them, in a vindictive emotional way the big boys would never be able to.
Its so effective that the business boys almost never have to defend their immigration policies themselves.
In the despicable Daily Mail rag Peter Osborne writes: “last September I was deeply shocked as Gordon Brown utilised the language of the BNP to promise “British jobs for British workers”. Deeply shocked, no less! How distressing for the smug, insouciantly arrogant Mr Osborne!
The sentiments Brown expressed were admirable, the problem we have is that they are so far removed from the reality of what the “Labour” government has actually done.
what precisely is amiss with British jobs for British workers? The plain truth is that the Mail is a nasty, squalid, Tory, cheap labour comic.
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