Welcome to Britain! Keith Vaz MP and Mark Reckless MP greet first arrivals

[-:Undertaker:-]

Ah, so MPs can only buy coffee for people that the public think are worthy?

MPs can buy coffee for whoever they like, but the good thing is that this PR stunt will be seen by many voters - and for some reason I don't think that many unemployed Labour voters in poorer areas with chronic unemployment are going to think too highly of the antics of Mr Vaz.

That's afterall why Labour are now pretending to be sceptical of mass immigration.

[FlyingJesus]

And even if the minimum wage was enforced and the picture you paint is true, then that still doesn't gloss over the fact that it makes economic sense for a migrant from a very poor country to work for that wage but not an unskiled Brit for reasons explained previously.

You mean reasons alluded to and not backed up. If an unskilled Brit won't take work that's available they can't complain about someone else having the job, especially if it's then going to be claimed that this work isn't enough to live on (but somehow ~£50 a week is?) which simply isn't true. People living outside of their means and wanting to be paid large amounts for jobs anyone can do is not the fault of immigration

[Inseriousity.]

http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/01/romani...ction-4246521/

this article was funny.

As someone out of work and in the job centre, I will say that a) I don't like coffee, tea please and b) all you bloody londoners taking all our jobs, not everyone can afford to move there y'know. It's too simplistic to say I don't have a job due to mass migration (the north east of england is the whitest place in the country). There are a lot more factors involved and it's too simplistic to attribute it entirely to immigration. Despite that, it's naive to completely ignore its impact so we do need to regain control of our borders.

That Keith Vaz guy always has been a media *****!

[-:Undertaker:-]

You mean reasons alluded to and not backed up. If an unskilled Brit won't take work that's available they can't complain about someone else having the job, especially if it's then going to be claimed that this work isn't enough to live on (but somehow ~£50 a week is?) which simply isn't true. People living outside of their means and wanting to be paid large amounts for jobs anyone can do is not the fault of immigration

If it works out better for the Briton to remain on benefits because they are worse off by taking a job with lower wages then it's the fault of mass migration due to the fact that if that's the case (that the job isn't paying enough) the market would have - without mass migration - have been forced to pay more for the job at hand. Because of mass migration they no longer need to do that and instead can count on a labor force arriving from second-world countries in Eastern Europe.

Of course it's also the fault of the benefits system too but there's no denying that mass migration has depressed low skilled wages.

As someone out of work and in the job centre, I will say that a) I don't like coffee, tea please and b) all you bloody londoners taking all our jobs, not everyone can afford to move there y'know. It's too simplistic to say I don't have a job due to mass migration (the north east of england is the whitest place in the country). There are a lot more factors involved and it's too simplistic to attribute it entirely to immigration. Despite that, it's naive to completely ignore its impact so we do need to regain control of our borders.

That Keith Vaz guy always has been a media *****!

Well nobody suggests all unemployment is down to mass migration of course not, it's mainly the lower skilled work that is affected anyway. But yes absolutely, this is all about controlling our borders so that the government is accountable for whatever migration system it opts for.

As i've said countless times - let's have a work permit/visa system whereby permits are issued depending on criminal records, numbers of people coming in, local services where the job is located and whether or not we actually need a foreigner to do the job instead of a Briton. Pretty much like every other country. Ofc for this to happen we'd have to leave the EU.

[FlyingJesus]

It only takes 8 hours of work at minimum wage to get more money weekly than what you get off the dole, and you can still claim benefits when you work for up to 16 hours a week so it's definitely not an issue of being better off not taking certain jobs, it's just an issue of people wanting everything to be easy and then complaining when it isn't

[Ardemax]

Uh because being single men all living 12 to a slum house they can? Do you get that? Can you comprehend that?

Besides, weren't you one of the ones a few months ago arguing with me over the minimum wage? How strange that all those who argued in favour of the minimum wage against me now seem to think that it's a good thing to have people working on ever lower wages due to mass migration. What an illogical position, assuming that's the one you hold.

I don't think it's a good thing to have people working on "ever lower wages" and I'm sorry if I implied that. I would love for every 'minimum wage' worker to actually be on a living wage so that they could actually, uhh, live properly.

Unfortunately as it stands we're not in an ideal world and so when someone wishes to come over here and work twice as hard as any local for the lowest legal wage then what do you say to that? I know what I'd say: let them have it and whilst they're there show all the bigots how it's done.

[-:Undertaker:-]

It only takes 8 hours of work at minimum wage to get more money weekly than what you get off the dole, and you can still claim benefits when you work for up to 16 hours a week so it's definitely not an issue of being better off not taking certain jobs, it's just an issue of people wanting everything to be easy and then complaining when it isn't

Depends entirely on the welfare and benefits being offered as well as taxation rates, it's a complex system. The IDS reforms on welfare are supposed to be making sure 'work pays' (his own words) but whether they're successful or not is a different matter.

Point is, if Britons can/could/want/should be made to work these jobs then that's what should happen as opposed to importing millions of workers from the second and third world. That means reform of immigration system along with welfare.

I don't think it's a good thing to have people working on "ever lower wages" and I'm sorry if I implied that. I would love for every 'minimum wage' worker to actually be on a living wage so that they could actually, uhh, live properly.

Unfortunately as it stands we're not in an ideal world and so when someone wishes to come over here and work twice as hard as any local for the lowest legal wage then what do you say to that? I know what I'd say: let them have it and whilst they're there show all the bigots how it's done.

But what do you class as hard work. For example, i'm against the minimum wage and yet if we were debating the minimum wage people on here would rip me if I dared say that perhaps people should work harder in the event of the minimum wage being abolished. I'd have accusations of 'slave labor', 'work camps', 'people need time off with their families' etc thrown at me. Yet with immigrant workers, the same people seem to think that because they are willing to work longer hours (due to them not having families over here unlike British workers) that to say 'oh fight it out for jobs' is okay when its Britons vs immigrants yet not okay for Britons vs Britons. Either way, if immigrants are better and Britons really don't want the jobs then under a permit scheme the companies/farms would then be allowed to issue work permits to foreigners to come and do the work. So what's the problem with a structured system is my question to people?

And added to all that, I think the hard work thing is wayyyyyy milked over the top to what it actually is. If you take fruit picking for example, it doesn't take anybody with more than an eggcup full of brains to pull fruit and vegtables out of the ground - meaning that all workers doing that sort of work will be working just as hard as one another.

For anybody who is interested btw, there's a good interview on this page - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25549715 - with Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch on what he predicts and over what timescale.

[The Don]

You keep saying that as the supply of labor increases the wage rate falls, which just isn't true.

Despite the popular belief that immigrants have a large adverse impact on the wages and employment opportunities of the native-born population, the literature on this question does not provide much support for the conclusion.

Source

More research has been done since that survey was written, but the general conclusions remain much the same. Economists find no evidence for widespread wage decreases. The debate on the effect of immigration on wage rates of native-born workers has, believe it or not, narrowed down to the effect on wages of high-school drop-outs. Estimates range from slightly positive to, at worst, an eight-percent fall.

source

Key Points -

• To what extent does the increased demand for goods and services (and hence, for the labor to produce them) created by more immigrants offset the greater supply of labor? Don’t the laws of supply and demand dictate that wages would fall? Not when other things change at the same time. Those immigrants who increase the supply of labor also demand goods and services, causing the demand for labor to increase.
  
• To what extent does immigrant labor compete directly with native labor? The downward effect on native wages would be maximal if immigrants and natives had identical skill sets. immigrants don’t simply shift the supply of labor. Labor is heterogeneous. When the immigrants have different skills than the native-born population, they complement the native-born labor rather than substitute for them.

If it works out better for the Briton to remain on benefits because they are worse off by taking a job with lower wages then it's the fault of mass migration due to the fact that if that's the case (that the job isn't paying enough) the market would have - without mass migration - have been forced to pay more for the job at hand. Because of mass migration they no longer need to do that and instead can count on a labor force arriving from second-world countries in Eastern Europe.

If people choose to remain on benefits rather than work, that's a problem with the benefits system, not immigration.

Of course it's also the fault of the benefits system too but there's no denying that mass migration has depressed low skilled wages.

Nope

As i've said countless times - let's have a work permit/visa system whereby permits are issued depending on criminal records, numbers of people coming in, local services where the job is located and whether or not we actually need a foreigner to do the job instead of a Briton. Pretty much like every other country.

We do, just not for those in the EU

Ofc for this to happen we'd have to leave the EU.

Which is a separate debate entirely.

[Zak]

hopefully I have some time to contribute to this later on..

for now though