UKIP

[Dr Nowt]

 

Cringe-making in the extremist.  Albeit the guy doing the interviewing comes across as something of a political Adrian Durham.

[Strontium]

Yep, nobody is arsed about the EU. The immigration thing is a valid concern though and has been brushed under the carpet for too long, UKIP have merely given people that voice. Mass immigration in this country has always, always been done for the benefit of big business and the white working class are the ones who are left to deal with the fallout, when they complain, say about wages falling or school places being taken, they're demonised and called stupid, or bigots. The latest is to be called lazy. Character assasinatin en mass.

You make being a benefit to business sound like a bad thing.

 

And it's not like businesses are the only beneficiaries. I'm pretty sure the immigrants get quite a lot out of it too.

 

Do you have any reliable evidence that immigration from the EU causes wage depression at the bottom end of the income scale? It sounds like baseless Tory rhetoric to me, the sort of thing I can imagine Theresa May saying. And I have no problem demonising the stupid, lazy people who buy into it.

[PestiRed]

You make being a benefit to business sound like a bad thing.And it's not like businesses are the only beneficiaries. I'm pretty sure the immigrants get quite a lot out of it too.Do you have any reliable evidence that immigration from the EU causes wage depression at the bottom end of the income scale? It sounds like baseless Tory rhetoric to me, the sort of thing I can imagine Theresa May saying. And I have no problem demonising the stupid, lazy people who buy into it.

If only there was a politician who could articulate this. A man who could be relied upon to debate the benefits of immigration against a moron without losing the debate and making the moron even more popular

[Section_31]

You make being a benefit to business sound like a bad thing.

 

And it's not like businesses are the only beneficiaries. I'm pretty sure the immigrants get quite a lot out of it too.

 

Do you have any reliable evidence that immigration from the EU causes wage depression at the bottom end of the income scale? It sounds like baseless Tory rhetoric to me, the sort of thing I can imagine Theresa May saying. And I have no problem demonising the stupid, lazy people who buy into it.

 

Probably loads out there, and loads arguing against it - probably in the Guardian, but that's the problem. The immigration debate is never had, it's just brushed aside by people whose lives and jobs aren't impacted by it in the slightest. If you approve of immigration it's because you're clever and your curry house is particularly nice, if you disapprove of immigration it's because you smoke Golden Virginia and don't like the idea of having to fight for your job with some super lovely, super fast, super duper foreign worker who helps old ladies across the street and has  PHD, but is still content to shift bricks.

 

A lot of these things are common sense aren't they? Increased supply makes it a buyer's marker when it cones to low skilled jobs - I don't see why I need to provide pie charts to prove that, it's the Adam Smith shit you so know and love. 

 

The House of Lords said this though:

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf

 

In the short run, it is typically assumed that capital and technology are fixed 

or at least not fully adjustable, so that the primary effect of immigration is to 

increase the supply of workers in the economy. In a simple short-run model 

of the labour market, immigration lowers the wages of local workers who are 

“substitutes” and compete with immigrants for jobs, and increases the wages 

of locals whose skills complement those of immigrants. In the short run, 

immigration also increases the profit of capital owners and employers who 

benefit from the increased supply of labour. 

 

 

 

 

 

In the UK, the most recent study by Professor Dustmann and others 

concludes that immigration has a positive absolute wage effect for natives, 

but lowers wages of those workers employed in the lowest paid jobs. 38 This 

work suggests that every 1% increase in the ratio of immigrants to natives in 

the working age population ratio led to a 0.5% decrease in wages at the 1st

decile (the lowest 10% of wage earners), a 0.6% increase in wages at the 

median, and a 0.4% increase in wages at the 9th decile.

 

 

The City of London 

Corporation was the most pessimistic about the impact on the low-paid. It 

concluded that the concentration of immigrants in low-paid jobs in the 

capital had led to “significant downward pressure on wages at the bottom 

end of the market”. While this had encouraged growth in the number of 

these jobs, earnings among workers in this sector ended up “falling behind 

growth in the cost of living” (p 427). Professor Nickell suggested that home 

care staff and cleaners were among those whose pay was adversely affected by 

immigration (Q 37). 

73. Even if immigrants are not competing directly for the same jobs in many 

cases, they may still have a strong indirect effect in depressing wages for 

resident workers. Professor Blanchflower found that wage growth slowed in 

both the UK and Ireland following A8 accession although both economies 

were booming. He attributed this to a rise in the fear of unemployment 

caused by high immigration, which in turn leads to lower wage settlements 

(p 196).

[Stu Monty]

You make being a benefit to business sound like a bad thing.

 

And it's not like businesses are the only beneficiaries. I'm pretty sure the immigrants get quite a lot out of it too.

 

Do you have any reliable evidence that immigration from the EU causes wage depression at the bottom end of the income scale? It sounds like baseless Tory rhetoric to me, the sort of thing I can imagine Theresa May saying. And I have no problem demonising the stupid, lazy people who buy into it.

 

So you have no problem demonising lazy and stupid people who buy into something you aren't sure about, haven't looked into and so have to guess about?

 

Odd stance.

[RedRazor]

Yep, nobody is arsed about the EU. The immigration thing is a valid concern though and has been brushed under the carpet for too long, UKIP have merely given people that voice. Mass immigration in this country has always, always been done for the benefit of big business and the white working class are the ones who are left to deal with the fallout, when they complain, say about wages falling or school places being taken, they're demonised and called stupid, or bigots. The latest is to be called lazy. Character assasinatin en mass.

This complete tosh.

 

The mass immigration of the 50s and 60s took place when the UK had full employment and the economy was dominated by huge the state owned monopolies running steel, iron, coal, rail, docks, gas, electricy, transport, telephony, mail, nhs and so on.

[RedRazor]

I completely agree, it's part of the conversation about how you have a coherent society when dealing with immigration to the country and also with, as we've discussed previously, a world where we do not need everyone to be grafting for the machine to turn.

 

Left to the free market it would mean the displaced worker in Sunderland has to emigrate to Poland or work for less; less than a living wage for the cost of products and services in this country. This is the truth that most who back market solutions in almost every realm refuse to speak. They massively flood the supply side of the employment market and then castigate those who are now surplus. 

 

You have the freedom to fuck off elsewhere or the choice to struggle. Freedom. Choice.

So if you are right then the shipyards of Gdansk will be full of welders and shipbuilders who learned their trade on the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne. Is this the case? I have a suspicion that it is not.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Yep, nobody is arsed about the EU. The immigration thing is a valid concern though and has been brushed under the carpet for too long, UKIP have merely given people that voice. Mass immigration in this country has always, always been done for the benefit of big business and the white working class are the ones who are left to deal with the fallout, when they complain, say about wages falling or school places being taken, they're demonised and called stupid, or bigots. The latest is to be called lazy. Character assasinatin en mass.

The non-white working class still get a far, far shittier end of the stick than the whites.  

 

Any argument that immigration leads to unemployment and/or lower wages is on shaky ground, at best: the available statistics are too weak and inconsistent to indicate correlation, let alone any causal link.  As with under-provision of school places, housing and other services, the people who are really to blame (the politicians and their filthy-rich fellow-travellers) find immigrants to be a convenient scapegoat.  They always have.  Working class people who oppose immigration are not necessarily stupid or bigoted - but they are routinely duped into diverting their justifiable anger away from its proper target.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

This complete tosh.

 

The mass immigration of the 50s and 60s took place when the UK had full employment and the economy was dominated by huge the state owned monopolies running steel, iron, coal, rail, docks, gas, electricy, transport, telephony, mail, nhs and so on.

More than full employment - a labour shortage.  Big business (both nationalised and private alike) needed workers, invited them over from the Empire/Commonwealth.... and then dumped them when they were surplus to requirements.  

[AngryOfTuebrook]

In the UK, the most recent study by Professor Dustmann and others 

concludes that immigration has a positive absolute wage effect for natives, 

but lowers wages of those workers employed in the lowest paid jobs. 38 This 

work suggests that every 1% increase in the ratio of immigrants to natives in 

the working age population ratio led to a 0.5% decrease in wages at the 1st

decile (the lowest 10% of wage earners), a 0.6% increase in wages at the 

median, and a 0.4% increase in wages at the 9th decile.

 

It comes to something when a Professor has to take a job as a Dustmann.

[RedRazor]

More than full employment - a labour shortage.  Big business (both nationalised and private alike) needed workers, invited them over from the Empire/Commonwealth.... and then dumped them when they were surplus to requirements.  

Not just "them". They dumped everyone regardless of whether or not they were native or immigrant.

[RedRazor]

The non-white working class still get a far, far shittier end of the stick than the whites.  

 

Any argument that immigration leads to unemployment and/or lower wages is on shaky ground, at best: the available statistics are too weak and inconsistent to indicate correlation, let alone any causal link.  As with under-provision of school places, housing and other services, the people who are really to blame (the politicians and their filthy-rich fellow-travellers) find immigrants to be a convenient scapegoat.  They always have.  Working class people who oppose immigration are not necessarily stupid or bigoted - but they are routinely duped into diverting their justifiable anger away from its proper target.

Here is my view of the issue.

 

If you know the NHS needs 10,000 more midwives and the politicians arrange for the immigration of 10,000 midwives then you may want to carry those politicians shoulder high round the car park of your local maternity unit.  

 

If you are one of 10,000 unemployed bricklayers and the politicians arrange for the immigration of 10,000 bricklayers then you may want to carry those politicians shoulder high to the nearest multi-storey car park so you can throw them off the top floor.

 

If you have controlled immigration you have the chance of making the first happen.

 

If you have uncontrolled immigration there is a chance the second may happen.

 

My view is that most people in the UK recognise the differences between the two examples above. It does not make them racist or bigotted.

[Stu Monty]

So if you are right then the shipyards of Gdansk will be full of welders and shipbuilders who learned their trade on the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne. Is this the case? I have a suspicion that it is not.

 

What?

 

What part of "if left to the free market" was confusing?

[RedRazor]

What?

 

What part of "if left to the free market" was confusing?

What what?

 

What part of welders and shipbuilders becoming surplus to requirements on the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne (and many other places) because UK shipping companies decided to build their ships in Poland are you missing?  A UK based shipping company chooses to build a ship in a foreign shipyard rather than a British one - happened hundreds of times which is why we have almost no shipyards left. Is this not an example of the free market? What becomes of the now redundant workforce? I suppose they could be shit stand up comedians but you said that the rest would have to move where the work is. I don't understand your confusion.

[Stu Monty]

What what?

 

What part of welders and shipbuilders becoming surplus to requirements on the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne (and many other places) because UK shipping companies decided to build their ships in Poland are you missing?  A UK based shipping company chooses to build a ship in a foreign shipyard rather than a British one - happened hundreds of times which is why we have almost no shipyards left. Is this not an example of the free market? What becomes of the now redundant workforce? I suppose they could be shit stand up comedians but you said that the rest would have to move where the work is. I don't understand your confusion.

 

No, it's the point you don't understand, hence why your example is of work being shifted overseas, not an increase in the supply of labour in the UK. And hence why you've, for some reason, decided I was making a point about people following work abroad as opposed to the work still being here but with a surplus of supply.

 

People wanting to chase work overseas (for less pay/worse conditions - hence why it moved) and people, if left entirely to the market, being forced to move are entirely different market forces. That's surely not a problem to get a handle on?

[RedRazor]

No, it's the point you don't understand, hence why your example is of work being shifted overseas, not an increase in the supply of labour in the UK. And hence why you've, for some reason, decided I was making a point about people following work abroad as opposed to the work still being here but with a surplus of supply.

 

People wanting to chase work overseas (for less pay/worse conditions - hence why it moved) and people, if left entirely to the market, being forced to move are entirely different market forces. That's surely not a problem to get a handle on?

With respect Stu your post included the following phrase:

 

Left to the free market it would mean the displaced worker in Sunderland has to emigrate to Poland

 

Hopefully you can understand my "confusion".

[Section_31]

The non-white working class still get a far, far shittier end of the stick than the whites.

 

Any argument that immigration leads to unemployment and/or lower wages is on shaky ground, at best: the available statistics are too weak and inconsistent to indicate correlation, let alone any causal link. As with under-provision of school places, housing and other services, the people who are really to blame (the politicians and their filthy-rich fellow-travellers) find immigrants to be a convenient scapegoat. They always have. Working class people who oppose immigration are not necessarily stupid or bigoted - but they are routinely duped into diverting their justifiable anger away from its proper target.

Agree completely with your last line. There's a huge amount of insincerity about immigration which always muddies the waters, the notion for instance that Labour underestimated the amount of migrant workers who'd come in 2004 is ridiculous, the bean counters would have had that down to the last dozen. They just didn't give a fuck about any potential fallout. Former policy advisors have actually said that encouraging mass immigration was Labour policy between 2000-2008, so anything Miliband now says about faulty estimates can't be trusted.

 

With regards stats, I just find it to be common sense. Even if it doesn't drive wages down it will keep them low by taking the sting out of the supply and demand cycle. If a firm can't get the locals to do a job, traditionally it would have to up its offer, now it doesn't. This economic model still works if you're skilled of in a decent professional job, but it doesn't if you're from a poor town in the North where Amazon have just built some one million square foot version of Slavers' Bay.

 

With regards the demonization of the white working class, while I agree immigrants actually get the worst of new waves of immigration (many surveys often find them to be the most against immigration, ironically), it's the whites who are the only safe demographic to demonise. Vicky Pollard would never have been Asian, and Benefits Street would never have been set in Hulme.

[Lee909]

 

 

UKIP leader Nigel Farage faced challenging questions this morning, and said he was unaware that one of his party’s councillors had asked “if we shot one poofter” whether the rest would “decide” not to be gay.

 

In the interview with LBC’s James O’Brien, Mr Farage was asked what would be the repercussions for Gloucestershire candidate John Lyndon Sullivan, who took to Facebook in February to make the controversial remarks.

 

On 17 February, Sullivan wrote on Facebook: “I rather often wonder if we shot one “poofter” (GLBT whatevers), whether the next 99 would decide on balance, that they weren’t after-all? We might then conclude that it’s not a matter of genetics, but rather more of education ;)”

 

Responding to the question, Mr Farage said: “People say silly things- we’ve had more of it than we would have liked,” and said he would be happy to have debate about “idiots” in UKIP.

 

He then said Sullivan would face “disciplinary” action to determine if he “brought the party into disrepute.” O’Brien then pointed out that the update took place in February, and no action had been taken yet.

 

Later responding to a question of why he was unaware of the controversy surrounding Sullivan, Mr Farage said:, “I lead a political party, I don’t manage the day-to-day running of it.”

 

He claimed: “All anyone wants to do is talk about the idiots in UKIP,” but that the media doesn’t ask the same questions to the main political parties when controversy occurs.

 

Later in the interview after facing a barrage of difficult questions about his bilingual daughters and wife, who pays for his medical bills and why he said he would be “uncomfortable” with Romanians moving in next door, UKIP communications director Patrick O’Flynn tried to stop the interview, saying it had “overrun”.

 

Sullivan previously said physical education could “prevent homosexuality”, and last year failed to be elected as a councillor for Newent in Gloucestershire.

 

Mr Sullivan’s comments, which were deleted, were made on a Facebook group called “Traditional Britain Group

 

 

[Stu Monty]

With respect Stu your post included the following phrase:

 

Left to the free market it would mean the displaced worker in Sunderland has to emigrate to Poland

 

Hopefully you can understand my "confusion".

 

When talking about immigration, not about work being re-located abroad. Come on, behave yourself.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Must admit I did enjoy the lbc interview farage had with james obrien.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Must admit I did enjoy the lbc interview farage had with james obrien.

Yeah. He did what he does best and battered him. I was speaking to James a while back when the News International and Hacking scandals first broke. Sharp guy.

[Strontium]

So you have no problem demonising lazy and stupid people who buy into something you aren't sure about, haven't looked into and so have to guess about?

 

Odd stance.

 

It's called not believe something without compelling evidence to do so. I don't know where you get the idea that I haven't looked into it, I have, and I've found nothing definitive.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Meanwhile, in Liverpool...

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/wannabe-liverpool-ukip-councillor-wants-7134800

 

A wannabe UK Independence Party (UKIP) councillor called for Russian militia to be shipped into Britain to “clean up our city centres”.

Austin Lucas, who hopes to become a councillor for Cressington in this Thursday’s local elections, also heaped praise on Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying: “At least he loves his country.”

Mr Lucas’s comments are among a series of bizarre statements made on Facebook by UKIP council candidates in Liverpool.

Enid Lindsay, who is standing in Fazakerley , called voters “idiots”, while Clubmoor’s Paul Forrest claimed “racism is a natural outcome of evolution” and said the Catholic church is “far more dangerous” than the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Meanwhile John Halvorsen, a candidate in Everton , lists the Liverpool division of the far-right English Defence League among his “likes” on Facebook. He is also a member of an online group called “Was Enoch Powell Right?”.

These Facebook posts were brought to the attention of the Sunday ECHO by ex-UKIP member turned anti-extremism campaigner Colin Cortbus.

Mr Lucas wrote on the social networking site in February: “Can we please import some Cossacks to clean up our city centres – say what you will about Vlad Putin, at least he loves his country.”

In March he re-published a comment by Mr Forrest that warned of pro-abortion “feminist witches who consider children to be nothing more than pets or fashion accessories”. Mr Lucas went on to say Green Party MP Caroline Lucas is “probably a witch”.

Meanwhile, in December last year just before border controls between Britain, Romania and Bulgaria were relaxed, Ms Lindsay wrote on Facebook: “What kind of idiots have the British electorate become?

“We are faced with a tidal wave of new immigrants from the European Union in less than one week and the public seem to have accepted that there is nothing they can do about it.”

She added: “The present British population should be ashamed of themselves.”

Mr Forrest, meanwhile, said on Facebook in 2012 that “evolution and racism go hand in hand”, before posting a link to an article about biology and eugenics. He went on to say “racism is a natural outcome of evolution, not a misunderstanding of it”.

He added: “Genocidal racists are being true to evolution far more than those people who want Darwinism but without its social consequences.”

In a separate online debate in 2012, he wrote: “Please stop saying Roman Catholics are part of the Christian church. They’ve killed more Christians throughout history than all others put together.”

He later added: “As imposters go, the Church of Rome is far more dangerous than the KKK.” During the same discussion he also laid into Islam, saying its claim to be a “religion of peace” was “downright misinformation”.

The four candidates were invited to speak to the Sunday ECHO about their online activities, but all either declined or failed to respond to our requests for a comment. The Sunday ECHO also visited Mr Lucas’s home address – as stated on the election nomination form – but we were told he no longer lived there.

UKIP boss set to investigate

The chairman of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Liverpool has vowed to investigate following today’s revelations.

In a statement, Neil Miney told us: “Whilst some candidates may have expressed unguarded comments, these do not represent party policy or, necessarily, their full opinion in context. We shall investigate all the allegations and, if appropriate, take action.”

The Sunday ECHO’s report today will be the latest in a long line of headaches for UKIP leader Nigel Farage, caused by potentially offensive comments made by party members.

Mr Miney added: “UKIP is a non-racist, non-sectarian political party. In Liverpool branch, we welcome people from all backgrounds if they agree with our core values of democracy and free speech.

“We believe in freedom, even when this can sometimes be awkward.”

[stringvest]

I suppose we've got the politicians we deserve.

 

I'm going to open another bottle and read some more uplifting threads.

[Bobby Hundreds]

The comments are a bit depressing to that mad article. So is the idea of massive Thatcherite farage being the working mans anti establishment vote.