"I believe it is wrong to allow large numbers of foreign workers access to the UK labour market on the pretence that they will do the jobs that we will not do, they may initially do that but then they will progress on to better paid jobs denying UK citizens access to those jobs. I also believe allowing large number of foreign workers into the UK is causing resentment and unrest among the rest of the UK population."
I have to declare an interest, here. On my mother's side, my grandparents were economic migrants to the UK; since my mother didn't take British nationality until she was about 40, in spite of having lived here since she was 4 and worked here since she was 19, she might also be so described. And if it comes to that, my paternal grandfather's parents were economic migrants, too.
I strongly suspect the petitioner doesn't mean people like my grandparents, mother and great-grandparents, admittedly. After all, my grandparents and mother came from the Netherlands, while my great-grandparents came from the Isle of Man. And in the case(s) of my grandparents, they were both highly educated professionals. But still - they were economic migrants, who took jobs that might otherwise have been available to British people.
To my way of thinking: tough. I want all the jobs around me - the binmen, the plumbers, the shop-workers, the doctors, the lecturers, all of them - to be done by the best person for the job. If the best person for the job isn't British - who cares? If they're paying their taxes here, contributing to society by doing the best job they can - great. If they beat me to a job, because they're better than me - that's my problem. Why the hell should I have a job I'm less-able than someone else at, merely because I had the fortune to be born in Bristol instead of Berlin, Bangalore or Brisbane?
No comments:
Post a Comment