A+A on Brexit - The Return of the Living Dead

smacl

recedite wrote: »

All British railways built outside Britain have relied on foreign unskilled labour for construction. Not the railways built within Britain.
The labour was not always local either BTW; there is a large ethnic population in East Africa who are descended from railway navvies imported from the Indian subcontinent.

Not quite. From The Navvies: How the Irish built the modern British railways;

Of the 250,000 Navigators, or ‘Navvies’ (in the US, Navigational Engineers) operating in Britain at the height of railway expansion, roughly 1 in 3 was an Irishman.

and Wikipedia on Navvies;

A study of 19th century British railway contracts by David Brooke, coinciding with census returns, conclusively demonstrates that the great majority of navvies in Britain were English. He does, however, state that 'only the ubiquitous Irish can be regarded as a truly international force in railway construction' although the Irish only comprised about 30% of the navvies.

Certainly on large modern infrastructural projects in the UK, much of the design and build is carried out by international consultants, with Irish companies well represented alongside Scandinavian, French, and Spanish companies. At an individual level, the civil engineering industry in the UK currently has a huge number of Eastern Europeans, Spanish and Greeks, as does the much smaller indigenous Irish civil engineering and construction sector in Ireland. From my understanding there are similar skills deficits in the medical sector, with nurses, doctors and specialists in short supply.

anothernight

smacl wrote: »

At an individual level, the civil engineering industry in the UK currently has a huge number of Eastern Europeans, Spanish and Greeks, as does the much smaller indigenous Irish civil engineering and construction sector in Ireland. From my understanding there are similar skills deficits in the medical sector, with nurses, doctors and specialists in short supply.

The mechanical engineering sector where I live (Midlands) is also crying out for foreign engineers, as there aren't enough local engineers to meet the demand. Lots and lots of Irish people moving here for that reason, but also Spanish, Italian, German, etc., often with juicy relocation packages. A lot of the local engineering companies are practically poaching employees from similar companies in other countries. The atmosphere in these companies is that they'll be in a very difficult situation (to put it mildly) if the UK leaves the EU.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

Not quite. From The Navvies: How the Irish built the modern British railways;

It is somewhat disingenuous not to include the Irish as statistically "British" in the context of 19th Century. I presume you would accept that the railways in Britain and Ireland were built by Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh labour, and not "foreign" labour.

As for the modern situation, I agree that foreign and/or EU workers are employed in the engineering sector, but then you have to ask why are all these new roads and houses and schools needed? Its largely because of the pressure put on infastructure by immigrants.
A similar situation arose here with large numbers of eastern europeans being employed to build houses, the demand for which was largely driven by immigration. But that does not mean the Irish have somehow lost the ability to build enough houses for their own needs.

A country like Japan is more representative of a stable economy. There is very little immigration, the population is relatively stable, so there is no great demand for covering whatever countryside they have left in new infastructure.

anothernight

recedite wrote: »

As for the modern situation, I agree that foreign and/or EU workers are employed in the engineering sector, but then you have to ask why are all these new roads and houses and schools needed? Its largely because of the pressure put on infastructure by immigrants.

Engineering isn't just civil/structural engineering.

silverharp

the question might be why does Britain have a skills shortage and not Japan or Germany? if the reason is that open emigration means companies or the education system are too lazy to bother training for the right skills then they should change that and focus of letting British people get first bite of the cake?

PopePalpatine

Speaking of Germany and skills shortages: http://www.expatica.com/de/news/Plagued-by-worker-shortage-Germany-tries-out-points-based-immigration_600529.html

silverharp

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Speaking of Germany and skills shortages: http://www.expatica.com/de/news/Plagued-by-worker-shortage-Germany-tries-out-points-based-immigration_600529.html

traditionally they had a good system of technical training and company apprenticeships that would leave the UK in the shade. given that average births there has been ~1.4 for a long time now, I'd say they have a people shortage more than anything else. A points system is at least a reasonable way to go about it

MrPudding

recedite wrote: »

Of all the bizarre claims I have heard, the notion that British engineers are incapable of building their own railways is one of the funniest.
Somehow they managed to build railways not only throughout the UK, but also Africa and India. The cliff section of the Dart railway around Bray head was a project taken on by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, more or a less because other projects were too easy and he liked a challenge.

There was actually a really interesting BBC2 (I think) documentary about the Crossrail project. Quite a lot of the engineers involved were not from the UK. There were some of course, but there were/are plenty of foreigners.

Also, interestingly, even the crews manning the TBMs are not all local. The numbers varied across the shifts, but on some shifts the TBMs were being run by Polish guys.

smacl wrote: »

From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, a negative market reaction to brexit looks likely to devalue sterling further, which regardless of trade agreements will significantly affect export from the EU countries such as Ireland into the UK where margins are tight. This includes the likes of tourism and labour costs as well as goods. Of all the jobs carried out by EU nationals in the UK, a large proportion of them are highly skilled where the local UK workforce could simply not meet the demand. Massive infrastructural projects such as Crossrail (£14bn cost) would simply not be feasible without a huge skilled migrant workforce among contractors and subcontractors, Crossrail 2 looks like a furthe £27bn-£32bn, and I can think of a number of large Irish and European firms that will suffer if use of EU workers is impeded. It will be interesting to see how the UK handles all this in the case of a brexit.

What UKIP and its followers perhaps fail to realise is that very many of the jobs being taken off them by foreigners are jobs they simply don't have the local workforce to fill. If those jobs don't get done, the economy will suffer.

Whilst there will be pockets where the figures are considerably worse (and probably other where they are a little better) the overall unemployment rate in the UK is 5%, the lowest in something like 11 years. At the same time, there are thousands of vacancies not being filled. Now, part of that issue might be that the is a dislocation between the location of those that need the jobs and where the jobs are, but the fact remains there are plenty of job vacancies that simply aren't being filled.

And that does irritate me somewhat. I am from NI and until relatively recently I didn't have any qualification beyond a handful of GCSEs. As a result, I couldn't get anything close to a worthwhile job in NI. So I moved my family (which was much smaller) to Dublin to get a decent job and improve my prospects. Some years later I moved to the UK for a better job. The point being, there do seem to be jobs if people are willing to put the effort in. I find it a little amusing to see people complaining about Eastern Europeans taking job which they are willing to travel to the UK to take when the people doing the complaining don't seem willing to move or travel to the nearby city where the jobs are.

Admittedly, not everyone can move or travel, but there is definitely an element of people being unwilling to move or travel. There are jobs and if UK people aren't will to move or commute to take those jobs then they will be filled by people that are willing to move. I remember a conversatrion with a pub landlord in Dublin. I was asking him why all the floor staff were Polish girls. His response was "I can only hire people that apply for the jobs."

MrP

smacl

recedite wrote: »

It is somewhat disingenuous not to include the Irish as statistically "British" in the context of 19th Century. I presume you would accept that the railways in Britain and Ireland were built by Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh labour, and not "foreign" labour.

By that token you could refer to the Indians who built the Indian railways as British on the basis that they were British occupied countries at that point much as Ireland was. The point remains that a substantial part English railways in England were built by Irishmen. Funny enough, in the context of brexit, many of the people Britain has been so keen to keep out are people that also would have statistically been referred to as British in the 19th century.

As for the modern situation, I agree that foreign and/or EU workers are employed in the engineering sector, but then you have to ask why are all these new roads and houses and schools needed? Its largely because of the pressure put on infastructure by immigrants.

A similar situation arose here with large numbers of eastern europeans being employed to build houses, the demand for which was largely driven by immigration. But that does not mean the Irish have somehow lost the ability to build enough houses for their own needs.

A country like Japan is more representative of a stable economy. There is very little immigration, the population is relatively stable, so there is no great demand for covering whatever countryside they have left in new infastructure.

The UK have an expanding population, which is being contributed to significantly by immigration. They also have another problem in common with many European countries in that they have an ageing population, and certainly in the professions such as engineering, the migrant population are almost entirely employed and thus net contributors to the economy.

The huge amount of housing development in Ireland was largely due to availability of cheap money through reckless lending by the banks, both to developers and buyers. While Eastern Europeans were employed during construction they were hardly the target market. As of the last census, the largest non-national group living in Ireland were actually British at 112,000 with Polish about half that.

The Japanese population is actually in decline and ageing with an average birth rate of 1.4 children per woman, which is a source of concern for its economy. I think any country with an ageing population should consider immigration to be on balance advantageous.

silverharp

smacl wrote: »

The Japanese population is actually in decline and ageing with an average birth rate of 1.4 children per woman, which is a source of concern for its economy. I think any country with an ageing population should consider immigration to be on balance advantageous.

the Japanese case is interesting, they are with the Germans in not bothering to replace themselves. Maybe its better for Japan to let its population drop. The place is crowded and their society is a bit mental. Maybe it would become a nicer place to live in the future with a bit more space.
The Japanese seem to be trying to introduce more technology for a lot of the manual work which is kind of what you would expect a high tech society to do

smacl

silverharp wrote: »

the Japanese case is interesting, they are with the Germans in not bothering to replace themselves. Maybe its better for Japan to let its population drop. The place is crowded and their society is a bit mental. Maybe it would become a nicer place to live in the future with a bit more space.
The Japanese seem to be trying to introduce more technology for a lot of the manual work which is kind of what you would expect a high tech society to do

I think it is not so much the size of the population, as the average age coupled the retirement age firstly and the average retiree life expectancy secondly. As medical costs increase with old age society needs to be able cope, and perhaps unfortunately the fewer children are willing to look after elderly parents in their homes as they once did. Pensions and geriatric care costs are the next economic time bomb for many first world countries.

jackofalltrades

robindch wrote: »

It's impossible to say whether the current climate of xenophobia and hatred whipped up by the majority of the brexit crew has contributed directly to yesterday's murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, but indirectly?

Can you give examples of the "xenophobia and hatred whipped up the the majority of the brexit crew"?

In any case, it seems reasonable to me that Mair's extremist views were comforted by the mainstream anti-immigrant rhetoric which has been part of the strategy of the brexit crew.

Being critical of the level of immigration is a reasonable position to take, provided it's based on reason.
If someone with a history of mental illness takes comfort in this then there's not a lot you can do.
And I'd say a lot of the content in the current debate would be considered quite tame for a man who's had letters published in pro-apartheid magazines.
I think it's very unfair to be trying to insinuate that the brexit campaign is in somehow culpable for the death of Jo Cox.

silverharp

smacl wrote: »

I think it is not so much the size of the population, as the average age coupled the retirement age firstly and the average retiree life expectancy secondly. As medical costs increase with old age society needs to be able cope, and perhaps unfortunately the fewer children are willing to look after elderly parents in their homes as they once did. Pensions and geriatric care costs are the next economic time bomb for many first world countries.

its a hump for sure , still when they come out the far side of it, it might worth it for people there to have families again. it went from something like 40m in 1900 to over 120m , if it halved from here in a 100 years it would be a good thing and more sustainable

recedite

smacl wrote: »

By that token you could refer to the Indians who built the Indian railways as British on the basis that they were British occupied countries at that point much as Ireland was...

Well no, the residents of overseas territories were never considered British citizens and did not have British passports. The Act of Union applied only to the countries England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland. The Channel Islands were not included, and certainly not the most far flung territories of the empire.

smacl wrote: »

The Japanese population is actually in decline and ageing with an average birth rate of 1.4 children per woman, which is a source of concern for its economy. I think any country with an ageing population should consider immigration to be on balance advantageous.

The Japanese are well aware of economic changes due to their demographic situation, but they have chosen not to use immigration to stimulate economic growth. They are instead on the path to a steady state economy.

recedite

As expected, the celebs have been wheeled out by the Remain side for the final week of the campaign. "Fearful" Richard Branson, a concerned David Beckham and "Brexit will make you all poorer" George Soros all warning of dire consequences.

Mind you, Soros never really explained how his own plan was going to make everyone richer.

In the statement Mr Soros called on the EU to create a new border control, whereby it "has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future".
He said: "Adequate financing is critical. The EU should provide £10,000 (€15,000) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states."
Mr Soros also said that it is important to "place refugees where they want to go".

Cabaal

recedite wrote: »

As expected, the celebs have been wheeled out by the Remain side for the final week of the campaign. "Fearful" Richard Branson, a concerned David Beckham and "Brexit will make you all poorer" George Soros all warning of dire consequences.

To be fair this was very much expected, the english pulled the same stuff with the Scottish ref last year, the leave side would do the same....if they had any decent names on their side :pac:

recedite

Cabaal wrote: »

..the leave side would do the same....if they had any decent names on their side :pac:

Not really, its a fear mongering thing. It only works when you are trying to maintain the status quo, and it works best at the last minute. If you suddenly convince previously uninterested people that they may be standing at the edge of an abyss, they will step back, just in case.

smacl

Sterling getting stronger against the Euro suggests a confidence in the financial markets that the remain vote will win. Similarly Paddy Power are only giving 1/4 for remain but 3/1 to leave. Looks very much like the pundits are all going for remain.

seamus

The death of Jo Cox seems to have caused fairly serious ripples according to a few polls and analysts.

They're suggesting that it's somewhat focussed voters' minds about the kinds of people who are in support of a leave, but also put something of a gag on leave campaigners who can't be seen to be going all-out on their campaign while the country is effectively in mourning. It also means they have to pick their words carefully.

When Nigel Farage is using a carbon copy of Nazi propaganda in his campaign and the next day an MP is murdered by an extremist nationalist, people start joining the dots.

Cabaal

recedite wrote: »

Not really, its a fear mongering thing.

Its a laugh that you'd claim the leave side wouldn't use fear mongering tack-ticks when they've already copied Nazi propaganda from the 30's,

jackofalltrades

Cabaal wrote: »

To be fair this was very much expected, the english pulled the same stuff with the Scottish ref last year, the leave side would do the same....if they had any decent names on their side :pac:

If this is turning into a game of Top Trumps then I play the Michael Caine card.

seamus wrote: »

When Nigel Farage is using a carbon copy of Nazi propaganda in his campaign...

It's not a carbon copy though.
The stills from the Nazi propaganda film demonises the refugees.
UKIP's Ad attacks the EU and uses the picture to backup the "breaking point" narrative.
If the Nazi film inspired the creator of the Ad or the Ad attacked the refugees, then you'd have a point.

Cabaal

jackofalltrades wrote: »

If this is turning into a game of Top Trumps then I play the Michael Caine card.

Considering Caine left the UK to goto the US in the 70's for income tax reasons, he only returned after Thatcher lowered it....a fan of Thatcher is never a good fan. He's still apparently big into tax avoidance even recently....strange for somebody that loves his country

He also thinks everyone at 16 years of age should do compulsory time doing national service, so I'd take his viewpoints with a pinch of salt

jackofalltrades

Cabaal wrote: »

Considering Caine left the UK to goto the US in the 70's for income tax reasons, he only returned after Thatcher lowered it....a fan of Thatcher is never a good fan. He's still apparently big into tax avoidance even recently....strange for somebody that loves his country

He also thinks everyone at 16 years of age should do compulsory time doing national service, so I'd take his viewpoints with a pinch of salt

Yeah, but his acting.
It was either him or Keith Chegwin, I think I made the right choice when it comes to "celeb power".

robindch

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Can you give examples of the "xenophobia and hatred whipped up the the majority of the brexit crew"?

Farage's pseudo-Nazi "breaking point" ad is a good example. Otherwise, well, if you haven't noticed already that the brexit campaign is jingoistic and xenophobic, then I don't think that anything I can say is likely to enlighten you.

jackofalltrades wrote: »

If someone with a history of mental illness takes comfort in this then there's not a lot you can do.

As somebody said recently, you can't deny responsibility for a fire by claiming that all you did was strike the match.

robindch

Thoughtful article on what the UK government can do in the event of a Leave result.

http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2016/06/14/can-the-united-kingdom-government-legally-disregard-a-vote-for-brexit/

recedite

All this talk of nazis and racists.
I suppose when rational arguments aren't good enough, godwinning is the next best thing.

Kiwi in IE

I'm not well informed on the consequences of this referendum at all to be honest, and I don't usually buy into the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' crap, however I think if I lived in the UK, Nigel Farage being on the 'leave' side might be enough to decide my vote.

MrPudding

recedite wrote: »

All this talk of nazis and racists.
I suppose when rational arguments aren't good enough, godwinning is the next best thing.

Have you actually talked to any brexit supporters here in the UK? I have spoken to a bunch of then, here is how it goes:

Them: I am voting leave because blah...

Me: OK, were you aware that it is not quite as has been portrayed [goes on to explain their misunderstanding]

Them: Hmmm, well I am also voting leave for blah.

Me: Well that is quite interesting because [goes on to explain their misunderstanding]

- this process then continues for a number of iterations. Typical reason would be, the steel industry, the fishing industry, immigrations, sovereignty, unemployment/jobs being taken, the NHS, housing etc.

The conversation usually ends with something along the lines of:

Them: Well I am just voting out. OK.

They are, for the most part, impervious to rational arguments.

MrP

MrPudding

So, interesting story... I have just been speaking to my neighbour. She went to vote and as she approached the entrance to the polling station she noticed there was a man partially blocking the entrance. She assumed he was part of the polling team, but was confused as he had a political button on his jacket. As she got up to him he asked her for her polling card. She told him she didn't have it, and did not think she needed it. She pushed passed him into the centre.

She spoke to the staff inside and they told her he was not a polling official. Apparently, early that had been considerably more of them, but they moved them on. As my neighbour was leaving the guy had stopped a young woman and had her polling card in his hand and was either writing something on it, or copying something off it. Very odd, my neighbour called the police and reported it.

Very odd behaviour. Not entirely sure what the purpose of it is.

MrP

Alun

Very odd. There's not a lot someone could do with a polling card for someone who has already voted I'd imagine.