Brexit omelette with ham and cheese.

[Walkie]

PS, it occurs to me that this would also enhance the Southerners prejudice agains native Brits, when combined with the fact that immigrants tend to get priority for the little bit of Social housing that's left, and could therefore cling to their foothold in London more easily.   The low-paid workers in London would therefore be predominately immigrant , I guess.   And the remaining poor whites would be predominately disabled people (who also get priority for social housing)   or pensioners (shielded from almost all the cuts) and  therefore seldom seen to be working. Add on the fact that most folk seem to think that anybody who's seen to put one foot in front of another isn't really disabled  (but rather one of theose benefits frauds that they read about in the Daily Mail)  and you're gonna  get a thoroughly distorted picture.

Haven't l;ooked up the stats, but i do recall being amazed by the  etnic mix of the Grenfell Tower survivors. It very much looked as if  poor white folk are a tiny minority, on that showing. And that poverty really might be the result of racial discrimation.   Can't really blame Londoners for thinking as much. But if you come up North, where most of the underpriveged are living, you get a much more accurate picture.  You can see plenty of white Brits )along with everybody else, ofc) working their bollocks off for Deliveroo etc in an increasingly vain attempt to make ends meet.

Most Northerners have zero repect for the Southerner's badly-informed, deeply prejudiced  opinions. But figuring out exactly how they come to be so badly informed is tricky. I'm still far from sure that I've got the whole picture.

[Walkie]

Odeon, what do you mean by "farm jobs around here are frowned upon"? Do you know anyone who has tried to make a living out of doing casual low-skilled farm work? How did it go for them? Or are you basing that off spurious claims by the farming industry and articles in the media that only tell one side of the story?

In the past I've known people who tried to make a living out of the seasonal jobs and pretty much failed, yes, but also, there's a lot of talk in the media when that season arrives, every year. As far as I can determine, it's not one-sided. There's been articles and letters to the editor, plus I used to work for the Swedish Federation of Farmers as a consultant and picked up info while there.

So I'd say not spurious claims but a fair description of the state of affairs.

Predictable that they'd fail. I've known one or two people who made it work for them by doing bar work in the evening and farm work in the daytime. Exhausting in the Summer, but at least they had something to tide them over the Winter.  But  you need your  pub, home and farm to be very close together for that to work.

 I wish the media wouldn't  keep presenting these issues  as if farm labour was something people do for a basic living, and not a handy way for poor families to supplement their income, in the event that  they  happen to live near a farm;  which latter had been, traditionally,  the case.  A lot of  harvesting work used to be done by working class "housewives",  way back before it became imperative for all able-bodied women to have "real" jobs.  (That shift has left all manner of holes in our social stucture  which have yet to be adequately filled) . I'm just about old enough to remember that being the norm.

Oooh! A quick Google just revealed that practically all the EU countries are dependant on migrant workers ftom other EU countries for farm work. So, hey   if we all cease this annual , seasonal population re-shuffle and just employ our own migrants, it looks like most of us shoud be OK    And we'll reduce  our carbon footprint,  too

But anyway,  "Frowned upon"was not a good way of putting it. It makes you Swedes sound sniffy, when what you really mean is ""We found out that  it doesn't work in practice".  Much the same as Brits and Aussies.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

The reason that doing farm work is such a lousy option for people who need money in Australia and the UK is that it is now entirely structured around a steady supply of cheap migrant labour. If that cheap migrant labour were less available then governments would need to make changes to welfare and farmers would need to broaden their scope on hiring in order to make it practical for an unemployed person to head to the farms for a few weeks' worth of work and a few quid in their pocket.

Like it used to be. 30+ years ago my brother saved a pretty decent stash of money for travel by chasing farm work like fruit picking, and it was a pretty common lifestyle choice for some Aussies during the picking season. These days that is no longer an option, and it is pretty common for people who are naive enough to believe stories in the media about labour shortages on farms to end up fronting up at charities in remote towns, with no money and empty bellies.

We even have a farm work requirement for backpackers who want to stay longer than a standard tourist visa. Often they are literally not paid a cent, an agency either keeps all their money or the farmer (who is likely not making any money either) won't sign their "farm work requirement" documentation unless they agree to work for free. It's just an avenue for exploitation. Girls are regularly taken advantage of, one was even murdered by another farm worker a while back. And backpackers from Northern Europe have been known to drop dead, literally, when forced to work in blazing sun and 40+ degree heat.

My wife has friends who literally work as cleaners for free. Volunteer work. They will do that for months and months so that they have enough experience to maybe get an actual job as a cleaner on minimum wage. That is how desperate Australian people are for work. And yet employers' groups make out that they need to hire foreign students and undocumented immigrants because "Australians don't want the jobs".

If you catch a taxi in Sydney there is about a 50% chance that the driver is an IT professional from the subcontinent. And yet the government and employer groups pretend that there is a skill shortage in IT. My company has been shedding jobs left right and centre and does not provide training to staff in Oz and then claims that there are no staff qualified for the roles here and they need to bring people in from an offshore development centre on temporary visas. Employer groups even claim that they need to bring in more immigrants to work in IT because there has been a huge drop in the number of IT students at universities. And the reason for that drop? Employment prospects are shite.

And then people wonder why the working class, the underclass, and large segments of the middle class vote against open borders? I am all for immigration, but not like this. Not as a tool of exploitation and as a tool for undermining the rights and living standards of current residents.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Haven't l;ooked up the stats, but i do recall being amazed by the  etnic mix of the Grenfell Tower survivors. It very much looked as if  poor white folk are a tiny minority, on that showing. And that poverty really might be the result of racial discrimation.   Can't really blame Londoners for thinking as much.

Immigrants are likely prepared to put up with worse working conditions and living conditions and lower pay than Brits.

Immigrants in Australia, for example, commonly live in situations where there are 3 or 4 times as many tenants in an apartment or house as would traditionally be the case with Australians. An Australian might once have rented an apartment with a friend or two, while an immigrant might pay $150 a week for a bunk in a small bedroom with 3 other people, or $100 a week for a mat on the floor in a hallway. The young Aussie might be splitting the $700 a week rent on a small apartment with one other person, so working for a third of the minimum wage doesn't even cover the rent. Hence "Aussies don't want those jobs".

My brother had a Thai girlfriend who was a trained chef. She would go to interviews with all her qualifications and visas and passport. Some employers would insist on seeing her visas etc. and then tell her they didn't have any work for her. The reason they insisted on seeing her visa was that if she were an undocumented immigrant they could say "maybe we can help each other" and offer her a fraction of the minimum wage.

I had a friend who lived in one of the wealthiest suburbs in Australia, in a tiny apartment with views of the Opera House. His Thai wife was getting bored, she applied for jobs at each of the 4 Thai restaurants within a few hundred metres of their apartment. They all offered her work at the same rate, $50 cash for a 10 hour shift. Management keeps the tips. Work 7 days a week and you've got $350, pay $100 a week for a mattress on the floor somewhere, spend $50 on food, $50 on transport and $50 on incidentals, and send $100 a week back to your family in a village in Thailand. Or something like that.

And those employers will claim that Australians are too lazy to take the jobs, that they don't want those jobs. Who actually believes that crap?

I don't blame anyone who votes against the status quo. End of story.

[Walkie]

Immigrants are likely prepared to put up with worse working conditions and living conditions and lower pay than Brits.

Well, yes, but then again , plenty of Brits are desperate enough to put up with illegally low wages, illegally bad working working conditions (eg a white british neighbour of mine worked at a bakery where hygeine was so bad that the workers routinely avoided eating and drinking before work, for fear they'd have to use the disgusting toilet facilities. Nobody complained because they didn't want to lose their jobs ) and shocking living conditions (the housing crsis leaving  no realistic choice in the matter).

 So any operation that  "needs" to recruit from abroad on that basis has got to be deeply shady. As indeed, untold numbers are. eg

https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/farm-workers-among-victims-freed-in-uks-biggest-modern-slavery-investigation/

after following more links,  I found out that that the chances of being caught out if you run this kind of operation are minute. And the sentences  wouldn't be much of a deterrent, would they?  not  when you consider the enormous profits to be made.


I've also ben pootling round the internet, looking more deeply into this "pick for Britain "drive . checking out that recruitment hub and recent news articles. It's becoming increasingly clear that a lot of our farmers have been caught with their pants down, and are having to come up with ever-thinner excuses for turning down  the rush of British applicants. One farmer said that, even if he took on some Brits,  he still  had to bring  back the same Romanians who'd worked for him  last year, because that previous experience had transformed  them into ""highly skilled workers" who would be needed to teach the Brits what to do.  Another farmer clearly stated (in his recruitment ad)  that he couldn't allow cars to be parked on his land, so the British workers  would just  have to live on site, and they would just have to get there  by bus. He then  kindly provided a link to the local bus service. How's that for bending over backwards to enable these kind folk to help?    And loads of  them said that they didn't need help right now, not until the end of May, or June. But they didn;t offer the " early" applicants any work, just bluntly stated that fact.

Nonetheless , they're still trotting out the "Brits are too lazy "drivel.

And those employers will claim that Australians are too lazy to take the jobs, that they don't want those jobs. Who actually believes that crap?

Too many folk, sadly

I don't blame anyone who votes against the status quo. End of story.

Me neither.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

We have a system where you can travel anywhere within a couple of hours of Sydney on a Sunday for $2.80, for the whole day.

This is the weekly outing for a lot of underpaid migrant workers. You see them on the train, with their plastic containers of rice and plastic bottles of tap water. Or sometimes home-made bread and water. They get on the train, go somewhere interesting, walk around, get back on the train, go home. Their total spending for the day is $2.80 as the food they eat is just exactly what they would have eaten if they had stayed home anyway.

It's great that we provide a facility for underpaid people to have a nice day out but.... they aren't exactly contributing to the local economy in the places they visit. This isn't how you build a thriving economy.

Edit to add: And this isn't how you treat people.

In an earlier post I referenced how my friend's wife was offered $50 a day to work in a restaurant. Cash in hand. My friend was really angry that they would try to pull that and he rang every relevant department and insisted that something be done.

Guess what happened? Nothing. Nobody cares.

We have franchises like 7-11 and pizza chains, where the business model cannot possibly work, cannot possibly break even, if employees are paid minimum wage. Franchisees have in the past been openly advised on the need to underpay people and how to go about it.

And yeah, those employers will tell you all about how lazy Australians are and how they don't want to work.

[odeon]

Depopulation of the north has been a big issue for decades. The vast majority of the country now live way south of the geographical "middle".

There are opportunities in the south.

[Walkie]

In an earlier post I referenced how my friend's wife was offered $50 a day to work in a restaurant. Cash in hand. My friend was really angry that they would try to pull that and he rang every relevant department and insisted that something be done.

Guess what happened? Nothing. Nobody cares.

Sadly, i am not in the least surprised. I  guess the powers-that-be in both our countries are quite happy to accept that the modern economy is propped up by slave labour, the main goal being that the rich shpuld continue to get even richer.

IIRC,  your friend's wife was only looking for a job out of boredom, so why doesn't she volunteer somewhere? I know i know, a lot of charities now are run just like private business, and thus virtually amount to scam,; but exceptions can be found, and State schools are often crying out for  volunteers  to help the teaching staff, and most parents are too busy working, or looking for numerative work.  or hey! how about she founds a charity (or joins one if such already exists) to try to help those exploited Thai workers? 

In Britain , the DWP now "encourages""  people to do voluntary work  to help them gain work experience, so you'd think that volunteer posts were over-subscribed to the hilt.  But in practice that means that voluntary organisations can't get the committed workers they really need,  just a successive batches of random jobless who've who''ve been coerced by the state into signing up for a few short weeks.

When you and I were young, those with a strong social conscience ( in Britain at least)  could effectively choose to put their time and energy into all kinds worthy projrects (in the Arts, education and social care)  and survive on state Benefits rather than try to squeeze a wage out of it.  Lots of people did it, and the DWP  didn't mind  because there wasn't enough paid work to go around anyway, and so they were under no pressure to get everybody back into work or anything like that. But most of those projects foundered long ago, as their workers got forced back into the general labour maket , and the myth was born that there's plenty of renumerative work to go round for those who really want it.

 People who want to do voluntary work are now required to  drastically limit their hours, so as to maintain a full-time readiness for full-time work; they have to declare that they'll drop the voluntary work in a flash, should  renumerative work become available; and if the charity pays them expenses such as bus-fares, then they're supposed to declare them , so their  value  can be  deducted from their benefits.  Oh! and the value of the benefits has gone down and down too, ofc. In short, it's been made impossible.  And, one way or another,  everybody's life is a little bit  poorer for that.

People like your mate's wife (i mean who are under no pressure to try and earn a living)  are now a rare and valuable resource. It would be a bit of waste, IMO, if she just used her talents to help line some restaurant owner's pockets

[Dirty Big Yoke]

Leaving the EU, despite its faults, was a monumentally stupid fucking idea. 2016 made me realise how stupid half of the population are.

If you wanted to leave, fine, but at least have a campaign based on the consequences!

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Leaving the EU, despite its faults, was a monumentally stupid fucking idea. 2016 made me realise how stupid half of the population are.

If you wanted to leave, fine, but at least have a campaign based on the consequences!

If I were in the UK I would have voted to stay.

But I can understand how huge swathes of the working class are pissed off with the status quo and wanted change.

At least leaving the EU is not as bad as having Tony Abbott as your new trade envoy. The UK is more than welcome to him.

[odeon]

Johnson's supposedly given the EU a 15 October deadline.

[Dirty Big Yoke]

The EU isn't going to budge, I honestly don't know why Boris thinks they will. The arrogance of the tories amazes me.

It will likely be no deal. Well, time to prepare my anus! 

[odeon]

The EU's got little reason to budge. Johnson is a crappy politician.

[Dirty Big Yoke]

What annoyed me the most was how the UK handled N. Ireland border situation - the UK completely forgot it signed a unilateral agreement with Rep. Ireland (Good Friday Agreement) to ensure both countries support N. Ireland and to ensure open borders.

The problem is that both countries need to be in the EU to allow this to happen, otherwise you need border checks. Closing the border, which in itself is quite complicated and actually goes split through towns and various houses/businesses, would just cause a lot of hassle, tension and worse, potential sectarian violence like as seen in the Troubles.

This could have been easily sorted if the UK took the trade deal and worked with Rep. Ireland, but they didn't. They made the process as difficult as possible, every step of the way. Instead they were arrogant and assumed Ireland wasn't a serious country, despite it having a lot of clout in said... trade agreement. They even had the gall to tell Rep. Ireland to also leave the EU and worse, rejoin the UK! Fucking hell.

As someone who is from Ireland, shit like this just baffles me on the sheer level of ignorance displayed in this situation. We spent ages making peace with the UK after decades of tension, particularly with violence in N. Ireland during the Troubles, only to have it thrown back at our faces with little care and sheer entitlement.

[Leto729]

So what is doing to happen in the end?