Tory wealthism and xenophobia again. I first heard of the notion of deporting people (non-EU citizens) earning less than £35k a few weeks ago but assumed that such a radical idea was just Theresa's extremist mouth not knowing when to shut up, as usual. But no, it's actually happening - in April !
There is a petition organized here :
http://www.stop35k.org/
It currently has 97,000 signatures. At 100,000 it will be considered for a debate in Parliament. The government already responded to the petition, which you can read here :
https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/9825982/signed/yNwh0dRMIJGfWia9tWR
Let us assume for argument's sake that the UK is suffering a population crisis. If so, the last people you want to be deporting at those earning £35k, which is well above the ~£25k national average. These people are skilled workers, who cannot possibly be the "coming over 'ere, stealin' our jobs" type. I suppose it might sort of make a horribly twisted sense to deport people earning the minimum wage, if that was really a problem, if they'd been here for years. Maybe.
OK, I get that not everyone who comes here to work is automatically entitled to permanent residency. But if you're going to kick people out based on their salary, you have to make that abundantly clear from the offset and that has not been the case.
OK, you want to encourage employers to train British workers. I would even say that is commendable, but the method is absurd. You can't suddenly decide to throw people out because they're not earning above an arbitrary threshold. I dunno, give tax breaks to employers who create training programs for locals or something, maybe ? And maybe this rather small group (35,000) of people are doing jobs for which there just aren't qualified locals at present.
The plan to help the economy by throwing out a very small number of highly skilled people, many of whom have been here for years and established lives for themselves, pay their taxes and contribute to the economy, is estimated to cost the taxpayer £200-500 million. I don't get it.
Originally shared by null
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-teachers-charity-workers-nhs-staff-scientists-kick-out-of-britain-stop35k-a6853891.html
The radicals have the loudest voices
ReplyDeleteThe working poor are always a tasty target for discrimination in any society. They have little, if any, political clout with no special interest group to lobby for their interests. However, if the British government is going to make the grotesque mistake of pursuing a policy of active enforcement of new immigration standards, they are going to find themselves with a whole new set of problems, the same swamp that the US government has mired itself in, for decades. To whit: effective enforcement of such policies is utterly futile. With the stroke of a pen, Her Majesty's government will simply create an entire sub-population of illegal immigrants who will be exploited by employers, act as an even greater drain on taxes, tie up law enforcement resources, and will have a generally deleterious impact on society.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to examine the moral or ethical aspects of this argument, that's another conversation...I would just like to advise British voters to look at the US, at our abject failure in this regard, and ask them to think long and hard about following us down this well-trodden road.
Juana Leilani yes, the emptiest wagon makes the most noise.
ReplyDeleteDavid Andrews
ReplyDeleteLMAO! That's a more appropriate name, empty wagon 😁😀😂