Calais Immigrants

[Richard]

I do not understand many things in this world, but definitely regarding 'illegal' immigration we are in a right mess now and at the end of day we'll never get rid of them.
It seems that the U.K. is a magnet for 'illegal' immigrants from many places, mainly funnelled through Calais
Watching on TV tonight I was surprised to see groups of people running along the (U.K. bound) motorways in France, opening rear doors and entering lorries jammed on the roads, owing to some French industrial action.

Consider the following:
1. The doors should be locked for general security reasons, let alone casual entry.
2. The drivers are fined £2000 if an 'illegal' is caught hiding on their lorry, so they have a real incentive to lock the doors.
3. The government is cracking down with a vengeance on perfectly legal UK citizens if they require social security and etcetera and yet almost turns a blind eye to immigration as described above which surely puts a pressure on our system.
4. We have the 'space-age' technology to scan every single lorry but only manually check one in several hundred.

Lying down now, while the 'Victor Meldrew' moment subsides !!

[moonjiver]

I quite agree with all this and I have never met anyone who doesn't. Why doesn't the Government act much more strictly? Heaven knows They are letting down the ordinary legal population trying to get on wirh their lives.

Obviously there must be some cuts generally to trim the national budget, but to penalise disabled and other people on benefits whilst being very generous to economic migrants from all over the world is just crazy .. and immoral. Quite apart from the black economy of unseen illegal immigrants whom the authorities have lost track of!

There should be a concerted effort from the EU, the UN maybe, to help the poorer countries to resolve their problems and become more habitable places to live. I am sure many people in the west would financially support such efforts if they seemed to be really effective, not just propping up corrupt regimes!

[Richard]

If Cameron wants to renegotiate our membership of the EU then he needs to get cast-iron pledges to set an EU system up and running to process the immigrants correctly, or else we can expect to be invaded year on year thanks to the inability of member countries to tackle the situation.
Currently the EU is too pre-occupied in keeping Greece involved in their precious Euro currency whilst allowing it to play games at the EU's great expense.

[moonjiver]

In a nutshell! That's the whole problem with the EU, and why this problem of the immigrants in Europe has got out of hand. There is great disunity between members over some issues, everyone does their own thing and the only forceful directives from the central authorities are often over non-priority issues.

How to know what the answer is .. difficult. As Woody Allen said in one of his films, "What's the point in asking me? I don't even know how the can-opener works!".

[Gerry Glyde]

Your former MP Michael Foster probably will not thank me for this, but attached is a photo from 1975 campaigning for a No vote. Michael is the tall guy third from the right in the pullover.

I was anti Common Market. However the EU has benefited ordinary people in various ways. It is doubtful if we would have achieved statutory paid holidays as early as we did without the EU directive, the Working Time directive stops excessive working hours (except that our Govt opted out of part of it otherwise it would have been better) various health and safety and environmental health regs are now standardised (or getting towards standardisation) Simple things mean we can travel freely, go to work in Europe, buy property. Many Brits bought up former public housing in Romania, Bulgaria that has not helped them very much. For the benefit of all countries need to work together.

Britain is lucky in some ways surrounded by water so the movement across borders is more difficult than on the mainland. Southern Europe, particularly Greece and Italy are more seriously affected by immigration than England.

England has probably more to worry about the treaty (TTIP) that the USA and the EU are negotiating that will enable private companies to sue our government outside of the formal court system if we take an industry or service into public ownership and private companies feel that their financial interests have been harmed. That could include companies like ATOS, Capita, the rail companies.

Even if we leave the EU it seems likely that the British Govt would sign the treaty anyway.
Yes or No it probably does not matter.

Hope you like the photo

[Richard]

Hi Gerry,
Migrating to the wider question of EU membership and beyond.
We joined up when the (then) 'Common market' had about 12 members but now it has become the 'EU' which has grown too large and a massive labour force from eastern European members have flooded and taken jobs from the British public, which has no protection at all under agreed EU membership rules.
Everyone speaks the 'mantra' saying that we need to welcome more foreign nurses and doctors as we can't supply our own, whilst ignoring the plain fact that we should be supplying our own in the first place.
This is entirely wrong in my opinion.
Also many parts of the UK businesses sector now actively seek out and employ people from places like Poland and the Ukraine as cheap labour, paying them close to the minimum wage.
But even worse is to come from the 'Transatlantic Trade Deal', (also known by the name of TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) which Brussels has kept very quiet about.
This is an EU-US trade deal giving more power to business, this is being done in secret and we have no say in the matter whatsoever.
TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”

[Gerry Glyde]

I had already noted in the last post about TTIP in the last penultimate para.

As I said this government is likely to sign up to something parallel to TTIP even if Britain leaves the EU for the very reason that it wants to strip back any social controls on business.

Workers in the US have even less rights than we have by virtue of Britain being in the EU

[Richard]

By the powers of a mental abberation I missed your part about TTIP, Gerry.
Reverting to previous chatter, it appears that 'Labour' now lend their support to a vote on pulling out of the EU, so there must be a reason for that, perhaps because, although in principle the idea of mixing up poor and rich countries entails the setting up of EU working practices, suiting many of their ideals, but on the downside leaves the UK workforce vulnerable to competition from member countries with very low wages and benefit systems, who see Britain as a 'golden opportunity.
Their need to be strict limits on legal immigration and benefits (as well as claiming for dependants in their own respective countries) but the EU disagree and so we go to vote, via Cameron's referendum.

But Greece is the main current headache as they will never pay back most of the money owing and will need fresh agreements every few months, even if they manage to stay in the EU and Euro.
Greece lied about their economy and etcetera in order to enter the EU, as it is now, their Black Market tax-avoidance notoriety and over-generous pension arrangements, as well as spending huge tranches of money foolishly offered by the EU will not be solved easily, if ever.
Greek pollies know that they have the EU on a string as they don't want to lose Greece but because it would mean a default on the money lent which would cause massive ripples throughout the banking sector in Europe and many other issues would arise.

[Gerry Glyde]

The BBC world service had a good programme last week about international finance and in particular the role of the IMF and what are known as 'venture vultures'. The vultures were heavily involved with the 'rescue' of Argentina in early 2000s.

Vultures operate by buying debt bonds from a country at often 30% of the value of the debt. If the value of the bond increases then the Vultures get to keep the profit. If the country however is later able to negotiate a waiver or debt restructure the the Vultures operate a clause in their contract that means it can claim 100% of the value of the debt bond and interest from the country. It is win win for the Vulture and lose lose for the country. The Vulture company that lent to Argentine is registered in the Cayman Islands (incidentally British) The clause in the contract was upheld by the New York Courts

This discussion is perhaps a bit heavy for the site as it is very detailed.

Suffice to say that it was not the current Greek govt caused this situation and some of the things can be traced back to the Greek Colonels junta back to the 70s

[Richard]

Greece entered the European Union by manipulating its financial data so that it appeared to conform to the EU's exacting financial requirements.
Hiding the truth about its debt and deficits from the EU until a scandal brought down the administration of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis in 2009 and incoming prime minister George Papandreou soon discovered the catastrophic depths of their country's financial problems:
I would say also that the EU (Brussels) are to blame for not doing due diligence and scrutinising the financial health of Greece, regardless of the exact cause.

Greece has lived beyond its means, unable to pay back loans for years, in addition tax-evasion has been widespread, and subsequent anti-austerity parties have fuelled the massive wages bill of the huge public-sector work force, who are paid well (over and above the average for the private sector) and retire early on good pensions.
Government-owned defense companiws have run up massive debts, the national rail company is bankrupt beyond comprehension such that even 20 years ago it was stated that it would be cheaper to put all Greece's rail passengers into taxicabs and the average pay of the rail workers was 65,000 euros per annum.
Greece owes umpteen billions to French and British Banks alone and knows full well that there is a vested interest in preventing financial meltdown on a colossal scale.
Collapse of banks will occur first in Greece and then ripple out on a grand scale.
The Greeks could re-adopt the drachma but there would be a lot of pain in the form of unemployment, and worse, to contend with at home.

I am not so sure it is down entirely to the Colonels junta or circling vulture companies that are to blame.