Britain to limit immigration: minister

[Nostalgia]

LONDON (AFP) — Britain will impose tougher restrictions on immigration as the global financial crisis lifts unemployment, the country's new Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas, said in an interview Saturday.

"If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny," Woolas told The Times newspaper.

"It's been too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder," he added.

In a dramatic change of policy, the Labour government intends placing a limit on immigration, according to the daily.

"There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving," said Woolas.

Britain's unemployment rate jumped to an eight-year high of 5.7 percent in the three months to August, official data showed on Wednesday.

Under the International Labour Organization measure of unemployment, the rate had stood at 5.2 percent for the three months to May.

The 5.7-percent unemployment rate was the highest since the three months to March, 2000.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...tut22JEHtMxs0g

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

This relates to the reactionary bollocks I've been reading in another thread. Bankers screw up and workers (the most exploited kind) are blamed. There is no reform....., it leads to Fascism.

SMASH THE STATE!

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Immigration: Do Immigrants Lower Wages?

Feature by Dave Crouch, December 2006
Increasingly both politicians and the media argue that immigrant workers lower wages. Dave Crouch explains how Marx's writing can help to see through these claims.
There is a common sense we all grow up with about how the economy is supposed to work. In theory, the deal between capital and labour is simple. Capitalists say to the workers, "You help us increase profits and we will reward you with higher wages. That way everyone wins."

The reality, however, is almost exactly the opposite. Across the industrialised world companies are enjoying an era of extraordinarily high profit growth. But, except for those at the very top of the income scale, pay rises are barely keeping up with inflation. More...




Pitting one worker against another

The latest in a series of articles elaborating on the ISO's "Where We Stand" statement.

September 12, 2008 | Issue 680
Capitalism divides the working class, based on sexual, racial and national distinctions. The specially oppressed groups within the working class suffer the most under capitalism.
We oppose racism in all its forms. We support the struggle for immigrants rights. We fight for real social, economic and political equality for women and for an end to discrimination against lesbians and gays.
--From the ISO "Where We Stand"
Series: Where We Stand
You can read previous installments of Paul D'Amato's articles on the ISO's "Where We Stand" statement.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
--19th century robber baron Jay Gould More







What is class struggle?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
By: Nathalie Hrizi
Part of a series on the fundamentals of Marxism
“If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning.” Those were the words of billionaire Warren Buffett, chair of Berkshire Hathaway, an insurance and investment holding company. Buffett is the second-richest man in the world.

Indeed, class struggle is raging across the United States and around the world. It is a basic feature of life in capitalist society. But billionaire Buffett’s bravado is short-sighted. Class struggle is both the reality of everyday life under capitalism and the way forward to a society based on human needs and not profit.

There are two main classes in capitalist society—owners and workers. The owners, or capitalists, own the banks, the factories, and the corporations—in other words, everything essential to society’s productive capabilities. Their profits derive from work that is done by workers. Workers, on the other hand, can only survive by selling their ability to work to the owners.

The owners have a single goal: increasing profit. Since profits are based on the value that workers add in production above and beyond the cost of production, including wages, owners try to keep the cost of labor as low as possible. Workers, on the other hand, need to earn enough for food, clothing, shelter, education and other necessities. Workers’ and owners’ interests are diametrically opposed. This is the basis for class struggle. More...

[ZingPao]

I was telling a guy I know from Bognor Regis that here in America people gripe about immigrants or illegal aliens taking jobs from poor Americans. Most of these jobs in question are jobs most Americans are not willing to do; fruit picking, roofing, landscaping, yard work, hard dirty labor and low paying, etc. This work would not get done without illegal aliens or immigrants. The guy from Bognor said it was the same with the eastern europeans working in the UK. Do the people here on the board agree with that?

A complex subject. American has developed a welfare mentality in many people. I know guys that make statements like, "there are no jobs". What they really mean is there are no jobs they are willing to work, so they expect a handout from the government.

I believe it was Thomas Jefferson that said something to this effect: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." I respect people willing to work and don't have much pity for those not willing to work and expect "entitlements" from the government. There are exceptions, some people are severly handicapped or sick, but it would be a new thread on should government or charity help these people.

I often tell people when I first got out of college my first job was washing dishes at an Italian restaurant with a lot of non-english speaking people. I was willing to work for gas money so I could go to interviews to improve my odds. Had I not been willing to wash dishes with Mexicans and Guatamalans I would have never been able to move up so to speak.

There is opportunity for those willing to work and work to improve their odds. But fewer and fewer people are buying into that idea, instead they look to the government for help or free money. Drug addiction is not the problem. Government addiction is the problem.

I got off on a rant and started rambling didn't I?

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Britain needs immigration limit, says minister

(Sunday 19 October 2008)

by ADRIAN ROBERTS




REFUGEE campaigners attacked Immigration Minister Phil Woolas on Sunday for backing the Tory policy of limiting the number of migrants coming to Britain.



In his strongest comments on the subject since taking up the job this month, Mr Woolas claimed that increasingly tough economic conditions made immigration "extremely thorny."


Mr Woolas said that it had been too easy for immigrants to get into Britain in the past and it would become harder in the future.


He appeared to signal a harder line approach to immigration than the points-based system introduced recently to attract migrants most valuable to the economy.


Suggesting the need for an upper limit on numbers, he said that the government would not allow the population to grow to 70 million.


Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the population grew by nearly 2 million people to 60,975,000 between 2001 and 2007, but ministers have previously resisted calls for an overall limit on immigration.


Immigration Advisory Service chief executive Keith Best pointed out that immigration quotas were not workable in a modern trading economy.


"What are you going to say to the employer who is desperate to fill a job but can't find anyone suitable in the European economic area?" he said.
"Are you going to say: 'Sorry, the quota has been filled, you'll have to wait till next year?'


"What we want to see is migration benefiting the economic and social needs of the UK and, unfortunately, when politicians start interfering, you end up with a command-and-control economy.


"With the economy facing difficulties, the UK is likely to see more unemployment in the coming years and the government should turn its attention to making sure the workforce can be retrained to meet new needs."


Mr Best added: "I am surprised that a government minister, however new to the job, is talking in terms of the need for a quota, when that is Conservative Party policy."


Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants chief executive Habib Rahman said: "This could drive a coach and horses through any notion of managed migration through the government's new points-based system, on which it held long and detailed consultations before unveiling it as the answer to the country's economic needs."

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