On Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:33:27 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Then let's deal with the medium term rather than the long term. I do not
have figures for how many people emigrate for retirement and take their
money with them. I would assume it's quite a small percentage unless you
have better information?

There are more British citizens living elsewhere in the EU than citizens
of other EU states living here. The usual counter to that is, of course,
that "most are retired".

Not to mention that that particular job really ought to be being done
by people in this country.

Regardless of their nationality?

I see you are trying to lay a subtle trap...

No, not at all.

So let's clarify it.

Yes - regardless of their nationality and provided they have a right to
work here. However, I will have to add (to address your trap) that the
right to work needs to be curtailed in my opinion and in some cases
where a trade is over subscribed

Decided by whom?

perhaps it should be limited to people with British nationality - which
brings us back to the whole EU debate quite squarely.

Well, quite. And should that limitation be to _locals_? Would a Londoner
get preference for a job in Belfast over somebody from Dublin?

It's not been a point I'd bothered to consider in the specific case of a
call centres because random polish people (to give an example) don't
usually come to the UK for a couple of years with the idea that they'll
work in RBS's call centre. But yes, if that became a problem, same
solution as for the building trades (which seem to attract a larger
proportion of mobile workers).

Call centres are just one example of a low-skill, low-pay, high-turnover
job.

You live in the SE - you're nearer to France than you are to the North-
East. Which do you have greater "loyalty" to?

Not France - there's this bit of sea and a huge language barrier in the
way which negates any physical proximity.

So 20 miles of water is a big issue to you? Even though there's nearly 2m
of your countrymen across a wider bit of water? Your own linquistic
failures should decide whether somebody else gets a job or not?

So yes, it's cool that a slovak person can come and be a network
engineer and get paid 40k or whatever and live here for the time,
spending his money and making the wheels go round.

It's less helpful to our society when his mate turns up, with the aim
of dossing down for 2 years, vastly undercuts the nominal wage for
some job and drives the wages for that trade through the floor.

Does it make a difference if that mate is Slovak or from Ireland?
Does it make a difference if that Irish mate happens to live a mile
north or a mile south of the border between Eire and the UK?

No - assuming Ireland means Eire.

Even though a citizen of Eire is a foreign national? Yet the other
person, who grew up one mile away but the other side of a border, is a
British citizen?

Would it make a difference if that mate is Scottish today or after a
"Yes" vote in September?

Yes.

Interesting. Even if they haven't actually visited Scotland since that
referendum and weren't qualified (by dint of lack of residence) to vote
in it?

My take on Scotland is if they want independence, that is their
right and they should be either completely in or completely out and no
half arsing in the middle.

And I'd agree on you with that.

Most people could tolerate dossing down in simple accommodation for a
1-2 year stint if it led to better things. No-one wants that to be the
norm!

Including, I'm sure, the people doing it. So does it make a difference
if that person dossing on a mate's floor and working all hours is from
Warsaw or Walsall?

Walsall is OK as they are part of England

How about Cardiff? Edinburgh? Edinburgh now-versus-2015? Dublin?

...and yet that's within the same country.

Are England and Wales the same country.

Only since 1284...

Dare you to say that in Swansea.

I'll be in Wales for the evening in an hour or two. I've already been
once today. Wales is, quite literally, the other side of the road in this
village.

And, of course, not just Wales. It's just the same as Londoners in the
Cotswolds or Yorkshire or Cornwall or Provence or Tuscany.

Indeed. That's exactly why I gave my allegiances in a tiered fashion.

So you're just against population migration at all?

I was born in London, although my parents (one from the Lakes via
Bristol, the other from the Fens) were living in Sheffield at the time. I
went back to London to uni, stayed around Hertfordshire for years, and
now live in the Welsh borders. Where should my "allegiance" be to? Would
it make _any_ difference at all if I'd been born in Paris to parents from
Hamburg (one from Rome via Dublin, the other from Amsterdam), and been to
uni in Madrid? Does it make a difference that SWMBO's father was from
London but mother from Stockholm?