Comments by "J Drake1994" (@JDrakeify) on "Owen Jones meets Anna Soubry | 'I'll never forgive Boris Johnson'" video.

No, she is just saying that British people wouldn't want to do that. And she is right, that kind of job is worked by migrant labour throughout the west, no matter whether the country is within the EU or not.
11
Do you seriously believe that British people would be willing to work seasonal jobs as farm labourers? Of course not. That is not the case even in western countries that are not part of the EU.
4
***** Tell me why it is untrue. What I would point out is that you go over to the US this kind of job will largely be worked by immigrants from Latin America and the like. It is not an ideal situation, but the nature of the work, not just the wages, means that the native population usually have very little interest in doing these jobs.
2
***** Get off the stump for a moment and actually engage with my argument. Ask your friends if they would be willing to give seasonal labour work picking produce a go and see how many come back to you with a yes. The evidence from across the western world outside of the EU suggests they likely would not.
2
Ralph Clark I agree with regards to the remain campaign, it certainly could have been run far better, it should have done less project fear, and done more about an optimistic for why Europe is good and how people's concerns about it may be mitigated in the future. I agree, the time for that being the focus of public debate has passed, and we can't go back on the terms of a referendum before we had one, I just felt obliged to make the point about EU democracy as it was brought up. For one thing, I would say that Merkel is the lead spokesperson of the EU right now because Britain, the second largest economy in it, has failed to engage itself sufficiently in European affairs other than in ways that isolated itself from other countries. There is a significant number of governments (of both right and left) that take a moderately eurosceptic stance. We ought to have put more effort into working with them for the kind of Europe we wanted. All too often, people like Cameron were all too willing to play to the crowd and promote a narrative of us against the whole of Europe, because it made him look strong, but it also help to feed the eurosceptic narrative, which came back to bite him. Merkel hasn't opened EU borders to the migrants Germany has taken in either. Aside from the fact that Schengen is mostly suspended right now, free movement only applies to those who are EU nationals, not all people who are physically in the EU. We let in hundreds of thousands of people from outside the EU every year, as do other member states, it is not significantly different on principle. The common market still exists, it has just evolved into the single market (a largely British achievement incidentally) which we are now leaving. If you think the Common Market is so good, then how can you think that leaving the single market won't do us damage?
2
Ariadne7710 I like how you have made a judgement about the composition of your local workforce based purely off of your own subjective experience
1
Ariadne7710 But your personal experience is wrong if you were suggesting that there aren't that many EU nationals working in the NHS. Of course, they also do a lot of low skilled jobs, and what you say about that has some truth to it, but I would point out that some jobs, like field labourers, can't be replaced by automation yet and the native population won't do them for various reasons of which the pay is only one. That is the case in other non EU countries as well, and I would point out that other countries that have full control of their borders, like Australia and Canada, still have a higher net migration rate than us.
1
MrP86 My apologies I didn't see you directed that question at me till just now. And in answer no, I don't think we should continue to have freedom of movement after we leave the EU, you jumped to a conclusion there. What I was saying is that regardless of whether we have control of our borders or not, there will continue to be jobs, particularly seasonal ones, which in all probability the native born population won't work, and you will need migrants to fill the gaps. That is why the government has said it will ensure that there is a scheme to provide migrant labour to certain sectors that depend on it, like agriculture.
1
***** JC Juncker stood for his job in a proportional election, which is less than can be said for our current PM.
1
Ralph Clark Neil Kinnock was an EU commissioner, not an MEP. And whats wrong with that? The electorate rejected him for PM, not for that job. By that logic, our government is similarly undemocratic because William Hague became Foreign Secretary after he lost an election as Tory leader. Neil Kinnocks wife did become an MEP, and there is nothing wrong with that either. Failing to lead your party to government does not disqualify your entire family from running for office ever again. And again, by your logic the Westminster system is just as bad, as Kinnocks son is now an MP, in spite of the unrelated fact the public didn't want his Dad to become PM.
1
Ariadne7710 The Heads of Government appoint the President of the Commission taking into account the result of the EP elections. What the European Parties took this to mean is that the European Council would rubber stamp the chosen candidate of the party who won the elections, or could at least command a majority. So at the last EP election in 2014, the major parties nominated a candidate. Junker was the centre right candidate, Schulz the social democratic one, Verhofstadt for the liberals, Alexis Tsipras was even put forward by the left. They had debates and everything. When Juncker's party emerged as the largest, he was put forward to become President of the Commission, and was approved by the European Council and the Parliament. So there was a choice of more than one candidate, it was just provided to voters, not to the institutions.
1
Ralph Clark Yes, but that is a failure of education, not of democracy. Our media provided significantly less coverage of the EU than other member states, and unsuprisingly, British citizens knew the least about it out of any member state. But that same media was the one that spent years pedalling a Eurosceptic narrative in the first place. In other words, they claimed that the EU was unaccountable when they themselves were the ones who were driving that lack of accountability by not properly covering European affairs.
1
Ralph Clark Left wingers don't want a super state, but that is not the logical conclusion of Europe, otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed opt outs to a whole bunch of clauses, the Euro, the Social Chapter (when the Tories didn't want to be in it), etc. I am not expert, but if your going to be a part of a super state, you generally have to have the same currency as the other constituent states? If the EU has been so bad for every country other than Germany, then why is it at its most popular in countries like Spain and Greece, that have been crippled by debt crises which are in a large part down to Europe? Because they remember what their countries were like before the EU, and they realise the huge benefits it has brought to them.
1
Ralph Clark No, Greece could have left the Euro, and indeed, the EU, if it had wanted, but the government knew the people wouldn't stand for it, as they were overwhelmingly in favour, so they pulled back. Polls in Spain have been pretty reliable recently, and even if they were on a par with ours, it is not valid to compare election polls to ones where the public are being asked to express an opinion on a certain issue. If election polls are off by a relatively small margin of 5-10%, then that can make all the difference, but in other polls that often makes relatively little difference to the overall outcome of the survey. They already have two anti establishment parties- both of which are socially liberal and in favour of remaining. The backlash for youth unemployment hasn't translated to outright euroscepticism, in fact those voters are often likely to be the most pro Europe.
1
Ariadne7710 And Theresa May is MP for a constituency of about 100,000 people out of 65 million, I don't see how Juncker is any worse than she is in that respect. And he wouldn't be the first leader to be guilty of hypocrisy, but I fail to see how that means he is an illegitimate leader?
1
Ariadne7710 We have already been through how European voters chose him as the nominee of the party that won the most seats in the 2014 Elections. If your going to bring up that point again, explain to me why I am wrong. Like our PM, the President of the Commission has to command the majority of parliament, who also voted to confirm him, as the nominee of the largest party for the position. The main difference is that May sits in parliament while Juncker does not, but that hardly makes any difference anyway as far as democracy is concerned, given that 649 out of 650 constituencies don't get to vote for her directly, just as they don't get to vote for the commission President.
1
KatchouroBlade "if the voters had all the fact 80% + would have voted to leave. He's the one who wants to lie and deceive people - same as Quislings like Soubrey, Clegg, Sturgeon, Miliband etc." In spite of the fact that Britain is the country that is least knowledgeable about the EU, and is also the most eurosceptic. The reason for the lack of knowledge is largely that, until Brexit, there was a lack of serious coverage of European affairs in the British media, who are largely eurosceptic. So they effectively failed in their duty to hold Brussels accountable, and then complained about its lack of accountability, with little sense of irony. "By design the British people know very little of the EU and how it works - in 2015 Cameron was even allowed to campaign on the basis he could block EU immigration." In a way, he could, governments have the right to deport an EU migrant who has been here three months and has not found work. If Cameron was campaigning on ending of freedom of movement whilst remaining in the EU, then that is his own silly fault. You saying he was 'allowed' to do so implies that someone had the power to stop him. And I'm sure you would have loved it if Juncker had told a British PM what to do on the eve of a general election. "The EU commission president is someone not a single Briton voted for and a man who Cameron was apposed to being appointed - but as is the trend the UK is now voted down on most things within the EU. And we're charged over a billion a month for the privilege." There have been plenty of UK governments that not a single person in Northern Ireland voted for, does that mean they should leave the UK? And actually, UK ministers (not including MEPs and others who also represent us to the EU) have been on the winning side of a vote 95% of the time. We don't know how often the UK has successfully opposed laws, as those records don't exist. https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/
1
Ralph Clark But people did bring these points up during the referendum campaign, it wasn't the issue, but it definitely was mentioned in rebuttal to leavers points on the EU being undemocratic. Besides, there is a difference between supporting the EU and supporting the actions of the Remain campaign, which judged that scaring people that the economy was going to collapse was the best way to win, and so gave less thought to questions like democracy. In the long run, the idea that Brussels is undemocratic when Westminster is was promoted by the media. And now we sit here with an unelected PM at the head of a government which 63% of people didn't vote for, embarking on a defining process for a nation which will be largely decided by people who were merely elected on a platform of holding a referendum, which said nothing about what they would do if we actually voted to leave. Surely that too is undemocratic?
1
Ralph Clark But the number of people the Germans accepted is not all that significant when you consider that it takes us about three years to take in over a million non EU migrants to begin with, and that is just the UK, so they are a relatively small drop in the pond, and simply because they may be able to travel around the EU freely in the years to come does not mean that they will all pack up and move to the UK. It is not unreasonable to say that when someone has lived in somewhere for eight years they have put roots down and would prefer to stay, especially in a relatively nice country like Germany. So the number of people who will take advantage of freedom of movement to go an live elsewhere in the EU is likely to only be a small portion of those people. So, do you believe that we would be worse off outside the single market, if you would prefer the EU to remain a trade bloc?
1
Ariadne7710 But there is a choice between several candidates, as I have already mentioned, there was a democratic election where 5 separate European parties nominated candidates. The UK is an exception, but many parliamentary systems have votes after elections to invest the next PM, where they are only given one option, to appoint that person or reject them, and if they say no then someone else can be brought forward, just as happens with the EU. Are you suggesting that places like Spain, not to mention the Welsh and Scottish devolved assemblies, are undemocratic, because their heads of government are chosen in the same way? Every aspect of the EU executive has precedent in some other country which Brexiteers would not dare label undemocratic. I have explained the structure of the EU's democracy fairly simply, as have others. There is good reason why the EU doesn't have a directly elected President, because people like you would lose their shit and oppose it, seeing as another step on the road to a super state. I believe it is an idea that has its supporters mainly among the strongest of Europhiles, like Tony Blair.
1
Ralph Clark I don't want to get into the rights and wrongs of whether we should accept refugees or not, I have had that debate many times, but I would say that our 300,000 figure is very telling as to the nature of migration in the first place. The government has had every motivation to bring it down over the past decade. Labour even introduced the Australian style points system for it, and it was abandoned because too many people were eligible. The problem is that we have a skills shortage in this country, which migrants fill. We ought to be investing in skills so that we don't need those migrants in the first place, but until then, cutting migration from those areas is not feasible without an economic backlash. There would be something of a political backlash too from those communities, given that Vote Leave promised to make it easier for people from those areas to come into the UK, which is irreconcilable with the tens of thousands target, even if absolutely no one was allowed in from the EU. I am afraid there is a good reason why one side should be seen to 'win' from this, because the EU needs to be seen to do so. A mutually beneficial agreement does not suit them, because they can't allow Britain to be better off outside the EU than within it, for political reasons.
1
Ralph Clark There are plenty of studies on the economic impact of migrants to the UK. They take in more than they put out, you are more likely to be treated by one than stuck behind one on an NHS waiting list, and in most sectors (aside from unskilled, which absolutely needs to be considered an issue) they raise pay, rather than bring it down. Of course, a lot of the time people don't benefit from the economic growth that they bring, but for the past generation we have lived in a world where economic growth is increasingly divorced from the wellbeing of ordinary people, so in some senses it is not so much an issue of immigration so much as one about the economy as a whole. Big business might well play a large part in the outcome of any negotiations, but remember there is just as much, and likely more, pressure on our side as there is on theirs. The rest of the EU is a far larger market than the UK, so businesses in Britain will be more concerned about having access to the EU rather than the other way around. I too would like to see some kind of two track Europe, with a lower tier for countries like the UK where the EU has less power in certain areas. I am no fan of the Euro, but so long as we are need not be involved, other countries can do as they like.
1
Ralph Clark I don't think big business cares about nationalism either. But I do think it cares about access to large markets, and access to their markets means more to us than them having access to ours, therefore big business will be applying more pressure on our side than there's. I believe assimilation is largely successful in the cases of most migrants, but I would say that it is a factor that there are some areas where British and migrant communities need to integrate together better, though that is a two way street. The trouble on that issue is not so much numbers coming in to the UK as a whole, but numbers going to specific places. A lot of migration ends up concentrated in specific areas, rather than being spread evenly throughout the country, because of lack of opportunity in those places. Assimilation works better if there is an even geographic spread of minorities. What lack of date are you referring to? We have net migration figures, and studies have been conducted into the impact of migrants in virtually every area of society. We have more than a fair amount to go off of. Of course I am concerned about the problems the Euro is creating, but the fact is people can do what they like with their own currency. Greeks don't want to leave it, that is why they had to accept the troika's demands in 2015. Doubtless there would be a fair amount of turbulence if a country opted to leave it as well, which might not necessarily be worth it at the end of the day.
1
Ralph Clark I would recommend examining FullFact on the subject of immigration, it has the answers to most of the main questions around the topic and can point you in the direction of the major figures too. I don't think change in areas is neccessarily a bad thing, it is ghettoisation that I worry about, which I agree does take place in certain areas, particularly inner cities. But that is also driven by people from the native population moving out as people from the migrant population move in. Like I said it is a two way street. Still, 89% of people believe their community is cohesive and people from different backgrounds get on well together, so it should always be recognised that we are talking about a minority here. Certainly there are many communities that have barely been affected culturally by immigration as a relatively small number of migrants live there, even if the pace of change has picked up in recent years, as is the case for many areas that voted leave. What particular aspects are you suprised about when it comes to my views on the Euro? Certainly I do not like it and the effects that it has had on countries like Greece where actions to mitigate economic crises have been frustrated by it. It never should have been instituted in the first place, and we were wise to keep out of it, but at the same time its destruction would cause a lot of pain as well, and at the end of the day it is the decision of those countries in the Eurozone whether they want to keep it or not, and the signs are, from Greece at least, is that they do, so who am I to question them after all they have been through.
1