The BBC's pro-immigration Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton was in typical form on last night's BBC One News at Six and News at Ten - the following report appearing on both bulletins.
His contribution concentrated purely on the possible negative consequences of lower immigration, with a one-sided selection of voices and several rhetorical devices.
It clearly had a purpose:
NEWSREADER: The first official figures following last year's EU referendum show a fall in net migration to the UK - the difference between the number of people coming to live here and those leaving. It stands at 273,000, down 49,000 on the previous year, though still far above the Government target of below 100,000. The fall is partly due to Eastern Europeans returning home to countries like Poland and Hungary. There's also been a significant fall in overseas student numbers. Our Home Editor, Mark Easton, reports.
MARK EASTON: Worried about immigration? They are at York's Monkbar Hotel. Not that there's too much but that there soon may not be enough. York's tourist industry is booming, now worth a remarkable half a billion pounds a year and supporting a record 20,000 jobs across the city. But growth here, as in much of the hospitality industry, has relied on migrant labour. Romanians change the hotel beds. The waiter is Spanish. Half the staff are EU migrants. In fact, with very low unemployment in York, businesses like this cannot grow or even survive without a supply of foreign workers. A quarter of British hospitality businesses say they have currently got vacancies that they are struggling to fill. With the UK labour market close to capacity and the prospect of a squeeze on EU migrant labour, there are real concerns for the future.
GRAHAM USHER (York Hoteliers' Association): It would create a staffing crisis, to get to a point where we can't fill that resource with a European worker, then there's a big gap that we just can't fill.MARK EASTON: What about British workers?GRAHAM USHER: For York as an example, there isn't enough of them around.
MARK EASTON: The latest figures show a big drop in the numbers coming to work in Britain from countries like Poland, down 16%, Hungary, down 14%, Lithuania, down 6%. More are coming from Romania, up 11%, and Bulgarian, up 8%. But many experts predict those arrivals will start to fall soon too.
GONZALO TORRES, Best Western Monkbar Hotel: Now it is beginning to change to Germany or beginning to learn more German because the UK is beginning to be quite less attractive for young people coming to work.
MARK EASTON: Coming to work and to study. Contributing to the fall in net migration, the number of international students has dropped significantly since the Brexit vote, with warnings from universities that institutions will lose vital income. In the last few days, government ministers have struck a less hardline tone on immigration.
AMBER RUDD: The UK will always be a welcoming place for people who want to come here, work here and contribute to our economy. It's just that there's no support for uncontrolled immigration.
MARK EASTON: Reducing net migration by almost two thirds remains a clear commitment from the Prime Minister. Supporters of the policy say Britain needs to overcome its addiction to cheap migrant labour and train and recruit more home-grown workers. But the owner of this Yorkshire carrot farm says he has to employ eastern Europeans because there are simply not enough local workers.
GUY POSKITT, Poskitt's Carrots: My message is very simple to Mrs May. Take my workers away from me, but you'll take yours out of your health service and your care homes and see how you can run your businesses, because I can't run mine.
MARK EASTON: Cutting immigration may currently enjoy broad public support but turning Britain into a low migration economy won't be pain-free. Mark Easton, BBC News, Yorkshire.
Poskitt's Carrots surely must form the basis of a whole new philosophical movement?
ReplyDeleteNo one is talking about taking away Mr Poskitt's labour. But we are talking about taking away his hidden subsidies that allow him to pay such low wages. Mr Poskitt needs encouragement to realise we are living in the 21st century and for every crop there is a crop picking machine. The UK should be at the forefront of crop picking technology, not relying on 19th century forms of agriculture labouring.
DeleteIf there is really no other cost effective way of picking Poskitt's carrots, then he can import labour on time limited work permits and pay an infrastructure levy. But I think an approach of subsidies to farmers to invest in crop picking technology is a better way forward as that will create well paid jobs within the UK in marketing, installing and maintaining such machinery.
There's no evidence that Mr Easton is lacking in basic intelligence. So, isn't it remarkable how he can't see the difference between (a) an immigration system that does not allow you to prevent people entering and then gives them rights of permanent residence after 5 years with (b) an immigration system which allows you to control who enters and enusre foreigners who work here do so on time limited work permits with no access to our welfare system.
ReplyDeleteWhat we have at the moment is massive subsidising of immigration through the public purse, with future generations being left to pick up the bill for millions of low wage workers who can't afford housing and need help with family income once they start families.
Easton is a hardline ideologue, no doubt a keen attender at BBC editorial meetings where the "line" is thrashed out.
What I noticed was Mark Easton saying that the tourist industry is booming. Could this be because of the fall in the pound? But of course the BBC wouldn't say it. They would say it wasn't relevant to this story, I would say that it is against their narrative.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. The tourist industry is worth a staggering £270 BILLION (not million) per annum to the UK. It responds very positively to the low pound environment. The BBC has been maintaining a studied silence on that.
DeleteWrong narrative, I'm afraid. For the BBC, the pound has collapsed and Britain is immeasurably, tragically poorer. Recall that we recently learned that some fancy cheese brands will become more expensive because of it.
Delete"The tourist industry" is booming.
ReplyDeleteWho knew that York might benefit from tourism?
If they`re saying that local staff can`t serve a tea, can`t pick a carrot at the wages offered-then maybe they ought to pay more, and stop coasting off the backs of cheap foreign labour. The market would sort it-and if we have to admit that we`ve taught our kids and their parents nothing but a chance to sponge off the state, then so be it. Schools have been a scandal since the National Curriculum, and dole wallahs have been the grease that funds the parasitic class of teachers, probation officers and health counselling therapists that need cossetting. A mutual suicide pact of no expecations, let alone low ones.
We need Trump here to drain OUR swamp-and little lizards like Easton need to find REAL work-maybe cutting a few carrots in Acomb or such?
This is just an imaginary crisis, isn't it? Was there some announcement of a definite restriction on EU workers after Brexit, and I missed it? A manufactured story to suit an agenda, not based on reality.
ReplyDeleteThe UK will always be a welcoming place for people who want to come here, work here and contribute to our economy. It's just that there's no support for uncontrolled immigration.
A strong position taken by Amber Rudd, there. Not. She can't even say uncontrolled immigration isn't a good idea. Is she afraid of being reported for hate speech again? This is your Home Secretary unable to take the most basic, mainstream position. Of course, as Craig highlights, Easton prefers to see an objection to uncontrolled immigration as 'hardline'. Obvious BBC bias in a nutshell.
So is Rudd (and, by extension, her predecessor who is no PM) so easily cowed, or does she really share Easton's very left-wing opinion?
Easton is so driven to support mass immigration that he presents near record levels of immigration as a potential crisis that can only be averted by higher immigration.
ReplyDeleteFixed term work-visas are the answer to any worker shortage - not the ponzi scheme of mass immigration.
ReplyDelete