Steve Barclay, the Brexit Secretary is coming up shortly on LBC / Nick Ferrari show:
John Bercow tomorrow - give him a bell !! 
Simple economics Paul, often field work is seasonal so it’s not viable for someone in Newcastle to move to Boston for a few months and then go back home.
So, if it is not viable for someone to move from Newcastle, why is it viable for someone to move seasonally from Sofia?
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Jeremy
I live in France because I am married to a French man who works for an American company who’s European HQ are in SW France. I wouldn’t have even described my self as a francophile (married the man not the country) and I was a remainer because it seemed the wrong solution to the problems of the EU to walk away and sacrifice our control.
I am a bit fed up of being told to shut up and put up when I exercise my freedom of speech and continue to say I think it’s a bad idea, and the reason I’m given is because the UK is a democracy - that seems twisted logic!!! My first reaction when I heard about the referendum result was to jump on a plane and go back to England because I felt sorry for my country, now it seems to have gone beyond sorrow and while I have no doubt we will emerge from the mess and survive (countries do, look at Hungry for example) I think the damage is lasting and our world standing has slipped irretrievably. So, given all that, please don’t berate me for venting a little within the confines of a forum of largely like-minded people.
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Robert
What makes you think that when we leave the EU we will be less subject to the pressures and opinions of those outside the UK? I think this will increase and we will find ourselves bending to foreign powers a lot more, in fact if you look at our attempts at trade deals this is already happening.
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You cannot compare the two Paul, the average salary in Bulgaria is around 550-600 Euros a month yet in the UK it’s four times that. In Sofia you can rent an apartment for 200 Euros a month or less, so that’s why it makes financial sense for 0000’s of Bulgarians to come over to the UK to work even for short periods. If you’re an unemployed Geordie the numbers don’t stack up especially as you’ll lose all your benefits once you do any work.
I think the Lincolnshire example has seen a reduction in itinerant workers and local business seizing the opportunity to use the labour all year. This appears to have given rise to an increase in factory work packing food for supermarkets including food imported from EU. I read a BBC report from 2016 before the rerendum and the suggestion was that home rental prices had increased while the hourly pay rates had decreased. Part of this was because the workers coming in were young and prepared to share housing costs in a model unlike other parts of the UK.
This BBC report covers the subject
I suppose regardless of how mps vote many of the drivers for how people voted haven’t really changed.
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Actually that’s 3.4% of the workforce who are actively looking for a job but not taking particular jobs.
Why are so many people in the UK so poor? The rate of poverty is much higher than the rate of unemployment.
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If you are in work and earning a salary then this conversation isn’t about you.
What’s Universal Credit - £317 a month for over 25’s plus whatever housing support you can get.
Given that field work is normally in the £10-11 per hour range it should be possible to earn quite a bit more than being on benefits.
I actually agree on this point - the UK benefits system has long had the problem that the plug gets pulled very sharply once you start working - so the transition from benefits to a minimum-wage job is not “worth it” for many. I think the job centres get quite pushy about this but frequently get it utterly wrong and deny people benefits for totally inappropriate reasons.
Zero hours contracts, or people guaranteed a low number of hours but then doing extra if needed
I know. Appalling and destructive, such a cynical way of massaging the unemployment figures, keeping people in a state of precarity.
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I have a friend who’s a paramedic of 25 years experience.
She earns £170 for a 14 hour shift.
She’s lucky to get 3 shifts a month…most months it’s 2…some months 0.
She has a family to support, & is considered to be in employment.
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Bob, that’s a low level of hours. Presumably your friends income is supplemented by tax credits etc. I know that the welfare system might allow people to work 16 hours a week before their benefits are affected, this often drives behaviour though I’m not suggesting this is the case with your friend.
I’ve no idea David. I know she was on the point of leaving the service, as she found some gardening work & was (temporarily) making more money that way.
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I never mentioned young brits.
Traditionally it was women bringing a second income, or students.
I would agree with you there, which is no doubt at least in part why the British Gov’t has been following a programe of devolving powers to the Scottish Parliament, and indeed also why Scotland was granted the opportunity to decide whether they wished to separate from the UK or not.
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Thank you for your very considered and reasonable post Caroline.
I am the last person to berate anyone for exercising their right of free speech…I think I have already said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
If you read my first post again I hope you will see that in my possibly slightly undiplomatic way I merely only wanted to point out that the invective that emanates from the forum against Brexiteers, who really only want the best for Britain (as they see it), ironically comes from those British who mainly (I make an assumption here) now live in France.
I do agree with probably every single person on the forum that the whole shebangle is a cock-up of the highest order. We should have started this process by immediately leaving lock, stock and barrel then sitting down with the EU and discussing a future, mutually advantageous trading agreement. During the time that would take we would agree to keep every current rule and regulation in place so that there would be absolutely no disruption. Also during that time we could sort out those laws we wanted to change and those we would want to keep. And to counter the ‘Cherry picking’ argument we would effectively be a new opportunity for the EU to come to a new trading agreement with. To nullify the negotiations from dragging on and on we would have the bargaining chip at any time of reverting to WTO rules.
Simples (I hope).
More hints that the delay is not guaranteed.
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-03-19/can-pm-find-out-what-brexit-mps-want-next-week/
I heard this call into LBC live this morning and it struck a cord - made me cry at the gym in fact! Well worth a listen…
Jules from Sheffield went on to explain that she was born in 1973 and had only ever known being part of the EU - she feels it’s something that has been taken from her without her consent. Me too and I’ll resent that until my dying breath. Only 10 days left of officially being a European citizen - makes me sad.
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With you on that one.
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