Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale

It is easy to despise the Labour Party for its record whilst in office. Whilst in national office in the period 1997 to 2010, the Labour Party ruined the British economy, pandered to the ideology of Islam, promoted the failed ideology of multiculturalism, attacked traditional British values such as that of free speech and, to the chagrin of many, ushered in the most draconian form of nanny state, that Britain had experienced in the modern peacetime world. Excessive, unwanted and unnecessary immigration must also be added onto this list of political crimes against the ordinary British person.

It is this excessive and inappropriate immigration policy promulgated by Labour that is the subject of an attack by the Labour MP Simon Danczuk the representative for Rochdale in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Danczuk spoke of the jobs he did on building sites and in bars before he became an MP and how these ‘bottom rung of the labour ladder’ jobs taught him valuable skills in dealing with people and the working environment. He pointed out that the same sort of bars that he worked in and learned how to behave in and get the best from the world of work now had less British staff. Mr Danczuk is correct in his assertion that cheaper foreigners have cut off work opportunities for British workers.

Mr Danczuk said:

“Back then almost everyone I worked with was from Lancashire. But, nowadays, British workers no longer take many of these jobs. Cheap migrant workers have put paid to that. Many labourers complain to me about how Eastern European workers have driven down their wages to the point where they haven’t had a pay rise in over 10 years. And if you go into a city bar, more often than not your order will be taken by foreign accents.

Is this a bad thing? Or merely a sign that Britain’s a modern country with a flexible labour market that’s open to the world? Most of the political classes would argue the latter, but I’m not so sure.

Blue collar Britain is a powerful engine of prosperity that builds communities everywhere. It’s also a strong force of social mobility and many working class people who learn the value of work early on and put in the hours are able to get on and climb the career ladder as a result of hard graft. But this world is under threat now in many parts of the country like never before as a key rung of the labour ladder has been removed.

That many of these job opportunities have all but disappeared to some working class Britons in parts of the country worries me greatly. As a Labour MP, I strongly believe my party should be forever beating a loud drum about the value of work, about instilling a strong work ethic into people and about how character and achievement comes from hard work. My fear is that an increased reliance on cheap migrant labour to drive some sectors in our economy is chipping away at a bedrock of working class pride, allowing a once strong work ethic to drain away and it’s being done with a comfortable and badly misinformed political consensus.

There’s been a cosy agreement among the main political parties around immigration and Britain’s labour market for too long. The thinking is that we cannot survive without a record injection of cheap migrant labour. You hear it everywhere. Shirley Williams says we need immigrants to do bar jobs because British workers won’t do them. Boris Johnson is constantly talking up the benefits of immigration and even wanted a one-off amnesty for illegal immigrants, which let’s not forget includes violent criminals. And even though it’s seven years since he left office now, Tony Blair is still making headlines religiously championing the immigrant.

We all know the benefits of immigration. Our country has been enriched greatly by migrants. But there’s been far too little said about the consequences that uncontrolled immigration has on poorer, working class communities. And when a note of caution is heard, a near evangelical chorus that believes nothing bad ever comes from record immigration always drowns it out.

So why is this? The reality is that our political leaders have never had jobs in the real world and are essentially cut off from a blue-collar reality. So they never talk about the value of working class jobs. To be honest, most are a bit sniffy about these jobs anyway and that’s why they’re extremely relaxed about a wholesale transfer of jobs in some sectors to migrants.

On both sides of the political spectrum there’s a dogmatic belief that the free movement of cheap migrant labour can only bring bountiful returns. The right is in thrall to big business and slavishly continues to feed its addiction to cheap migrant labour. While the left constantly argue that without record immigration the National Health Service would collapse. Both arguments are bogus and demonstrate a classic Metropolitan tin ear for the mood of insecurity and fear sweeping across the country.

The argument of the right is wrong because a cheap, disposable and compliant labour force only brings insecurity, resentment and a breadline existence. It’s the opposite of the confident, proud and secure communities we should be building. While the argument of the left allows a bizarre ‘diversity dogma’ to trump all other reasoning. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be training up more doctors and nurses here for starters. And why are we constantly recruiting nurses from developing countries where they are struggling to provide basic care? What’s progressive about that? The next time you’re sat before a Malawian doctor in Manchester remember that there is just one doctor for every 40,000 people in Malawi and that 110 children in every 1,000 born there will die before the age of five.

Poor workforce planning and a short-sighted, quick fix approach to labour in both the private and public sectors is not the answer to the deep social and economic problems that are holding far too many towns in our country back. If we’re going to unlock Britons’ potential then we can’t be outsourcing so many job opportunities to migrants. It’s time we took a long hard look at lifting Britain’s working class back to a position of pride.

I recognise this all too clearly in my constituency of Rochdale. Blue-collar workers continually tell me that an influx of Eastern European workers has sucked them into a race to the bottom in wages. Whether it’s the electrician who says he’s constantly being undercut to the point where it makes no economic sense to continue or the builder who says he’s been priced out by silly quotes, there’s a sense that a deeply unfair playing field is making it impossible for some Britons to compete.

Yet, all too frequently, the response from the political classes is merely a shrug of indifference. The writer and journalist Simon Kuper recently argued that there’s been a rights revolution for minorities and suppressed groups but that the working classes are ignored as an embarrassing relic. He’s not wrong. Where are their rights to hold down a regular, decent job and earn an honest wage?”

Read the rest of this article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11202976/Cheap-immigrant-labour-has-cost-blue-collar-Britain-dear.html

It is ironic that here we have a Labour Party, that was set up to be the voice of the organised working classes in Parliament, actively putting into place policies that do nothing but hurt the British working classes. Mr Danczuk is correct, there is a division between the Metropolitan Elite, of both Left and Right, who benefit immensely from the sort of unsustainable immigration levels Britain has seen in recent decades. However there is another division, that in the Labour movement itself, with the decent, traditional moderately Leftist working classes on one side, and the destructive new Left with their identity politics, immigration fetish and their snobbish hatred for the working classes on the other. At the moment this Metropolitan Leftism runs the Labour party, so even if you vote for some who is relatively decent such as Mr Danczuk or Frank Field, you are also giving your support to those who wish to destroy your communities and cut off opportunities for you and your children.

Until the Labour Party as a whole can admit the horrendous mistakes it has made in immigration, the economy, education, and community relations, it must be considered as unfit to govern. Despite the odd few decent individuals in its ranks, the Labour Party should be considered as an indecent, destructive party which has been captured by the boorish, nihilists of the Post-1968 generation of Leftists. It is no longer a party representing British labour, whether those workers labour by hand or by brain, and that is a great and long lasting tragedy.