The problem with you DP is that you simply will not acknowledge that there are issues around "the eastern european cleaning the toilet".
From your posts (the fact you said you had a PhD, work in Switzerland, UK and US), it shows that you are GROSSLY out of touch with most other people. I certainly don't begrudge you for it in the slightest, but the point is, that in certain areas people do feel let down.
I do acknowledge that people feel let down, have fears and concerns, and that there are genuine issues in the UK that need resolve. What I don't acknowledge is that membership of the EU and current immigration has any significant effect on that. These problems would exist and indeed would be far worse if we were to withdraw; the UK would be poorer, companies would be trading less and struggling to get appropriate workers without increased costs and red-tape, there would be even less jobs, and less ability to find jobs outside the UK.
Jobs are definitely harder to get, because frankly this countries education system is extremely poor, and its getting harder and harder to complete with a globalised world.
Jobs are always harder to get in a recession, the best way to mitigate this is to increase the countries GDP and invest in the economy, not reduce investment and do things that would reduce GDP such as leave the EU. The globalised world is exactly why we need the EU, so workers have greater freedom to get employment within the EU and the increased GDP of being an EU member can create new jobs. Remember, immigration creates jobs, it doesn't take jobs away. Employment opportunities grow with the population size. For every X number of immigrants doing unskilled labour there needs to be a certain number of additional administrators, managers, service providers, retail opportunities, and there are X more people buying products, using services , paying taxes and contributing to the economy.
the globalised world means that we need to be able to compete with developing countries like India, China, Brazil etc., the EU facilitates increased competitiveness with them.
I've experienced first hand the effects of this. Its not a case of "lazy British people don't want to do the jobs", its far more a case of people not wanting to do jobs which have extremely poor working conditions, terrible pay and to which there is no hope for advancement or progress. These conditions are invariably bought about by people who come from less, and yet are still happy with what they get.
It is not sustainable or fair.
Those jobs exist regardless of immigration. People don't want to clean other's ****. Nothing is stopping British people doing those jobs, but as in other developed countries people actually like it when immigrants can do such menial work.
This isn't going to be combated by simply importing more people rather than trying to focus on core issues.
Similarly, reducing immigration also wont combat this situation. Britain need to grow its economy, increase the GDP, trade volume, export profits etc.
I'm all for immigration when its tightly controlled and the people coming in have exceptional skillsets that cannot be found in the UK (or to which investment cannot make possible).
And let the economy suffer massively because of that? People with exceptional skillsets already emigrate to the UK, so your proposal doesn't change that fact. It does cause massive issues for companies reliant on unskilled labour and will makes Britian's products and services less competitive globally, which as you just suggested is a big problem.
Britian has lost a lot of manufacturing due to uncompetitive wage costs in the globalized world, the last thing we want to happen is reduced Britains manufacturing to even lower levels, think of all the jobs lost and reduced GDP.
There are much bigger social issues in getting unskilled poorly educated British workers into productive jobs. Immigration doesn't change outlook. We need improved education including alternative education opportunities such as increased vocational studies and apprenticeships, changes to the benefits system so people don't get trapped and see it as an alternative lifestyle, reduced gap between the rich and the poor, increased investments in poorer areas to attract new business, increased incentives such as tax reductions of location business in poorer areas, incentives to attract foreign investment.
The deep rooted social issues in the poor unskilled laborers existed long before the recent increase in immigration. Poor areas of say Glasgow still existed, the people there had lower education standards, lower health standards, increased benefits, reduced employment rates and lower employability. It is those issues that need resolving. Immigration had no effect on that, it existed long before the EU even existed.
That is a tough problem that no-one in the world has resolved successfully. Just don't look for a convenient excuse that isn't there.
