Taking our jobs

Taking our jobs

It is absolutely true - Johnny Foreigner really does take our jobs. When I saw that Liverpool FC was looking to sign another goalkeeper I had quick glance at their First Team line up. Not a single first team goalkeeper they have now is British! Then I had a glance at their staff - the first six (listed by seniority) are all foreign too. No wonder they are desperate to sign a goalie - presumably a Brit so that when the rest are repatriated there won't be an open goal on the field when they play.

What about own goals? I don't have any strong views on overseas players in British clubs, but I do on foreigners working in Britain - I am strongly in favour of them. Purging the Premier League might only make the football less exciting, but chucking out the people willing to work in low-paid service jobs means a lower standard of living for all of us. It really is as simple as that.

Only 1 in 50 Pret A Manger job applicants is British. Two thirds of their staff are from the EU. Their director of HR says that increasing wages probably wouldn't attract British applications. I disagree. I have worked in a sandwich bar and I'd go back - but the pay would have to be a lot higher than 'above minimum wage'. Maybe when I retire, have a wrecked pension and need to pay for food and heating...

Right now we have 32 million people in work - 5.5 million of them are foreign-born. There are 1.6 million people who are currently unemployed. You don't need a degree to see that booting out the Bulgarians etc will leave a lot of job positions unfillable. Even if we only evict the EU lot, that is 2.3 million job vacancies.

However, paying enough to attract UK staff will mean prices must go up, so that coffee and a sarnie is going to be a special treat not a desk lunch.