BNP on Question Time

[bassbeyondreason]

Stop my dole and I'll be shottin' brown.

 

[Mr. Tea]

do you mean excluding people who are incapable or to old to work? sounds like a pretty random approximation you pulled out there. The amount of people at state pension or over in 2005 was around 11 million not including people with disabilities or musicians.

I'm talking about people who count as unemployed (not pensioners or incapacitated), which I think stands at about two million. It's hardly 'random', these are official figures that anyone can look up.

Hang, on I stand corrected: 2.47m unemployed, 1.63 claiming "jobseeker's" by late summer this year.

And if people have to carry on working until an older age, then so be it. Life expectancy is higher than ever and for the most part it's easier to stay healthy as you get older too.

Don't get this whole 'indigenous' thing either, I have nothing against having controls on immigration but to say you are indigenous to anywhere is a bit short sighted unless you believe we just popped out of the ground made a union jack 2.5 million years ago and then stayed put.

Well let's say "native" in the literal sense of having been born here, as opposed to having come here as an immigrant.

 

[swears]

Even though I don't think the BNP should have a platform like this, I have to admit I'll be watching this for the car-crash tv value. Be interesting to see how the other panelists react to him, gonna be so awkward. I bet Question Time's ratings will go through the roof.

 

[grizzleb]

Yeah, I think QT is the most watched politics programme in the UK anyway, but it's gonna be good water-cooler fodder. Hope he gets ripped a new arsehole.

I think it's totally right he's getting air time, it is a democracy after all.

 

[muser]

I'm talking about people who count as unemployed (not pensioners or incapacitated), which I think stands at about two million. It's hardly 'random', these are official figures that anyone can look up.

Hang, on I stand corrected: 2.47m unemployed, 1.63 claiming "jobseeker's" by late summer this year.

ok I see where you got that from but that doesn't mean there are two and half million less jobs then people.

Well let's say "native" in the literal sense of having been born here, as opposed to having come here as an immigrant.

sorry but still going by that then you would be drawing an arbitrary line in time for being someone who has been allowed into this country but is classed as a citizen and is more worthy of employment and someone who is not. Doesn't really make sense.. but I do think we need a better system for immigration, controls over illegal immigration etc

Definitely going to be watching this, I reckon the best viewing would be to fill the panel with either a bunch of z-list celebrities or articulate and outspoken professionals/politicians/influential people from various minorities in the UK.

 

[baboon2004]

But is racist to point out that Britain (and England, even more so) is an exceptionally crowded country already with a desperate shortage of social housing and that most of our population growth is due to immigration? Is the only officially non-racist position to take that of supporting immigration for ever and ever, regardless of its effects on the demand for land, housing, resources and services?

To my eternal discredit, I've not yet read it, but apparently 'Who Owns Britain?' makes a pretty good case that Britain is not in fact crowded, but rather beset by the problem of too few people owning too much land.

 

[Mr. Tea]

ok I see where you got that from but that doesn't mean there are two and half million less jobs then people.

Doesn't it? If you assume each employed person has one job, and there are X people and Y of them are unemployed, what's wrong with drawing the conclusion that there are (X-Y) fewer jobs than people?

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that if there are lots of people in the country who are unemployed as it is, and employers are saying "we need more immigrants to work for us", it's reasonable to ask "why can't/won't you employ some of the people who already live here?".

sorry but still going by that then you would be drawing an arbitrary line in time for being someone who has been allowed into this country but is classed as a citizen and is more worthy of employment and someone who is not. Doesn't really make sense.. but I do think we need a better system for immigration, controls over illegal immigration etc

Well of course it's arbitray - so are the minimum wage, the poverty line, the income tax brackets, the ages of majority, consent and retirement...

Look at it this way: a nightlcub has a (to a degree arbitrary) maximum capacity of say, 300. The first 300 hundred people to turn up that night have the "right" to get in, and people who turn up later don't. If the club decides to let more people in after that, then apart from risking legal action it means the club is now uncomfortably crowded for the punters, it takes half an hour to queue for the bogs and in the event of a fire it's going to be absolute carnage. Note that none of this argument hinges in the least on the skin colour or religion of any of the punters, either those who got their first or the late-comers.

What's the alternative other than just saying that anyone in the world who wants to live here should be allowed to? If Britain isn't crowded now with 60m-odd inhabitants, what's it going to be like with 80m, 100m, 120m...? And to bring this back to the original topic, overcrowding and competition for resources and jobs is one of the main causes of the tensions that are manipulated and exacerbated by the likes of the BNP.*

To my eternal discredit, I've not yet read it, but apparently 'Who Owns Britain?' makes a pretty good case that Britain is not in fact crowded, but rather beset by the problem of too few people owning too much land.

That may well be the case, but short of all-out revolution I can't see the situation being improved any time too soon. Anyway, it's an undeniable fact that Britain is crowded, simply going on population density compared to most other countries. There was something in the news recently about how new houses being built here are the smallest in Europe.


*without wishing to downplay the effects of decades of negligent government policies and the poisonous propaganda peddled by the tabloid press, of course

 

[massrock]

That may well be the case, but short of all-out revolution I can't see the situation being improved any time too soon.

One suggestion is a land value tax.

Mr Harrison, Mr Weale and other economists say the burden of taxation needs to be shifted off income and profits and on to those untaxed gains in property values. In short, we need a land value tax.

...

Mr Harrison, and others such as David Reed at the Labour Land Campaign and Dave Wetzel of the Professional Land Reform Group, argue for a tax on all land to encourage its more efficient use.

Think of the 13-hectare Battersea Power Station site, which has stood derelict since 1982. It was sold last month for £400m by a developer who bought it for £10m in 1993. A yearly tax on its value would have focused owners' minds on making better use of it.

House buyers would factor an annual tax on the value of the land under the house into calculations of what they would be prepared to pay for it. This would lower prices and discourage speculation. Second homes would carry a higher cost than they do now.

This is not about raising more tax revenue. The revenue from a land value tax would be used, for example, to scrap stamp duty and/or council tax or to reduce income tax or VAT, which is highly regressive. Many countries, such as Denmark and Australia, already have some form of value tax.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/jan/08/tax.business

 

[bassnation]

Given complete freedom of movement, people will enter the country until that point at which any comparative advantages to living here have been lost - logically speaking, sooner or later, conditions will inevitably get worse.

its always nice when people ignore arguments to the contrary, further upthread. we NEED immigration to keep the NHS running, to ensure the same standard of living, and to counter an aging population. who's going to be looking after you in the old peoples home, or delivering your grandchildren in hospital?

this country has thrived on immigration.

and yes, most criticisms of immigration ARE racist, because no-one seems to give a fuck about white australians or south africans settling here. why is that? i'm not accussing you of that btw, but its a general point.

 

[bassnation]

That may well be the case, but short of all-out revolution I can't see the situation being improved any time too soon. Anyway, it's an undeniable fact that Britain is crowded, simply going on population density compared to most other countries. There was something in the news recently about how new houses being built here are the smallest in Europe.

thats more to do with the trend of people living by themselves in smaller units and in larger houses. three times as much housing is used for white people than for ethnic minorities or immigrants.

its yet another right wing myth that has been debunked, that britian is full and this is due to immigration.

no-one is suggesting removing border controls, although its a bit fucking rich for previous immigrants to want to pull up the drawbridge imo. its a huge landmass, not a night club with a capacity of a few hundred. and like i said, you might not have done this, but the far right DOES focus on skin colour as it seems perfectly acceptable for rich white people to migrate here.

the NHS would collapse tomorrow if we got rid of all those immigrants "filling our country up"

 

[bassnation]

To my eternal discredit, I've not yet read it, but apparently 'Who Owns Britain?' makes a pretty good case that Britain is not in fact crowded, but rather beset by the problem of too few people owning too much land.

exactly.

 

[bassnation]

well one argument against it is that we're entering a period of mass unemployment. either we provide jobs for people who live here, or we face the consequences in terms of crime, welfare dependency etc etc

you reading these from the BNPs manifesto, crackerjack? its well known that migrants do work native brits either don't want to do, or aren't trained to do so. there's also a much higher percentage of migrants with degrees than there are in the native UK population.

in addition, you have specific nationalities specialising in professions - like jamaican midwifes. we have a serious shortage of them, to be honest we need more fucking immigration, not less.

i'm much more concerned about globalisation than i am immigration, shipping in of exploited foreign workers for short term work. both sides are getting abused there. i once worked with a highly skilled technical architect from bangladesh who should have been paid 40-70k over here, instead sapient were paying him 7k, barely enough to survive in london. thats wrong, as i can't compete with that and also he is getting screwed over. we need better labour rights for both uk and non-uk people to create a level playing field, fuck the companies bottom line.

 

[crackerjack]

you reading these from the BNPs manifesto, crackerjack?

What is the point of a comment like that, seriously? Go fuck yourself.

 

[matt b]

Look at it this way: a nightlcub has a (to a degree arbitrary) maximum capacity of say, 300. The first 300 hundred people to turn up that night have the "right" to get in, and people who turn up later don't. If the club decides to let more people in after that, then apart from risking legal action it means the club is now uncomfortably crowded for the punters, it takes half an hour to queue for the bogs and in the event of a fire it's going to be absolute carnage. Note that none of this argument hinges in the least on the skin colour or religion of any of the punters, either those who got their first or the late-comers.

In an attempt to help you with this laboured analogy, you may wish to add the following amendments:

1. No-one knows the capacity of the club, because a club has never been full before.
2. Large swathes of the club are roped off VIP areas with nobody in them.
3. Some bits of the club are busy, because that's where the sound is best.
4. Other bits are almost empty, but the floor has collapsed and the speaker cones are ripped.

For starters

 

[bassnation]

What is the point of a comment like that, seriously? Go fuck yourself.

alright dear, calm down.

the point is that your arguments against immigration could be lifted wholesale from their material, got a problem with that?

you want to engage with my refutation of your argument, be my guest.

 

[vimothy]

It's a tennet of neoliberalism that immigration, like globalisation, is an unalloyed good. But immigration, like globalisation, puts downward pressure on the wages of unskilled workers. It's not going to be a relentless march to third world living standards for the UK's working class, by any means, but it would be foolish and counterproductive not to acknowledge this fact.

 

[crackerjack]

alright dear, calm down.

the point is that your arguments against immigration could be lifted wholesale from their material, got a problem with that?

you want to engage with my refutation of your argument, be my guest.

You haven't refuted my argument - you haven't even touched on the consequences of long-term mass unemployment - you've just made the case for managed immigration, which I support. Specific skills shortages? Then let's fill them from wherever.

But if you're going to maintain the near hysterical tone you've shown throughout this thread, my last comment stands.

 

[vimothy]

Incidentally, I think that the BNP being given time on the stage is a bad idea. These people are trolls. They should be ignored. You can't beat them in an argument: they don't operate on that level. It's just a massive PR coup for them.

 

[bassnation]

In an attempt to help you with this laboured analogy, you may wish to add the following amendments:

1. No-one knows the capacity of the club, because a club has never been full before.
2. Large swathes of the club are roped off VIP areas with nobody in them.
3. Some bits of the club are busy, because that's where the sound is best.
4. Other bits are almost empty, but the floor has collapsed and the speaker cones are ripped.

For starters

and....

5. People are regularly leaving the club as they fancy going to another.

 

[bassnation]

You haven't refuted my argument - you haven't even touched on the consequences of long-term mass unemployment - you've just made the case for managed immigration, which I support. Specific skills shortages? Then let's fill them from wherever.

But if you're going to maintain the near hysterical tone you've shown throughout this thread, my last comment stands.

i'm not the one telling people to fuck off, mate - if your points are valid surely you can avoid getting all het up behind that monitor. and believe me it doesn't bother me in the slightest to be told to fuck off by you.

what you did is raise the spectre of mass unemployment, when i've provided reasons why immigration fills roles that domestically aren't filled. i've also touched upon the real problem with labour, which is globalisation and exploitation of workers by companies rather than "illegals taking jobs". wheres your evidence for this? just sounds like far right scaremongering to me, but prove me wrong.