British jobs for British workers and the London Living Wage

At the hustings held yesterday in Brixton by Lambeth Disability Forum and the Lambeth Older People's Action Group, Kate Hoey showed some really reactionary tendencies. After a question from the audience about how many people repairing the roads in Lambeth were foreigners and not British and were not able to speak English properly, I condemned scapegoating foreign workers and pointed out that EU citizens had the right to work here and that the EU guaranteed free movement of people, including many UK citizens living and working in other EU states. I then went on to add that three of us sitting on the platform were Irish, to which Kate Hoey exploded stating: "I am British!"

Later she went into a complete tirade against the EU and condemned the UK's agreement to allow citizens of new entrant states such as Poland to come and work here several years ago. According to Vauxhall's MP, the UK should have waited almost a decade to allow this as it had produced "racial and social tension." So a strong element of xenophobia there with which I strongly disagree. I wonder how many of the jobs currently being done in the service sector by Eastern European workers would have been done otherwise and it was only a year and a half ago that I was in Scotland and was told that the raspberries there were rotting because not enough Eastern European workers had been to havest the crop. Of course, Kate knows that these EU citizens (unless they are Maltese, Cypriots or Irish) do not have a vote in this general election and can quite safely criticise them, although they do have a vote in the council elections.

Caroline Pidgeon, the Lib Dem candidate, did not think that the BNP constituted much of a threat and Kate Hoey then went on about the "multcultural and well integrated" nature of society in Lambeth. I disagreed with both and stated that I was genuinely concerned about the rise of the BNP and that the recent election in Hungary, where their sister party, Jobbik, gained something like 23% of the vote gave the lie to Caroline Pidgeon's complacency and I also pointed out to Kate Hoey that although generally Lambeth is free of the scourge, they are standing a candidate in one of the council wards. I will not make cheap political points against foreign workers and EU citizens and fully support their right to work and live here. Even Gordon Brown last night referred to the many British citizens living and working the EU during the leaders debate.

My caveat is that all workers here should be paid the London Living Wage and on that point, I will be supporting the event tomorrow in Brixton by Lambeth Citizens

http://www.southlondoncitizens.org.uk/#/lambeth/4535189457