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Why do you think Eastern Europeans come here fore work?
Funnily enough, my best mate used to work with a Polish guy who lived through communism and he simply cannot understand why anyone would vote for Corbyn.
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I’m sure with a different path through life you could have found a high paying job that you enjoyed and found stimulating and rewarding...
My teachers at school would be amazed at how unproductive my life has been. I was top of the class in maths, and excellent at English and science. I'm in no doubt I'm more intelligent than many high achievers. But would a successful career have brought me happiness? I'm not sure, much of that comes down to character. I've always been a bit different to most people, I've never responded well to authority.
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As for the concept of sovereignty and national pride, I have no idea what they really mean. What exactly am I supposed to be proud of?
Sovereignty is a simple concept. It's simply about running your own affairs. The EU is undemocratic, we do not have a say who leads them. We only get to vote for representatives. It's like having an election where you vote for a representative of Cornwall, but that person has absolutely no effect on who leads the UK. That isn't democracy, that's a sham.
As for national pride, I'm not particularly proud to be English, but I'm far from ashamed of it. It's not like it's a choice I made. I don't see why anyone should be ashamed of where they come from. But I am English, that is my identity whether I like it or not.
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Why should I share a sense of pride in the accomplishments of an individual or group simply because they happened to be born on this island as opposed to a hundred miles East? It make’s no sense to me at all.
I agree, but at the same time there's no reason to feel shame for the shitty things my ancestors did.
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Someone needs to do the low level manual jobs such as fruit picking. It’s very hard for a UK based individual, with our cost of living and standards we require, to have a year long income come from those low paying seasonal jobs
Why would it be harder for me to do a seasonal job at minimum wage than to be simply unemployed all year? If I worked 35 hours a week as a fruit picker, I'm equally as well off as a shelf stacker at Tesco. Minimum wage is a relative good income compared to what I currently get.
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If we remove that pool of labour, either the fruit doesn’t get picked (reduced supply) or we pay higher wages to locals to do the job
I disagree strongly. I would pick fruit for minimum wage. If that's an increase in what the Europeans were paid, well then it means they were paid less than minimum wage and our low prices for fruit are reliant on cheap foreign labour, which should be a source of shame.
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We will likely experience an increase in production costs due to the removal of barrier free trade. Again, this will lead to a more expensive product in the shops. So your tiny income doesn’t stretch as far.
We're free to agree trade deals with the world. If we don't, that's not because of Brexit, it's because of incompetence.
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...which will likely be lower corporate taxes
This could stimulate the economy and increase net tax revenue. It's a shame wuf isn't here these days because he'd have a few things to say about this.
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...relaxed employment regulation
This is probably a scare tactic, but from my pov, I don't even care. I'm quite happy to sit on my arse doing nothing if I am not treated with respect by my employer. The last ten years is proof of this. And I should point out that I lost faith in employment regulations while we were still a member of the EU. Workers were already treated like possessions of corporations.
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and you can bet your ass we won’t see an increase on unemployment benefits off the back of it in spite of the inflation we will likely experience
My benefits do increase yearly with inflation.
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I’ve yet to see a single argument that doesn’t eventually fall into that group.
Democracy? Sovereignty?
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As for your comment that you might get a job previously done by a European, you won't.
I check the job vacancies regularly, and one of my searches is "fruit picker ludlow". It's a bit early in the year, but I'm optimistic because I live in a rural area and there should be plenty of farmers looking for staff. I don't share your pessimism.