Get angry, get furious, but get angry at the right people.
Get angry, get furious, but get angry at the right people
Noam Chomsky reminds us that the best way to give the impression of democracy is to limit the debate to a very narrow set of issues, and then allow people free reign within this spectrum.
This beautifully describes current political discourse in this country. We have raging debates about the EU and immigration, yet barely touch the issues that really matter.
The reason the economy crashed in 2008 wasn’t because of us lavishing luxury flat-screen TV’s on the unemployed, or because so many immigrants came to claim benefits- it was because of an unbridled financial sector gambling on all of our futures.
The reason we have a housing ‘shortage’ isn’t because our country is filling up so fast we’re nearly out of space (only 6.8 per cent of the land of this country is built upon), it’s because we have failed for decades to build a suitable amount of housing- regardless of immigration.
We do not have a ‘cost of living crisis’ because of an influx of immigrants – we have stagnating wages because of continued concessions to big business and corporate greed.
This is exactly the same problem that is seen the world-over. We’re constantly told that wages are low because of ‘uncontrolled’ immigration, and any forced rises in the minimum wage will result in higher unemployment. And then no one mentions the gigantic salaries that those at the top of these companies ‘earn’.
Times are not tough for everyone in this country – whilst the average worker has seen a decline in the value of their wages over the last four years under a Tory government, FTSE 100 bosses have seen their earnings soar. This is compounded by outrageous rents charged by landlords, having now to be propped up by housing benefits.
This is the heart of the problem – not additional workers in the market. Additional workers help drive growth of business’, which leads to more job creation.
Immigrants have been proven time and again to put more into the coffers than they take out – they are better net contributors than British citizens are. We have allowed ourselves to be side-tracked and hoodwinked. We’ve forgotten the real enemy.
We need to remember what the real problem is – and it’s exactly the same problem in many of the countries immigrants are coming from – profit consistently being put before people. The immigration debate is a convenient mask, a clever distraction from what really matters.
At a time of widening inequality, when the richest five families in the UK earn the same as the bottom 20 per cent, when the worlds 85 richest own the same wealth as half the globe, that’s where the anger should be directed.
It isn’t racist to question the merits of immigration, but the tone the debate is beginning to take on in this country is decidedly ugly. As we marvel at the latest UKIP scandal or a picture of Farage in the pub we’re also missing the dodgy dealings of Wall Street and the City that are sapping pounds out of our pockets.
Only the Green Party seem to really understand this. This is why we refuse to engage in the negative rhetoric that the other major parties have all succumbed to surrounding immigration – not out of burying-our-heads-in-the-sand dogmatism, or idealistic left-wingery, but because we realise the cause of our problems really do lie elsewhere.
This is why we instead focus on implementing a living wage, on opposing the TTIP and on fair pay ratios in companies.
The rich have gambled on our futures, allowed sating their own ferocious appetites to take precedent over our well-being.
Get angry, get furious, but get angry at the right people.
Bradley Allsop is a student and member of the Green Party
60 Responses to “Don’t blame the immigrants – blame the rich”
Peem Birrell
>>outrageous rents charged by landlords, having now to be propped up by housing benefits
And tax credits keep wages low. The real problem is the state indirectly subsidising its cronies through the ‘welfare’ system.
LB
Don’t blame the rich
Don’t blame the migrants either. They are just looking to get wealthier.
Nope we blame people like you and other politicians who allowed the migration of large numbers of poor people.
They now compete with the poor driving down wages.
Now they are on welfare
Now they have social housing.
Now you have to screw the working poor with taxes to pay for it all.
Nope, you are to blame for migration. Not the migrants. In spite of what you want to do and divert the blame with accusations of racism etc, its not going to wash.
LB
Immigrants have been proven time and again to put more into the coffers than they take out – they are better net contributors than British citizens are.
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Pure lies. Complete lies.
Its very simple. To be net contributors they need to pay more into the system than they take out.
Family of 4 on welfare cost well over 55K a year. There are lots of migrants on welfare. They are not net contributors.
If you take the CREAM study, again is is completely flawed. Only by taking the racist position that Brits have to pay for the common goods, and migrants don’t they tilt the odds. Not enough. Then they assume that pensions cost nothing. Not the 6.3K a year that it really costs. Given the pension debts are going up by over 640 bn a year, it doesn’t take account of the growth in the debt.
So complete crap Bradley. Nice try.
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The reason the economy crashed in 2008
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People didn’t pay their debts. Same as any other financial mess.
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At a time of widening inequality
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So lets see the cause. To get richer, you need to spend less than comes in and invest the surplus. Rich or poor, its a rule that can’t be broken.
So the rich are saving and getting richer. The poor aren’t saving. So to determine why the poor aren’t saving you have to look at money coming in and money going out.
Turns out their biggest expense is the State. All those taxes. Even their Surplus which is national insurance is spent on their behalf by the state. They now have a 300K share of the state debt as a burden.
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Get angry, get furious, but get angry at the right people.
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Yep. Here you are right. It’s people like you who demand other people’s money making them poorer so you can piss their cash away on your crony projects. What the heck put more green taxes on the poor. More taxes on work. …
yyy
You want to make things as simple as that? It does not work. You have to be a little closer to the truth, which means a little more complexity. Many rich people have nothing to do with the City of London or finance. But we should raise THEIR taxes as well! Many poor immigrants are working for less than the minimum wage. They are dragging wages down.
The failure to build houses is partly because of policies which are green in nature , namely policies restricting building upon the Green Belt. Polices which, I assume the Green Party supports. We need to build on around 10 sq miles per year in the South East for the indefinite future. Where would the Green Party like that building to take place? There are not enough brownfield sites. Do you want fifty story apartment blocks in London of mixed housing? Not fifty? Then what 40,30, 20, 10, 5?
Cole
What’s wrong with apartment blocks? Ever been to New York?