Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-08-Speech-3-409"
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"en.20100908.18.3-409"2
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"Mr President, this question opens with a statement that the free movement of workers is beneficial to the economies of Member States and does not have serious negative side effects on their labour markets.
The US economist, Professor George Borjas, disagrees. He says, ‘there is no gain from immigration if the native wage is not reduced by immigration’. In 2003, a study published by the Dutch Government said ‘GDP will increase but this increase will largely accrue to the migrants in the form of wages. The overall net gain in income to residents is likely to be small and may even be negative’. A report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs in 2008 said ‘although possible in theory, we found no systematic empirical evidence to suggest that net immigration creates significant dynamic benefits for the UK resident population’.
Uncontrolled and unrestricted immigration into the UK has meant that the wages of native workers have been driven down, while living costs have been driven up because of extra demand on housing. The people at the bottom end of the economic scale have experienced this directly.
Massive immigration of cheap labour may benefit an expanding and developing economy in a country with vast reserves of untapped natural resources, such as America in the 19th century, but it will have the opposite effect on a developed post-industrial economy such as Britain, as has proved to be the case.
Governments should protect the interests of their own citizens first and then help other countries to develop their economies by adopting sensible international trade policies, such as Britain used to do before we joined the European Union. That is why the only sensible policy for Great Britain is that of the UK Independence Party, which is to leave the European Union."@en1
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