In
his latest remarks on immigration, Jeremy
Corbyn seems to be moving his party further and further towards the position
and rhetoric used by UKIP. Worse still,
he seems to be as determined as UKIP to blame the immigrants and/or the
European Union for the failings of UK Government and UK legislators.
He’s
actually right in drawing attention to one of the problems, which is unscrupulous
employers and agencies bringing in workers from other EU countries – primarily
Eastern Europe – and paying them very low wages, sometimes even below the
national minimum wage. One of the ways
that they get away with this apparent breach of UK law is by providing
transport and accommodation and then deducting those costs from the pay of the
workers concerned. The question, though,
is who is to blame for this?
Reading
Corbyn’s comments, one might reasonably conclude that it is a consequence of
the ‘freedom of movement’ within the EU, and that Brexit would therefore enable
a UK Government to put a stop to the practice.
However, the real problem here isn’t with the EU at all – it’s with the
inadequacy of UK legislation covering agency workers, and with unscrupulous
employers taking advantage of that inadequacy.
It doesn’t require Brexit to end this exploitation; it merely requires a
UK Government with the political will. On
that score, the workers concerned have been badly let down by successive UK
Governments, Tory and Labour alike. And
their failure to act is one of the misdirected reasons for an increase in resentment about
foreign workers in the UK.
Perhaps
if Corbyn gets the chance, post-Brexit, he might lead a government committed to
taking action against this form of exploitation. But for the long term, it’s more likely that
legislation will be shaped by the Tories than by Labour. And they’ve already made it clear that their
preference is for less control over the way businesses employ people not
more. Deliberate obfuscation over the cause
of the problem could end up making things worse, not better.
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