Home page A British human resources policy? - Part 1 Introduction - Nick Clegg, one of the contenders for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic party of the United Kingdom has referred to the current policy responses of the political parties to the current immigrant labour issue in Britain as Pavlovian and seeking to gain party advantage - as always. We think he is right and none of the proposals thusfar made come to grips with the real issue. This is the first part of a two part article on this challenge facing Britain, largely from the European Union and one which raises to the fore the current failure to understand the constitutional implications of European treaties. The emerging crisis As seems to be an increasing pattern, all of the main political parties fail to come up with rational policy solutions to the latest "crisis" concerning immigrant labour. The disappointemnt is that what is now being considered to be a new crisis has been predictable for the last 5 years at least. British political parties have lacked the intellectual critical mass and organization to apply a more strategic approach to policy development in Britain. As a result they now respond in knee-jerk fashion to circumstances they themselves have cuased as a result of foresight. One of the less acceptable dimensions of this policy failure on the part of all British political parties is that the current crises arise from the headlong rush by Britain towards Globalizations which British political parties compete to encourage. The same political parties exhibit an inability to come up with designs for policies to ensure Britain is safeguarded from the potential technical, economic, financial and social shocks associated with Globalization. Europe represents the greatest threat If one subdivides the impact of Globalized markets on Britain into the European Union and rest of world, the current crisis is not a rest of world issue, it is a short to medium term European Union issue. This is a source of major embarrassment for those politicians who have held out for so long trying to claim that all past and present European treaties have no constitutional impact on Britain. The proof of this essential fact is coming home to roost in the form of social and community chaos resulting from government incompetence in making provisions for predictable rapid and localised changes in the population numbers in some communities in Britain. Getting tough on a diminishing issue So far the rhetoric is that the government will get tough on immigration and foreign workers but this refers exclusively to the declining number of immigrants from the rest of the world. So far, no political party has had the nerve to address the real issue, the numbers coming infrom the European Union. The extension of controls on Bulgaria and Romania are useless rhetoric and there are many loopholes for those wishing to work in the UK. In any case this discriminatory status for workers from these countries has yet to be challenged in the European Court. The issue, however, is not as Labourites will claim, closet racism on the part of some or as Conservatives will claim an issue of "controlling" immigration or establishing caps. Such thinking is not going to resolve anything in a rational fashion. Productivity, employment and provisions One of the assertions made by those who should know better is that all of the hard working immigrants come here to fill jobs the British are not prepared to do or at rates of pay the British are not prepared to accept. In reality the European single market impacts in the labour market have arisen with the last two EU enlargements. A significant economic impact has arisen from the European Union being a single labour market and with many new European member states having large segments of the population who are unemployed or under-employed even on extremely low wages of aound 20% of the UK minimum wage-equivalent. Unimpeded access for EU nationals for very low paid labour has removed the incentives for many British companies to invest to raise automation levels so that fewer and better paid workers are required to achieve equal or better quality of output at a lower unit cost. Naturally there are some areas where automation is difficult and this does not apply. However, using very low paid manual workers as a substitute for investment in more appropriate technologies has been an easy way out because this only required cash from current operations and no investment to speak of. The result is higher numbers of workers per unit of output, lower than feasible rates of pay and increasing pressure of provisions for education, health services and housing. Drain on resources According to Hansard (7th February 2007) John Healey of the Treasury referred to information to be supplied by the National Statistician which indicates that those working on the minimum wage, as most EU workers do, contribute around £4,000/annum in total tax receipts (government revenue) and this is some £7,000 less than the average contribution. Thus this class of workers do contribute revenue but overall they create a net shortfall against the average. This represents a drain on the policy budget of around £7,000. In general the dependency ratios of immigrant low income families tend to be higher with up to four children being the norm, more than double the UK average. This has the effect of creating yet a greater drain on educational and health service resources and demand for housing. In the short term the government can hand out cash to local authorities to make up these deficits but eventually this shortfall has to be made up by others through higher tax or government borrowing if the standards of other policy services and goods are expected to remain the same in terms of amount and quality per head. The British constitutional impacts of European treaties The reality is that there is a major constitutional impact on the United Kingdom arising from European treaties because the ability of the government to sustain policy funding is falling and on top of this EU nationals can put up their own candidates and vote in local elections in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom government's red lines scrawled on the current EU amending treaty can be seen to be a somewhat pathetic demonstration of incompertence, an inability to understand the depth of uncontrolled commitment they and the Conservative party have made to Europe and a de facto European Constitution, thus far constructed on the basis of stealth legislation and without the approval of the people of Britain. Part 2 will set out a solution. Posted: 5th November, 2007 Updated: 5th November 2007; 9th November 2007.