Boris promises a high wage economy
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Ever the populist, Boris is trying to deflect attention from the labour shortage caused by Brexit by claiming that it was something planned as part of the transition to “a high wage” economy and has said that “business and industry should be paying people a little bit more in order to help them” deal with the rise in the cost of living. Once again he has left the Labour Party without any clothes since that was their empty promise.
Business is furious with him. Whenever have employers paid their workers more to “help them”? They are not going to pay higher wages just because he wants them to.
It wasn’t planned as can be seen from the fact that the government made no attempt to remove EU workers already established here at the time of Brexit. Just the opposite. It said they were welcome and made extensive efforts to help them get resident status. They knew they still needed them to fill low-paid jobs.
It is only now that the anti-EU immigrant worker rhetoric is being wheeled out again in a bid to win support from traditional Labour voters. And who wouldn’t want an economy that provided “high wages”? But only a fool would believe a politician who promises this.
Even those manufacturing and retail capitalists who backed Brexit are turning on Johnson for blaming business for relying on low wage immigrant labour and telling them to pay their workers more instead. They are saying he is “economically illiterate” and that “restricting migration could lead to higher inflation as increased costs would be passed on to the consumer” (“would be” is a bit of an exaggeration; “will be if market conditions allow” would be more accurate).
Mind you, inflation would lead to higher money wages.
The financiers who funded the Brexit referendum campaign are not saying anything.
Actually, all reformist politicians with their wild promises tend to be economically illiterate, but it true that Boris the Clown is more so than most.
Even those manufacturing and retail capitalists who backed Brexit are turning on Johnson for blaming business for relying on low wage immigrant labour and telling them to pay their workers more instead.
I wonder how much of a switch around we will see, with Labour becoming the “party of business”
The financiers who funded the Brexit referendum campaign are not saying anything.
But are they getting what they wanted?
On the question of wages and migration I think this article by Critisticuffs is always a good one to share:
https://critisticuffs.org/texts/immigrants-take-our-jobsHere is a silly government handout trying to sell the recent UK-Australia trade deal to the general public.
As can be seen, only 44% of exports are goods and 56% are services, most of which will be financial or legal. Since the UK basically only exports luxury products to Australia (top of the range cars, whisky, ceramics) as Australia can get ordinary stuff from much nearer (including ordinary cars), the main beneficiaries will be the financial sector.
Since higher transport costs are involved in exporting ordinary goods to places further away than the Continent, the main beneficiary of trade deals with further away countries is going to be the financial sector.
Those financiers who funded the No campaign will be satisfied with that, won’t they? And of course the threat of having to submit their financial dealings to stricter, EU rules has been removed.
As to workers, we get a wider choice to buy Australian wine (that comes by sea in huge tanks) and vegemite. Big deal !
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