https://news.sky.com/story/live-juncker-gives-final-state-of-eu-address-before-brexit-11495703
âYou cannot pick and chooseâ
You MUST OBEY
Remainers be like âYes, okay, Mr Juncker. Would you like some ice in your drink or a few more Greek futures to put on the fire?â
TBF - we knew we couldnât be in the single market - thatâs been on the card for ages. However, paying for access to the markets is likely to happen.
What is interesting is that he has said
- Majority voting on Tax
- Majority voting on Foreign Policy
Another step towards complete union
This has been the entire project, from its conception in the 50s to now. Baby steps. They are playing the long game. Always have, always will, with a view to full integration.
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Youâll never get agreement on unified tax without more subsidies, Ireland would sink into the sea as would many other nations.
Pipe dream.
That is true - to have a linked tax system you have to align every area of fiscal and monetary policy, as well as ensuring each part of the EU is invested into in a realistic and fair way. You also have to devolve all the responsibilities from the local countries Governments, or youâre just adding another level of decisions and bureaucracy.
If that is what they are trying to do (and itâs a bif âifâ), itâs an unrealistic pipe-dream and weâre much better off to be out.
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Not really shocking as the numbers have been rising steadily for years. However, this has less to do with âlow wage migrants taking all the jobs, likeâ and much more to do with decreasing numbers of British youngsters entering the industry as trainees and apprentices. The gap was happily filled by EU workers who, in the main, have a good work ethic and are happy to live here, work and contribute. The reasons why there are fewer Brits coming into the industry are many and varied - there is no one specific reason, but EU migrant workers were responding to a call and, by and large, theyâve been successful. whilst there are a good deal of really decent Brit tradesmen and women, there are too many with a bad attitude and poor work ethic. Iâve seen it over many years on my sites.
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Apprenticeships disappeared because a million construction workers turned up fully trained, and willing to work at a lower rate than the domestic workforce.
I can remember shitloads of people I knew being priced out of the market a decade ago.
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@pap The CEGB Central Electricity Generating Board phased out Apprenticeships in 1982 before being sold off by the incumbent government.
Some parts of it may now be giving apprenticeships again but they will only be three year and not the four or five years you had previously.
You cant learn a trade in 2 to 3 years it takes a lifetime and some of us are still learning because you IT people keep changing things 
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Donât agree with this at all. Apprenticeships started to disappear with the rise in self employment, promoted in the 1980âs, which led to subcontracting becoming the norm and a subsequent lack of investment from Companies in training young lads / lasses. The decline has been gradual since then. Just look at the average age of the Brits on any site - 40 to 50 - the problem has been going on for a long time and is not as a direct result on EU migrant workers.
Combine this with a fragmented industry unwilling to invest in its future, snobbery towards, and a false perception of trades and a generation of youngsters choosing between freezing their bollocks off on site laying bricks or working in an office on a PC, then itâs no surprise.
Despite your assertions, most EU construction workers were, and still are, employed in the areas of the industry that require less formal training and qualifications. They also didnât work in the domestic market until relatively recently when they have set up companies themselves, but on large, usually very large, sites for contractors as labourers or for large subcontractors. I have yet to meet a Polish Gas Engineer or Sparky but there are plenty of chippies, groundworkers and labourers and bloody good lads most of them are too.
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Câmon.
Fifty percent of Londonâs construction workers are migrants. I think only Dubai imports more for that purpose.
Oi! Leave us out of this bloody threadâŚ
Sorry. Canât. The comparisons are just too numerous. Itâs not just the building trade either. If you take a look at the unskilled work, most of it is barely taxed because it falls underneath the threshold.
Weâre the Dubai for unskilled workers.
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TBH, I donât see this as an issue anyway - there are far bigger potential issues than keeping chavâs on FB and Instagram when on holiday IMHO.
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That 50% is anecdotal. The ONS latest figures say non UK construction workforce accounts for 10% of the total construction workforce in the UK. London has the greatest number by far (about 40%), but this includes Irish too, a lot of of whom have been over here for a decent amount of time and would probably fall out of some peoples assessment of âforeignâ workers. Figures for the rest of the UK show much less in terms of EU and non EU construction workers.
The 50% refers to numbers gauged by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), according to the article at least.
Hmmm, little confused here. Explain please?
You need to be a big mincer to get the joke, Cherts.
Are you a big mincer?