QUOTE OF THE MONTH

‘It is absolutely disgusting that this man - a criminal who acts like an animal - is shown human rights. What about my kids, my wife, my family?

I’d like these do-gooders that believe in people’s human rights to come and explain that to my children. Telling them their mum wasn’t coming back was the most terrible thing I’ve ever had to do.

If they are violent and they are asylum seekers in this country, they shouldn’t be allowed to stay here, full stop. If they had deported them my wife would still be here.

How many chances do you give people? If they’re here as asylum seekers they should abide by our laws and if they don’t abide by our laws they should be deported.’

Paul Beshenivsky, speaking about the murder of his wife by a gang of armed robbers, two of whom were so-called asylum seekers who had been allowed to stay in Britain, on supposed human rights grounds, despite a multitude of criminal convictions.

One of the gang, a so-called asylum seeker who had still not been deported even after 5 stretches in prison, has now fled back to Somalia. It is believed he left the country dressed as a Muslim woman wearing a niqab, which the authorities did not challenge out of cultural sensitivity.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

This past year has been a turning point in English politics. English opinion is now moving towards the support of an English parliament. We can surely expect to see the shift continue in 2007.

To all those who support the aims of this blog, the English Rights Campaign would wish a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

IMMIGRATION

Below is a copy of an recent article from the Daily Express:

Sacked because we are British
11/12/06
By Paul Broster

A GROUP of skilled craftsmen working on an NHS project have been sacked and their jobs given to migrant Polish workers.

The 16 glaziers were axed from a hospital construction site even though one had just won an award for his dedication and professionalism.

Polish workers are now in the jobs, leaving the sacked men to claim they are victims of cheap EU labour flooding into the UK.

One of the glaziers had been told he could look forward to another three years on the project. But two months ago, 30 Poles were employed on the site and last week Martin Kelly and his colleagues were dumped on the dole, just before Christmas.

Mr Kelly, 40, who has two young sons, says he had paid the price of being a “British worker on a British wage”.

The sackings come weeks after experts said migrants from Eastern Europe were to blame for UK unemployment soaring to its highest for seven years.

Since the expansion of the EU two years ago, thousands of workers from countries such as Poland have come to Britain and been taken on by firms seeking to slash costs.

There is rising concern that Romanian and Bulgarian workers will pour into the UK after those countries join the EU on January 1. Even well-paid East Europeans earn a pittance in UK terms –– the average salary in Poland is £4,700 a year.

Yesterday, Mr Kelly, who has not been out of work since he left school, said he was shattered at the prospect of telling his sons he was on the dole.

When he was taken on by contractors at the site in Manchester, he was told his £38,000-a-year job was likely to last until 2010.

He was given a health and safety award by a construction company for his skill operating a tower crane putting cladding on the new state-of-the-art hospital in the city centre.

Mr Kelly, from Stockport, said: “I’ve worked hard all my life but now I’ve been got rid of for one reason –– I’m a British worker in Britain on a British wage but I’m more expensive than someone in Poland.

“I’ve also voted Labour all my life but I’ll never vote for them again. Tony Blair is letting people like me down. A lot of us are family men who now have to go back and tell them just before Christmas that we’ve been fired.”

The hospital is being built for the NHS by Bovis Lend Lease, which has sub-contracted some of the work, including the cladding, to Dutch firm Scheldebouw.
Scheldebouw employed the 16 glaziers. Bovis confirmed their contracts had been terminated. It said the Polish glaziers had been hired two months earlier and insisted they were skilled and “paid in line” with other workers on site.

The 16 sacked Britons would be replaced by men who “may be Poles or may be British –– that is up to Scheldebouw”.

No one at Scheldebouw or NHS North West was unavailable for comment. Officials from the sacked men’s union, UCATT, are due to meet bosses from Bovis and Scheldebouw today.

MigrationWatch UK said: “If Poles find themselves facing low wages in their own country, they are all the more likely to come to Britain, where wages are four or five times more.”

Tory MP David Davies said the sackings “demonstrate the folly of Britain’s immigration policy”. He added: “It makes me mad to see anyone lose their jobs two weeks before Christmas. How are they going to feed their families?

“It also angers me that the Government claim we need all these migrant workers for their skills.

“Well, clearly, we had the skills already, in the form of these British workers who have now been sacked.

“Economically it makes no sense either as British people have to pick up the bill for their health care and children’’s education.

“All these workers who come cheaper will just drive down wages in this country and more people will find themselves on the dole.”

Fellow Tory MP Mike Penning said: “This is outrageous. We were promised by the Government categorically that EU workers were only coming into Britain when we had a job shortfall –– not create job shortages.

“It is wrong and as it is an NHS project I would expect the Government to give these people their jobs back.”

Labour chairman Hazel Blears admitted yesterday that Government claims that immigration helps the economy do not hold sway with voters.

In a move which may anger Cabinet colleagues, she also warned that immigration was set to explode as an issue before the next election.

She said: “Labour must address concerns about immigration head on. We must listen to people telling us they feel insecure.”

NATIONALISATION OF THE FAMILY

Below is a copy of an article which appeared in yesterday’s Sunday Times:

The Sunday Times
December 03, 2006
Britain's high dole money 'pushing families to break up'
Roger Dobson and Tom Baird

BRITAIN’S generous unemployment benefits may be pushing families towards break-up, a new study has suggested.

High dole payments and the relative ease of qualifying for them mean unemployed people in the UK are far less dependent on the family than elsewhere.

The academics who compiled the research found benefit levels were higher and family cohesiveness lower in Britain than in any of the other countries studied - America, Italy and Spain.

“One possibility is that those [family] networks may have been weakened by the generosity of the welfare state in Britain,” said Samuel Bentolila, professor of economics at the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, who led the research.

The new study adds to a growing body of research linking benefit payments to family break-up. A 14-country study earlier this year based on European Union figures found Britain had the highest rates of benefits for single mothers and the highest rate of lone-parent families in Europe, and argued that benefits provided an incentive for women to bring up a child alone.

The study found curbs on benefits in the other countries did not increase poverty. Instead, unemployed people in the other countries had incomes just as high as those on the dole in Britain, who are paid £57.45 a week in jobseeker’s allowance if they are 25 or over.

This suggests that in many cases unemployment benefits simply replace a “safety net” that the family is quite capable of providing. “Strong family networks are vital for a healthy society but are increasingly vulnerable in Britain,” said Anastasia de Waal, head of family research at the social affairs think tank Civitas. “These findings suggest lower benefits abroad have not resulted in greater deprivation.”

The study shows people in Britain are the least likely to live near relatives, share a home with family members or have older children living at home. Families in Spain are three times more likely to have a son or daughter over 25 living at home than in Britain.

Some of the most striking contrasts are with Italy, where unemployed people are nine times more likely to be helped by their relations than in Britain where only one in 100 receives family assistance.

Even in America, often assumed to have a social structure closer to that of Britain than that of Mediterranean countries, three times as many people are helped by their families as in this country.

Researchers also found three times as many people who are unemployed get state benefit in Britain compared with Italy.
Although the most recent data that are fully comparable come from the late 1990s, the researchers argue that the situation has hardly changed since then.

They found that 9% of unemployed Italian breadwinners received financial help from relatives living elsewhere, compared with 5% in Spain, 3% in America and just 1% in Britain.

Proportions of the unemployed getting benefits are also much lower in Italy and Spain than in the UK. Here, 79% get benefits compared with 27% in Italy, 57% in Spain, and 66% in America.

However, Chris Pond, chief executive of the National Council for One Parent Families, warned that the study should not be used as an argument to cut benefits.

“If we look at family make-up, the argument is often that lone parenthood is the result of generous benefits. But you then have to explain why the number of lone parents increased so sharply in the 1980s and early 1990s when welfare benefits were being restricted.”