There are the likes of Dennis Skinner but they are an irrelevance in the wider scheme - even Corbyn a long-time Euro sceptic went with the wind in an attempt to get elected.

Yeah that was the only thing Corbyn did where he was inauthentic and it meant he always struggled to be convincing on the Brexit issue, as his whole appeal was based on his authenticity. Boris has flip flopped on Brexit and was able to get away with it as people kind of expect him to flip flop.

I see Priti Patel following her leader by exaggerating the so called number of those eligible to work but don’t 8.4 million. These people are meant to fill the jobs of those that are no longer eligible to stay. It would appear that when you take out Students, the sick, home carers the actual number is around 33,000.
They are looking to the various companies to make the jobs more appealing so to the attract British workers. I wonder if the public realise that any increase in costs will be passed onto them, but according to the Conservatives it is a price worth paying.

Perhaps these companies need to pay remunerations that are attractive enough to get the workers they need - and we all need to pay more or find ways of reducing costs during the growing season to fund the picking?

Anyone who thinks there are only 33k people in the whole country available for work is delusional - put a million in front of it and you might be close - certainly enough spare bodies to pick the fruit/vegetable/crops.

There's already a loophole to allow the fruit & veg producers to employ seasonal workers.

The more likely outcome, if there is a shortage of workers in any particular sector, is a bit of wage inflation and while this is a good thing for those who receive higher wages, inevitably this will lead to some inflationary pressure, followed by the inevitable rise in interest rates.

It will take a little while for the ecconomy to re balance itself.

Mind you, if the UK comes under pressure following the trade deal (or lack of one), an economic reverse and a few job losses will help create a workers pool to then fil the holes.

I liked Priti Vacant's little spiel about British companies needing to train British workers up to have the skills they need, so that they can do the work which has previously been done by unskilled immigrants.

It's Schrodinger's worker - both skilled and unskilled at the same time.

Indeed - give British workers the skills they need to do work that I've just described as "low skilled." It's an interesting exercise in rhetorical gymnastics, designed for the purpose of throwing red meat to the Tory gammon base, who are still high on the prospect of booting out all the EU types.

Obviously it won't work - and when the Brit workers forced into "low skilled" work find themselves managed by the "brightest and best" immigrants, I expect there will yet another outpouring of nationalistic angst, cos they're coming over here, taking our jobs.

Meanwhile, in my sector, where we have 100k unfilled vacancies, we are now to fish in a pond of students, long term sick and family carers for our new intake. Lovely stuff.

You can already see what's coming...

Leaving the EU isn't really going to solve any domestic problems, and as soon as that becomes apparent, even to the most fanatical beleavers, the tabloids are going to need a new target. That's where the 'economically inactive' come in. Hey ho, we go full circle, and the students, the scroungers, the benefit cheats, the single parents, the ill, the sick, and the dying will once again find themselves in the cross hairs of a rabid populace.

You can already see the headline in the Daily Mail - Economically inactive single mother, who splashes benefits on widescreen TV, Ibiza holidays, and 30-a-day smoking habit, is COSTING YOU £60,000 a year.

And she's economically inactive because the local childcare provision, staffed by British workers with their newly acquired skills, are paying higher wages, so the resultant increased fees make it impossible for anyone on higher but still low wages to afford?

You are Mystic Meg and I claim my £5

I think that you are bang on.
Next thing you know is that Boris will employ an extreme right wing adviser, who advocates euthanasia for anyone who doesnt fit the "Tory ideal"
Mind you, I dont think that could happen in a civilised society

I think you make some good points - are we saying that no Brits should be expected to do unskilled labour?

My view is we don't as a nation invest enough in our workforce and we have to start somewhere. The knock on effect of that is the quality of management in this country is well below where it should and if we want to stop your scenario then we need to have good quality middle managers who can add real value and who can take their team on a quality journey.

As the saying goes "you reap what you sew"

she could always not get pregnant with kids she can't afford?

No "we're" not - I, however, am saying that the immigration policy is incoherent, runs counter to a strong economy and is based on nothing more than a desire to appease the new Tory base, which includes a significant number of people who are vocally anti-immigration. Sooner or later, it will butt up against their previous base - business - who will rail against the notion that they have to keep increasing wages; that means higher prices, or lower shareholder dividends, or both if increasing prices loses market share.

I am at the sharp end of this - we can't recruit people in the numbers we need for love nor money, despite a training and development spend that is 25% higher than our sector average, and paying hourly rates that are above the NLW. There is something about the nature of the work that we do, that many Brits feel is beneath them; or its too hard; or something else - because the H&S Care sector is currently running at 100k vacancies and rising, so it's definitely not just us. I would love to be able to recruit a few hundred migrant workers who want to make a life here - it would solve most of my problems.

I'm not sure where you get your information about the quality of L&M in the UK; it's not my experience, but I willingly admit that my experience is limited to the places/sectors I've worked in. There are always examples of people who have been promoted to the levels of their own incompetence - Priti Patel is a good one - but I don't see it as an endemic issue - and it has little to do with the subject under discussion.

Ifyou are serious, post a link to a job advert, I am sure I can find 25 applicants iF you are genuine...

Quote ="IR80"Ifyou are serious, post a link to a job advert, I am sure I can find 25 applicants iF you are genuine...'" Just have a look on the NHS website, there were approaching 100,000 vacancies in the NHS so, you are going to need to know an awful lot of people and with a diverse range of skills. https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/cgi-bin/login_applicant.cgi Fill your boots !

Quote ="IR80"Ifyou are serious, post a link to a job advert, I am sure I can find 25 applicants iF you are genuine...'" Just have a look on the NHS website, there were approaching 100,000 vacancies in the NHS so, you are going to need to know an awful lot of people and with a diverse range of skills. https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/cgi-bin/login_applicant.cgi Fill your boots !

Yes of course, because I have a genuine and sincere belief that all the expertise of an organisation turning over 49 million pounds a year, has missed something that an anonymous RL message board agitator can solve in half an hour.

The 100k figure is well publicised - feel free to Google it; but no, I won't be hiring you as a recruitment consultant, thanks all the same.

I disagree - we can't recruit at the lowest level because we cannot present a vision of what the future will be and more importantly back it up with hard facts and positive examples. Why is that we are great at innovation but we cannot turn innovation into big numbers - because we don't have the management expertise to deliver it.

Surely your industry would fall into the emergency category whereby rules would be relaxed?

If your business turnover £50m - which is similar to mine then you don't have anything like 100k vacancies - as the cost of that number at the new minimum wage of c18k would 1.8bn - so you can only be looking to recruit <100 probably <50.

Interesting conclusion drawn there Sal.

I would suggest that the opposite is true.

We have the brains, innovation and skills required but, there are far cheaper labour sources elsewhere in the world to turn ideas into "products", leaving our friends in the "East" to actually produce so many of the new products, something that the UK cannot hope to compete with.

Because detail matters.

How do economies like Germany many to have such a strong manufacturing base?

So how many vacancies do you actually have?

Traditionally they have had different industrial relations, with better collaboration between workers and management. I have some personal theories around the cultural reasons behind that, but I’d admit that they’re speculative. They also cover relative performance of England and Germany in international football tournaments and the ongoing failure of English football managers to win the Premier League, or even really compete for it.

Firstly, they didnt have to undergo the vandalism of Thatcher, secondly Enginners are highly respected and finally, apprenticeship training is valued as much as a university based education.

You are delusional if you think Thatcher caused the issues of manufacturing in this country - it was long gone well before she came to power. Labour under Wilson and Callaghan allowed union power to decimate manufacturing in this country. This along with poor management saw production move to economies that embrace investment in development of employees. It is no surprise that the examples of world class manufacturing in this country come from businesses with foreign owners who have encouraged the culture and practises of the motherland.