Medway Matters Catch-up 4th March 2014

UK to blame for its' lack of skills

Published 8th November 2013

I wasn't surprised at UKIP's response to Medway Lib Dems' letter, (October 18th) which had accurately reported a successful day of action in Gilingham High Street on jobs.

We received over 90% positive responses from the many people we spoke with, but UKIP continue to deny facts and instead, themselves become the actual scaremongers they accuse us of being.

A poll conducted by IPSOS-MORI found that four in five business leaders in the financial and professional services sector want the UK to stay in the EU.

The UK financial services sector employs over two million people and contributes billions to the economy each year.

Key to its' success is the UK's access to the EU single market and influence over its' rules. Leaving the EU would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

Regarding UKIP's rantings about 'unskilled immigrant workers', therein lies yet another myth they constantly put about. Many young EU immigrant workers are actually highly-skilled in the artisan trades, unlike us in the UK.

Successive governments over the past three decades have been pushing as many youngsters as possible into further education and on to university, partly to massage unemployment figures. This has denied youngsters the option of trade training, which would have better suited some rather than going to university and not then finding employment in their chosen subject. It would also have benefitted the UK in the long-term. But we don't hear UKIP talking about that!

Medway Council is to build affordable council houses for the first time ever since the formation of the Medway unitary council (and about time too). But what's the betting that many of the tradesmen that will be building them will be highly-skilled Europeans?

And it won't be the fault of the EU or EU immigrants, but instead, the failure of our education system and successive government policies in the recent past. Oh! by the way, remember when it used to work the other way round?

"Auf Wiedersehen pet!"