This article by Kenneth Bell, published on the Labour Leave site, opens with a discussion of the (contested) relationship between migrant workers and poor pay and conditions. He quotes Jeremy Corbyn, whose rhetoric veered too far in a Ukip type direction for many, on this topic.
“What there wouldn’t be is the wholesale importation of underpaid workers from central Europe in order to destroy conditions, particularly in the construction industry.”
But it’s what comes next which is truly jaw-dropping:
Today, encouraged by the EU, we live in a world of hire and fire where management can arrange with an Eastern European gangmaster to bring an army of genuine scab labourers to Britain to keep the wages down.
I can describe them as genuine scab labourers because they come from countries which had the type of economic system that we want for ourselves. One that guaranteed full employment, a functioning health service that was free at the point of use, and two weeks holiday every year at a Black Sea resort. Most important of all was the fact that management were little more than errand boys, with the major economic decisions being taken by the government and the unions.
Although he goes on to acknowledge that Eastern European countries might not have wanted to have a system imposed on them by an external power, it’s just extraordinary that he a) completely glosses over any possible flaws in the Soviet system and b) thinks this is relevant to Eastern European workers who may have at best dim memories of the Soviet era, and justifies them being termed ‘scabs’.
He compounds this dehumanising rhetoric as the article continues, launching into an invective of class hatred – ‘fairly loathsome ranks of the lower middle class’, ‘two-legged cockroaches known as management’.
If you click through to Bell’s own site you will find out more about his attitude towards ‘scabs’.
Update: The post has now been pulled from Labour Leave but can still be read here.
Alec adds: Instead of giving Ken Bell’s tawdry website traffic, I have replaced Sarah’s link with an Archive.is. Then again, what else do you expect from a man too disgusting even for UKIP?
