Mass Migration and Future Leadership

The telegraph happens when a telegraph journalist on the right, me, takes on a former union boss in Mick Lynch. We have a great discussion about the issues employment, trade unions, and the telegraph support of reform which we don't support, by the way Welcome to the Daily Team with me, Camilla Tomini. Am me, Mick Lynch Mick Lynch, lovely to see you in the Daily T studio. Are you feeling alright as a former can I call you a union baron? Is that what you're call? You can't call me a union baron. I was elected by the members. Baronons as we know are her regedistary. They are heristary. All right, union former union boss, do you feel a bit icky being next to the telegraph logo? Are you going lose street cred with members Itll probably give me cred. I worked at the telegraph in the nineteen eighties. Really? What did it do? Beacause I was an electrician. We installed the presses at West Ferry when we came out of Fleet Street. Well, there you have it. And I work for a company that specialised in printing presses. Well, you've told me something surprising I at the FT? Were you? And the morning star Of course you were. I bet you preferred the morning star when came to real. say to me, I just got dirty every day Well, you've told me something surprising. Do you want to hear something surprising from me? Gormin. I was in a union once. And I went on strike. G. I was in the National Union of Journalists who went on strike against Richard Desmond's pay cut And I was little my union life my life in the union didn't last long because whereas I went on the picket line with signs and things the mother of the chapel, then, Michelle Stanish Street and a General Secretary. Indeed. Nobody else came out. They all just work from home and I thought, this isn't collectivism. That's not the way works. No'veer Go out and do your thing. If you voted to strike, you physically strike or you don't. I thought Absolutely. That's the advantage of a railway. it's a very physical thing, so that's true. And we'll get on to strike action and public sector pay and all the rest of it in just a minute, but can we talk about the labour leadership? Be Quite a few unions last week came out against Kirstarmer. basasically saying, look, we don't support you anymore. Did they ever? I don't know, Mick. Well, we were always worried about K Starmer because we were on strike, as many of your viewers and listeners will know under the last legs of the Tory government when Grant Schpps was the transport minister for a few weeks and a few months There was a roundabout of people com in and out of the job. So all through the the dog days of the last Torory government, we were in that big dispute, which I'm not going to go back into, but we were in it And unions were getting a bit itchy about Starmmer because He's a nice guy, apparently. I've met him a couple of times very briefly. But he doesn't seem to believe in anything And I think It doesn't matter what side you're on in politics. you have to have bone of belief in some principle things. Even if you can't achieve those principles, you have to believe in something and it's quite hard to pin down Kir Starmer is. So for labour movement people and most unions aren't affiliated to labour They want to know what do you actually believe in. So for me it' seems like very pragmatic things like council housing rather than Social housing, as they call it, I want councils to be able to build houses. all properties and homes. I believe in a bit of public ownership Yes. Now that doesn't mean I want to nationalize the whole economy But I do believe the state has got to intervene and water and railways has been a One that many people can see both sides of the argument on that. Not everyone supports it, but you'd expect the labour politician to say, yeah, I believe in these five things, whatever they are. Yes. You know poty the abolition of poverty is a big one for. It's an obvious one, isn' it?. And it doesn't seem to ever say that. And we were saying in the run up in speeches I was making, Come on Kia Tell us what you believe in becausecause actual policies and actions in government are all blown off course anyway. You can write down in a big manifesto I'm going to do but A B, C and D. But as we've seen over the last few months that can get blown out by things you've never thought of. and, you know, as McMillan famously said, events. events And your policy doesn't your actual detailed policy doesn't normally stand the test of time Whereas your beliefs will should be with you modified, of course occasionally, they should be re it the whole time. So was I didn't think Starmer would last the course if I wantoned you. And you were right. Well, to be fair, he's still clinging on, but it's looking terminal. Lord Glasman, the labour peer, describes Kir Starmer as Lanyard class And he doubts whether he fulfills his self styled working class credentials. He's constantly banging on about being the son of a toolmaker. O, fair enough. Do you regard him to be working class, Mig? Well, I think he's working class origins, but once you're in power, you're probably not. if you're running the government, you're probably not wororking class. I believe most people are working class. if you don't own Am I working class? Yeah. if you don't own the means of production maybe you do I don't know M maybe you've got to share own in this organisation. Iadly not no. If you're not in ownership or control of the means of production, you are working class. If you have to get up When the alarm clock rings and go out and do a job and you depend on your earnings rather than your assets for your lifestyle or just for your existence in many people's cases, you are working class. So it doesn't matter whether you're blue collar or white collar. Not to me, no, and it's not manners or accent. it's where you are in the economic system Yes that makes you working class. Now lots of people don't like that And I don't go along with this it's a massive badge of pride to be working class. You just we all have to go to work And everybody should be able to go to work and should go to work when they get the opportunity. I'm quite old fashioned like that. Yes, I believe the dignity of labour Well paid labor, hopefully, in most cases. But you know that you're sounding like a little bit Nigel Farage keeps on banging on about alarm clock Britain. He's talking about people in work versus people in welfare. You'll be familiar with the slight change in tone in rhetoric ammong funny enough, the working classes about those in welfare. You might have noticed a few videos popping up by brick laayers, electricians like yourself and plumbers saying, well I get up at five AM because I've got a benefits bill to pay. Yeah, and they been they've been cajoled into doing that by organisations such as yours. because' on M people are on benefits. canan I just clarify something? Absolutely not. I'm talking about bricklay. Oh they're simultaneous, aren't they? Well, yeah, most people who are online and filming funny videos certainly aren't do it with the S so of the teelegraph. What I'm saying is you can have some sympathy position of the hard working man or woman. I do. Who think their taxes may be increasingly being spent on welfare cl. So what we've got to do is not divide people on the basis of whether they've got a job at the moment or not, whether whatever their identity is or where they come from We've got to make sure that everybody gets the opportunity to get a job and it's a a meaningful, well paid job of a bit of job security so they can move off benefits. Yeah. But if you're better off the person who had the biggest transition to benefits. system in this country was, of course, Margaret Thatcher. the benefits bill up massively because you wanted to move people off the unemployment basis onto other welfare benefits. So politicians played tricks with that But one of the main problems in this country, I believe, is low paid work whereere businesses and this is not a criticism of people, entrepreneurs and so on that are running low margin businesses But we do have an economy where very many businesses are on tiny margins and exist solely because they're paying such low wages. And it's because those wages are so low, it's difficult to make the transition. from welfare benefits to the benefits of being in work And often it's very punishing and you got these You get these graphs that are produced every now and again, if you do more than sixteen hours or whatever the number is these days It has been typically sixty hours they punish you for taking on part time work or taking on casual workes or temporary work Now we've got to have a system that deals with that and you've got to have some technical people that can come up with some systems that can say I'm going to encourage you to get a job. I'm not going to punish you if that doesn't work. Now Brick laers and plumbers and carpenters that I used to work with. They very u displeased If their sister or their children, or their in laws or their friends, were taken off benefits harshly punished just because they've got an issue. So we've got to find a system that rewards work. Now that's a very old fashioned social democratic position that most working class people believe in I don't believe in just having wealthf fare for the sake of it I believe in good jobs paying people a proper wage so they can survive in this economy, but in the town we're in today Being on minimum wage is no fun at all. No. And there are millions of people doing that by the way. Well, let's talk about the minimum wage because this week labour have been rocked by a particular statistic, which is that youth unemployment is at an eleven year high a consequence of the minimum wage going on. For reasons that you'll know, Mick, let's use the example of my seventeen year old daughter who works in a pub. If her wages go up, then the person above her wages has to go up, the chef's wages have to go up, etcetera, etca. And that might make the pub It might make it difficult for the landlord of that pub to employ as many people all on a higher salary. Therefore the landlord turns around. Th pubs are' run by landlords. You're living in bit of old My local pub is. They then might turn around to my daughter or somebody on the bottom rung of the ladder, usually a seventeen or eighteen year old or are doing pot washing or whatever and said, you know what? Because the minimum wage has gone up, we can no longer afford to employ you, so you're gone. And the capitalist argument would be, surely it's better to have five employees on a slightly lower wage than three on a slightly higher one, simply because To make your argument, we want more people in work, not least young people. many working on minimum wage and working on living wage as it is in London in some cases. are working for mega corporations. Yeah. So if you take I will give you a company at random we usually with mighty that does cleaning all over and services, maybe even in this building Certainly in Victoria Station out there. is a mega company where the chief executive is paid five million pounds a year. He won't move people off the minimum wage because of these arguments. and he will if it's government mandated. He can well but he'll still keep people off on the minimum wage. You won't pay more because all these contracts are based on undercutting each other. And the only way toort to ensure that there isn't constant undercutting and actually a lowering of wages, which is what we faced in the eighties. beforefore Blairport brought in the minimum wage was a constant decline in earnings. for lower paid people and people outside big institutions. So you've got to get a balance right. I don't accept that all of the costs on businesses and all of the reasons that they're making people unemployed or not hiring down to the very poor minimum wage that we have. Okay. But because you can't survive on a minimum wage in London? So say if you took quite a socialist standpoint, say a policy that's adopted by the Green Party, which is to cap the highest earnings in any company. Surely if you're going to say that no CEO should earn over, let's just pluck a figure out the sky, a million Shouldn't you also apply that to the lower rungs of the ladder and say that actually a cleaner of Victoria Station should never earn more than X proportionately I mean, is the X? Well, I'm saying never earn X more than ever. Why would you say that Be half the time they want me to do loads of overshop. Should a cleaner at Victoria Station earn a hundred grand a year? Well, if they could earn it, they could. But they won't be able toain. for me, these sorts of arguments about chief executives salies are irrelevant because they'll get round it anyway. I think that that justing ten to one that's just symbolic. It doesn't change the nature of the systemion. not support that that. I just don't think it's a relevant policy. I think it's a symbolic policy. But is I believe in pragmatic solution based If we're going to be pragmatists and we're going to be realists rather than idealists Isn't it right to suggest that there's only so much a cleaner will ever earn in the same way that there's only so much A railway worker will ever earn We accept that. We accept that the wages are there to be negotiated. Of course the minimum wage isn't negotiated. it's set by sure committee people in one way or another. It's set by the government ultimately, but it' advisors that come into that And it doesn't always go up in the way it's gone The reason it's gone up lately is because it was so low before So the steps have had to be bigger to keep up with its previous value So there hasn't been a wage price spiral as people keep telling us Wages were actually in decline. for quite a long time and the minimum wage has had to catch up lately because it was so far behind. it does go back to the point I make. has gone up, hasn't it? More It went down for a very long time. Okay, but I think the counter narrative forget about George Osborne. Well, who how public sector Ge Public sector pay at zero or one percent for a very, very long time And if you take people out the armed forces and the police, the reason they couldn't get people into the armed forces And my unions section of the the deffense forces, the Royal Fleet auxiliary, they cannot get anyone to join them because the wages are so poor for skilled, highly committed jobs that's down to previous on public sef. We spoke to a military chief recently who said actually arrmy recruitment was up. The difference between your profession and indeed your union profession and indeed the arrmy is of course they're bann from going on strike. Yeah when I was in negotiating with the MOD in the Uh, Lord. Admiral's office Y on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary pay, I made the argument for sailors and soldiers. and aircraft people to get a proper rise. But notwithstanding your point about the a They were suppressed for so long, That's my point. Okay, so wages are suppressed for so long but subsequently they go up and they continue to go up The counter strike argument is as follows, public sector pay has never been higher conditions have never been' been higher competitive. We've now got an employee rights bill that entrenches more workers' rights into legislation And yet, despite all this continue to go on strikke, threaten strike action. When does it ever end? I mean, you must admit now It ends when you get agreements. You must ad must admit now of a rail worker today in twenty twenty six made leaps and bounds compared to the The rail workers out eighty Ril workers out in Victoria Station who clean it will be on the minimum wage. Okay. So they're not The recent strikes haven't been about them, have they? Well' been about drivers and station staff. The ones with network rail and the train operating companies were generally about those kinds of staff. Yes. But the average wage, the average salary during that dispute was around thirty five thousand pounds despite what people like the teelegraph and the right wing media were saying.act. Let' let's look at the pay that that RMT members particularly have seen since twenty twenty three We've got nine percent over two years, some lowest paid workers reportedly seeing increases of up to fourteen point four percent. We've had a four point seven five percent backdated rise, another four point five percent rise. This is in twenty twenty four. Network rail staff have separately secured four point five percent. Then we look to great advert for our union. six point five percent I think the public the hard working commuter because let's be honest, commuters are workers too. they might not belong to unions, but they've got their own rights They'll see with great relief this week, the tube strike being cancelled. Thank goodness, I'm not going to be grotesquely inconvenienced and held to ransom by people to. Well, you are, if you can't use a tube. It's a bit of a cliche.obbody can't use to ransom arethough? Well' I'm talking about They're exercising they're exercising a human right. draw their cl That's how people feel that they are treated by rail workers. It's people like the teelegraph that keep perpetuating this cliche. It is a freedom. We don't perpetuate it. We just reflect what our readers, listeners and viewers think. and they think, hang on a minute We've now got tube drivers earning Almost eighty grand a year. We've had all of these p public the driver earning that money? Well, why doesn't a bus driver earn that money? Because they're not unionised I suppose they are unionised, but they the country to ransom as rail workers do. There's been plenty of bus strikes over the last two three years. But they'll say, hang on a minute is well up Conditions are much improved. We've also got it enshrined in legislation Why are you still all going on strike every five minutes? We're not going on strike every five minutes. It feels like that. No Why are you regularly still striking? you when as you yourself have said, you've secured all these pay rises now. When we have a dispute with an employer, we have to go for an enormous a set of loops and hurdles get through the legislation, which is still largely The Tory legislation has been in since eighty one, Tbit's law and all the successive pieces of legislation. All Rin's law now, but go on. Well it doesn't really affect the strike legislation. It improves the rights of workers, doesn't it? Yeah, but not really the strike legislation. It's pretty much the same as it was before. There was a few bits of tinkering in. But anyway, around the edges Reord high pay and record good conditions and still Most people's pay in absolute terms, is that a record high Be it's higher than it was in eighteen seventy four.. It's not they're not record higher rates of pay compared to where the economy's gone.. And hardly any of those pay deals that you mentioned were above the prevailing rate of inflation. So the settlement quuite hard to have The settlement high inflation link pay rises when inflation goes completely bonkers. Well the in COVID and beyond is it the settlement the settlement that we achieved at the end of the dispute which is a free year deal in all because we hadn't had a pay rise for few years. There was no pay at all. was In total, about fifteen point one percent That's over three years. than the inflation rate the inflation rate M I imagine. The inflation rate was twenty eight percent.. So we were about half. Do you agree that private sector workers Unrealistic Private sector workers need to be organized into efficient and effective trade unions so that they're organised so that they get a decent set of terms and conditions and pay. But just in answer to the question then, when you make these pay, you settle these pay disputes and you get the pay rise you want and indeed you insist on better conditions get a pay rise we can agree. Yes, you just keep on striking anyway We haven't had a strike on network rail or a train operating companies since that dispute would I retire? Okay. So we can expect no more strikes on the main railways then because you't manage another it depends what the main railways do. Well the other example, I suppose, the classic example would be junior stroke resident as they like to be called doctors. You know, they settle a pay claim and then they still go on strike and threaten more strike action afterwards. You can understand They settled a pay claim and then there was subsequent years. Okay anything the public's frustration. Hang on. haven't we just given them a record breaking pay rise public? Still, they're not in hospital. Public will be more frustrated when people lose leave the profession and go to Australia and New Zealand and Canada which is where many, many of them are going. Yeah because they thats too much, right because of socialism We haven't got socialism ax isn't's not more socialism than did't me. No, we don't know we don't. I mean, maybe that's not the reason they're going to Australia. It's the prevailing rate of pay and the conditions under which they have to work. That's the ones I speak to. I know people that have gone personally know them. they said it's There's too much pressure on them here And for what they get they could get more elsewhere. Wh? Why then in twenty twenty four was that deal accepted by sixty six percent of members? Junior doctors were offered twenty two thats for the dealcent That's for the deal that was due at that time. I just feel like the goalposts are constantly shifting. Is it just the union way that at the end of the day you exist to threaten industrial action in order to get your workers more money regardless of whether they've already been given a load of money. Papers like the teelegraph exist seemingly to pump out these cliches They're not unions cause trouble that union just say clichess cliches. It's because everybody believes the no inside of the argument. you keep repeating them. But this is but can't you just answer this kind of never ending industrial action the modus operanum someome of the lowest levels of industrial action in this country better tor than we've ever had Really justust in Britain in the British context And why do you think that is? Because successive governments have given public sector workers more pay? No it's because of the anti trade union laws and union membership is lower than it once was. Would you runather the law strike? When union membership was higher workers pay relative to the rest of the economy was higher and there was greater levels of equality in this country I'd rather not have any strikes Really? Absolutely. I'd rather that we ran the economy and ran society in a way where we didn't need strikes. Yes. But it doesn't work like that at the moment You'd think that employers don't ever do anything wrong in your Oh God, I know world and the governments don't ever do anything wrong. I want a minute Mick Lynch. Did't I just tell you that when I was working under Richard Desmond, I went on strike, sububsequently, Reach took over, exppress newspapers and things became even worse, even though by then they were publishing probably your second favorite newspaper after the morning star, The Daily Mirror. But that's another story. No, I appreciate that employers can take staff for a ride. and I believe that workers should be reumerated. I also believe that they should be remumerated attractively to get them into work and not to be reliant on benefits We agree on all that. I'm merely making the point that the perception is that actually public sector pay is now much better than it was, that conditions are much better than they were, not least after Angela Ryna's emmployees Rights Bill. And therefore, if you're just trying to do a day's work on a tube and you see that yet again, strike action is looming And you know that train drivers are now earning eighty grand, you're scratching your head thinking, what's this all about But whyy? What more do you? We don't only represent train drivers. I'm starters. We represent everybody on the railway. And many of them are very modestly paid and some of them are quite low paid Much of the action we take is to try and ensure that we bring those people with us and not just allow the employers pick out certain grades in certain sectors and pay them a disadvantage to others. So We're quite proud of the work we do. I'm quite proud of the way we stood up in that recent dispute were things that weren't to do with pay. because we were constantly saying that this government intends to close every ticket office intends to make ghost towns of big railway stations and local stations and we got a lot of support on our ticket office campaign in the Shires and in the towns. I think people want to physically see someone. Absolutely. agree with you. We want to return to a human faced society and a human faced economy and the services that we work on and have to use because they're essential services are staffed and are friendly and feel like a safe, positive place to be. Now many places are was just out in Victoria Station there, it's quite calm. Everything's running on time and people seeming happy was just a vibe in the place. But it can turn to a stressful situation for all sorts of reasons And that's when you need the staff then did you grimace when I mentioned Farraage? He wants to renice steel Okay. He's got kind of JD Vancien policies about kind of restoring the British equivalent of the Rust Belt America. He's quite interested in the idea of the worker taking precedence. and he's said that a lot. He's talked, as I said earlier about alarm clock Britain He's pro drilling in the North Sea. and let's be honest, you do have members because they've come up to me at shock horror Labour conferences and say thank you to the teelegraph for standing up for the workers who are drilling for oil and gas. And I've said, Okay, fine, you know, that's a funny situation to be in Mick Yeah, but those politicians on the right of society didn't do anything about the transition when the Northse was closing to get those people into jobs where they could work on the new technology and the new energy format. Our position is simple. We think carbon is is going to fade out eventually, just because of natural causes, if you like, you have to plan for that. So you need a mixed balance of energy sources. The question of whether there's new drilling. in the North Sea is not going to resolve the issues that are around in the immediate present time. You won't get any reduction in petrol prices or energy prices if you started to give out new licenses tomorrow Now I'm not on top of all the politics of that But I know that it won't resolve it immediately So we've got members that work in the alternative energy section on the wind farms and so on And we've got members who work out on the rigs on the North Sea and work all around the world. We represent all the deep sea divers and welders that work on oil and gas all over the world. We want to see those people have a future., but we also want to see the planet being looked after I think you can do that without the hysteria that is somehow in some sections of the media. you've got to take a very pragmatic approach. We need energy security, which means producing it on the UK surface, on the UK seabed and everywhere else. I think that can be done If we just take the long term view and start stop froting at the mouth every time somebody offers a fairly straightforward pragmatic approach to energy supply. I mean, I think There seems to be something nonsensical about the announcement this week that We're sanctioning our own oil and gas because we're not issuing more licenses. And then we're taking it from Russia. You're following in you're following in the st's bonkers foollowing the steps of Donald Trump for some reason. who did exactly the same thing two weeks before.. Back to your question though about Farage, I don't trust Farraage at all. I think he's going to unleash A torrent of racism and a torrent of division which will put us society in our country into the dark ages. The voters If he achieves power. The voters don't agree with you though, do they? in northern heartlands that have just all been turned up. And if you look, we've done the polling the TUC, extensive polling. amongst those working class constituents constituents and constituencies. All of the values that they have, apart from the stuff on immigration. and those types of issues are all what you would call old labor issues They want a tax and spend Chancellor, they want public services in public ownership and they want this country to have an industrial plan. What we've elect Since Margaret Thatcher is an industrial plan for this country, we've turned on into an offshore financial economy which doesn't help working class people who need to work with their hands need to work in a manual economy. We've destroyed that And the Conservative partarty and Blair sent these jobs to the F East.. They did it deliberately as a plan Nil Farr.ledge Nigel Far. Aaron Brown doubled down on that. Absolutely. L There were a few Brown privatised There's theube. There's the Nissan plant in Sunderland. There's the sale of cououncil homes, which gave people a generational inheritance, but let's not sale of Council Homes is one of the biggest disasters in this country's history. It a acc to those who bought them. Yes, they could have been allowed to buy them But what did that to do with the money? She said it cannot be used to build houses What was then happened was that the rate payer was subsidized through the sale of council houses. We've got a crisis in housing because we haven't got a balanced economy in housing. We should have house buyers and holders, we should have a small private rented sector for the fluidity that you need in the economy, and we should have a large municipal owned council housing sector which would give income over a hundred years to councils and would give a supply of housing that would be beneficial to many people. Exporting our manufacturing base to the Far East, I agree. Okay It Well, she was doing what Western Europe and North America were doing at the same time, right? It became cheaper to make the one that here was Thatcher. OkayK, that's fine, Mick, and I appreciate that But the other big elephant in the room here that you're not addressing is mass migration since nineteen ninety seven Now, the so called indigenous British work. Wh don dot have to address it? Well, I think you do because I think the indigenous British worker might ar So this is a capitalist mechanism.m. Mass migration. problem that people came in and undercut their mass migration. And by the way, leapfrogg them on housing lists. Mass migration is a mechanism of the capitalist economy ind Do you agree with mass migration It's a natural facet of what's been going on. But did it go too far? Well, you'd have to ask George Osborne. do you? And David Cameron, who introduced this policy started it didn't Well, Blair had a policy about migration that was a successor to the single market economy? who started the UK before Wh brought us into the single market? twenty five thousand? Who brought us into the? twentyw five years afterwards, seven million, Mick. So you telling me your members don't feel that immigration has failed. Who brought us into the single market and the f freedoms, including the free movement of labour. The Conservative Party and the Masteric Treaty and all the single m Gree brown double down was a thatcherite policy. Okay. And it was delivered. now. Hang on. Yeah on. I don't believe in blaming people who' migrated to this country, including my parents to seek a better life. fromrom Iland to country. During the war? during the war and have given A family of five an opportunity, right I don't believe in blaming people because they're serving the economy that capitalism tated in this country It's the capitalist economy that has demanded this labour, much of which is the low wage economy. Exactly. So capitalist economy also emptied emptied. mass migration could have driven wages down. C capitalist economy has also emptied The factories and mills this country Has mass migration driven wages down Well, we'll have to see, I don't know. have you've got the facts and figures? Well, I think it's been suggested that it has Well who is suggesting? Well, you could ask for it is suggesting You could ask for when we try to regulateder Back in the Nies, whether they were being undercut by Romanians and Pers. we tried to regulate same When we tried to regulate that through trade union negotiation and trade union ion You decry it Because we don't ask people what color they are or where they've come from.. I remember working on building sites in the eighties is London where London workers were saying we shouldn't allow these northerners onto our sites.. But then the other shouldn't allow Geordies and Scotch people've c you've cited your hard working parents. donon't you think that there is an argument to suggest that when it comes to immigration policy, one must favoritize quality over quantity. that if people come here and make a contion I'm not going down the road that the telegraph The teelegraph seems to be preparing it they aren't working and they're taking for rather than preparing itself problem signed up affiliate of reform? No. And all of the racism and disunity that's going to cause This is what I see coming out of the telegraph every dayick is making space for racism. No, absolutely not. Be funny enough, many telegraphs Racism is int e of the beholder. No, no I think you're bigger than that, Mic. I think reaching for the racism lever when somebody suggests that perhaps mass migration did contribute to a lowering of unskilled workers' wages and indeed more people on housing lists that might have challenged those who wanted to get the housing you talked about. There isn't any council housing. It's not isn't any counilousing. M Let me finish because Mararet actually sold it all. Let me finish. To then sort of cry racis and bigger, justust to clarify, no, we're not affiliated with the form. You're on the wayate many many readers do not support. My predict is that you will support reform at the next election. Right Well you make that prediction. You say me, I'm not in charge of this newspaper. You're representing this paper. Right. I'm representing this paper and I'm trying to push. I think you'll be fully signed up for reform project. When people say that perhaps mass migration into this country, particularly of low skilled workers They have dere They said wages may have put extra pressure. They said that public services. They said that in the eighteen forties when the Irish had to come here. a racist boy. h The Irisht had to come here because of the famine created by the landlords in Ireland in the eighteen forties. Sure. They said that in every town in Britain that they're undermining the wages What people are worried about people coming here Are you saying that people that have migrated to this country don't contribute? Some of them don't because they're not working Well, maybe they're not able to work. Okay. But you seem to be making this generalization that migrant people Some people that have immigrated over the last Some British years some don't. Yeah. So why do you make a distinction about them people in work are out of work? Well What difference that color or origin make? It doesn't make any difference. I'm not Well you've made a distinction. No, because I made the distinction between peopleeople who come here and make a contribution to the economy and society. What about people are born here that don't make a contribution to society? Well, I have the same concerns about them. So why make a distinction? Because you and I started this podcast talking about people who worked and made a contribution. So why do you make a distinction based on people's origin? Because I'm saying that we've had a mass influx of If you make a distinctionillions a person choosesry If a person housing lists and public services And therefore, it's put pressure on the economy because we need more people in the public sector to cope with that. and then we need a person such as you Yes. an educated person. Aadite. Barely chooses to make a distinction about people basis of their ethnic or national origin I would say that you're on the path to racism. No, I'm making a distinction Wh which is what Farraage showves. No, no. you're misunderstanding me. I'm making an assessment of both indigenous Brits if we can call them that, and indeed I don't know what an Indigenousrit is. It's somebody's born Am I an indigenous Brit? Were you born in Britain or Ireland? I was born Brain. Okay, so you're Indigenous. Yeah, that's I mean a British born person, Mick versus a foreign born person. I'm trying to start It's foreigners you're talking about then. I'm talking about you're makeaking a distinction M based on So foreigners are somehow different to British people. Mick, I don't know why you're going down this bizarre line It's your line that's bizarre. No. You choose to make distinctions about people mistake based on their origin.ick. I'm sorry. This is actually getting slightly preposterous. You've reached for the because I don't agree with you, because you're on the right, you're a racist and a bigot. And I'm saying that's not the point I'm trying to make. I'm actually trying to align with the point you made at the very beginning of this daily tea Which is that we want to see as many people in work as possible.. So I'm saying that in order to dont we don't want to distinguish based on their background or ethnicity. But I'm not I'm saying we need to distinguish people as to the contribution that we need to encourage them to make to the economy. What you do?body a non contribution that could be you do somebody who's in a job taxpayers, workers have to pay for That's why the tax you're what're not Nick. if you Let me ask you this, would you rather workers paid more tax? less Letess address your point. We're doing socialism versus capitalism. We need to pay the right tax serv is evil or racist versus non racist. We need to pay. We need to pay the right tax to run the services that right everyone. I don't know. it depends on the services. C's atim high. It's nearly in the forties. Should it be in the fif ind? Iigenous person, as you called them I Indigenous British person. Indigenous is their job for dis their job and has to go has to go on unemployment benefit. Yes. Compared to a foreigner. Yes Dould you do something about that foreigna that is different indigous need benefits, who cannot work But you've made a distinction about the indigoussw the quest. Well, you've been talking over me. Well, we're having a discussion here. Let me answer that question. I think if somebody genuinely needs employment benefit because for some reason they cannot work due to a physical or mental health problem that is so substantial it prevents them from there are no jobs Well, that's a different thing because they're getting employment benefit. but you were talking about sick there, I think. Then of course benefits Well, there are two distinctions out there. There is a sick benefit and there is indeedfit If you've got a s not an indigenous person, what do you do with them If you've got a sick, non indigenous person, I have no problem at all if they have the right to claim benefits to claim benefits. No get benefits youven't got the right to. I'm making an economic argument here, Mick. It's nothing to do with the race of the person. I'm asking you still the one that brought this in? Because you haven't answered the question. You've brought in this point that somehow people are different Can you answer this following question without pointing racist and beger and suggesting that I am somehow the incarnation of Nigel Farraage? It's a really simple question. I think you're a fellow traveller. Has you don' have Nigel Farraage?. Yout know me very well, then Mick. Well, I've seen your paper. Right, oK. but I'm not'ming out Farraage andform every day It' actually described more like a Kemy fan girl than a Nigel one. But there you have it. It'll go that way as well, eventually I'm not you need a coalition? I'm not sure about that I don't think she'll be the one I think it will be Farraage needing the coalition. But I just asked you a couple of questions just about mass migration. Did you think it had depressed low skilled wages? and did you think it put pressure on public services? That was. No I think companies depress wages. Really? Y Well as companies pay the wages? Yes So they're the ones that suppress wages. But you don't think that wages get suppressed if people come in offering their services at a cut price. Well, they're not wages. arere they're services that self employment you're talking about. But if people say wages some companies I'll build you a brick wall for four hundred quid and somebody says, I'll do it for two hundred. Wellr maybe you've got look at the quality of that. it's up to the cld.'s navig's to It's up to the client what they engage on. Most of these people that engage in these services at these cut prices would have been your indigenous British person. Okay, I don't know why you've got a problem. Indigenous is just another word thought born in. I'm surprised you've brought it. Be it's quite a strange thing to say about people to classify them as either indigenous or foreign which is a distinction you made. S shouldould I have said British or foreign. I don't know. I don't I don't know why you're so because we were talking about I don't know why you're so off on people's origins and where they've come from. It wasn't to make a distinction about about the effect of mass migration into this country since nineteen ninety seven. Final question You were worried at the beginning or you said you were always worried about Starmer's lack of ideological grounding. Are you convinced that Andy Burnham has got an ideology? Well, it's not ideology, it's principles is what I mean. I'm not a person who's got an ideology. It's what they believe in. They' belief He has principles. I think he's got some principles are more attractive. The things he's been saying in the last few weeks and since I've known him public ownership and about the way services are run The way the economyies run investment and getting an industrial strategy in this country are very positive things. I've never heard that from Starmer or Redves or anyone on that side of the lour He's the pick of the bunch when it comes to being the Labour leader and the Fom I've seen the future Fom what I've seen. M Lynch It's been feisty, has' it? I've enjoyed. Peppery. Peppery um ut a whole load of chilli sauce on that. Thank you for coming on the Daily tea. We hope that your association with the teelegraph on this one day in this one hour doesn't taint you with your union fellows your comrades And thank you very much. Thank you James.