Thread by @barcelonabrit

One thing I think is wrong about the outcry re: shortages is the assertion that to replace (for example) #EU lorry drivers, we just need to “train more of our own”. To me this epitomises how #Brexit, although many things, is about entrenching class, race and gender imbalances.

2/3 of the two lowest social classes voted for #Brexit. But they only accounted for 40% of the vote suggesting elite and middle class voters were far more critical in ensuring Britain left the EU. Now that we have shortages of low skill and low income workers, where do we turn?

Not to the other main #Brexit cohort, the elderly, and not to the children of the middle or upper classes. Implicit in the argument that we need to “train our own” is that it will be the children of poor people (disproportionately non-white) who will take these jobs.

Jobs that are typically low paid/ #zerohour contracts, low skilled, have minimal benefits and lack unionisation. Or jobs like truck driving, which do require qualifications, but which come with significant drawbacks in terms of hours, stress, time spent alone and away from home.

Instead of aspiring to university degrees, travelling, living abroad and learning new cultures and languages, the fulfilment of #Brexit basically means generations of kids from poorer backgrounds getting back to knowing their place. And, in particular, non-white kids and women.

It’s impossible for me to see how #Brexit means anything other than less control/less freedom for working class people, in particular those with black and brown skin. It is the attempt by the privileged few to ensure that social, racial and gender inequality become set in stone.

Also, however, I’m not saying that we should regard #immigration as a source of cheap labour for the jobs “we don’t want to do”. We should also be demanding better wages, increased benefits and other employment protections for these occupations.

So that working as a cleaner, carer, delivery driver in a distribution centre provides a living wage, job security and a decent standard of living. The scandalous lie of #Brexit is that it would deliver these things when in reality, it’s very purpose is to deny them.

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