http://www.bnp.org.uk/reg_showarticle.php?contentID=324



Poles apart in the Highlands



Scottish correspondent reports.




Highland Council has diverted funds from the adult literacy budget aimed at
"helping people already resident in the north" i.e. local people because it
wants to provide a service to teach English to the mass influx of immigrants
who have arrived since EU enlargement earlier this year.

By far the biggest invasion has been of Polish economic migrants, some 4,000
have already moved to the region and taken jobs in the beleaguered local
economy - mainly in tourism, construction and fish processing. The EU has
classified the Highlands as a deprived area and unemployment is a real
problem for local people, so this economic invasion has dealt another body
blow to Highlanders.

Council excuses

Highland Council's actions are also a smack in the face for all the Highland
communities who regularly receive the parroted "the Council has no spare
funds" when ever they request funding or support for essential local
services or projects.

No figures have been released on how much this scheme is costing, but SNP
and Tory politicians have been quick to defend the use of immigrant labour
and demand Government cash for language courses.

Fergus Ewing (SNP) MSP for Inverness East, Nairn & Lochaber quipped "if we
want Poles to come to Scotland, we have a duty to allow them access to
English classes" He did however question "how on earth can the council
budget for something that is out of its control?"

His SNP colleague Cllr Andy Anderson admitted there was a "daily demand from
immigrant workers and their families for this kind of service."

Mary Scanlon (Tory) a list MSP for the Highlands & Islands said Highland
Council should have built up courses for the Poles earlier as this was not
an overnight problem. She added that "it was for the executive and the
council and also Inverness College to provide essential courses in learning
English to these workers are plainly valued."

Ewing and Scanlon need not fret however, as the Labour/Lib Dem coalition
Scottish Executive are already consulting on EsoL (English as a second or
other language) Strategy aimed at making it easier for adult immigrants
getting into further education and better jobs.

BNP plans

The BNP would protect the fragility of the local economy in the Highlands by
implementing schemes to get local people back to work through retraining and
apprenticeships and the removal of benefits from those purposefully avoiding
employment, rather than by importing immigrants that put extra strain on
local services and also help to drive wages and employment conditions down.

A BNP Government would also withdraw Britain from the EU and thus end the
madness of such 'legal' mass immigration, but until then the question being
asked by Highlanders is, why if these Poles are coming here and getting
jobs, do they need to have English languages courses provided for them at
our expense? Why are they not paying for the service out of the wages they
are taking from the local economy?