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London Bar Becomes Honeypot for Migrant Workers: Reports

© Sputnik / Alexander Vilf / Go to the mediabankData published by Open Europe shows that low-wage workers from Poland can double their basic pay by coming to the UK
Data published by Open Europe shows that low-wage workers from Poland can double their basic pay by coming to the UK - Sputnik International
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Data published by the think-tank Open Europe shows that low-wage workers from Poland can double their basic pay by coming to the UK, and migrants from Bulgaria could increase their pay by 250 percent.

MOSCOW, December 1 (Sputnik) — Throughout last week, up to 200 men from Romania and Bulgaria gathered each day in a plush London suburb, searching for off-the-books work, the Daily Mail reports.

Word has spread that the site between a B&Q store on Honeypot Lane and a bar and restaurant named The Honeypot is the place to find cash-in-hand jobs. Dozens of migrants are picked up there throughout the day by workmen in white vans.

Residents told the Daily Mail they are angry their neighborhood has become an illegal jobs fair.

Shops have hired guard dogs to keep the men from approaching customers for work.

Plans by the British government to cut in-work benefits, money paid to low wage workers to top up their salaries, for European migrants are discriminatory and will not curb the migration of Poles to the United Kingdom, Polish Ambassador to London Witold Sobkow said on Monday. - Sputnik International
UK Plans to Cut In-Work Benefits for EU Migrants ‘Discriminatory’: Warsaw
"The men sit on the little wall at the end of my garden, so I have to walk past two or three of them every day," said Harsha Vyas, who lives on Honeypot Lane. "It’s scary because they’re watching my house. At 7.15am there are a couple on the wall, two or three behind the bush and more near the B&Q, and ten or 15 of them down the end of the road. It’s very daunting."

The 51-year-old added that groups of men have been gathering for the past six months.

According to the Daily Mail, last week, dozens of migrant workers could be seen congregating in Stanmore.

Dressed in jeans, woolly hats and hoodies, the earliest risers were picked by a van near the corner of the B&Q car park. As more arrives, groups spread to outside the Selco builders’ warehouse.

When the vans stopped coming, the workers shouted at passing cars: "Job? Job? Why not?"

These scenes were reported the same week senior Tory parliamentarian Bernard Jenkin called Britain Europe’s "Honeypot".

"We’ve become a honeypot nation in the European Union," he said on Tuesday as quoted by the Daily Mail. "One of the things keeping low pay suppressed is the endless supply of cheap labor coming in from the EU8, the Eastern European countries, the recent entrants to the European Union… And most people come to this country unaccompanied… but they’re able to claim benefits to support their families back home."

Migrants queue for the daily food distribution close to the city hall in Calais October 26, 2014 - Sputnik International
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Data published by the think-tank Open Europe shows that low-wage workers from Poland can double their basic pay by coming to the UK, and migrants from Bulgaria could increase their pay by 250 percent.

Bob Blackman, Conservative MP for Harrow East said, has raised the problem in the Commons.

"They tout their services aggressively for casual labor… take money in cash and have no deductions for tax or national insurance for the work they do," he said.

Jo Swinson, the minister for employment relations, assured him the case would be investigated.

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