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.
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."
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.