Romanians & Bulgarians to claim UK benefits from January

[garethom]

What about those of the 6000 who are receiving contributions based JSA? People who through paying insurance, and tax, have earned those benefits?

I can't knock that. I wasn't implying a check at the airport along the lines of:

"Are you coming here to work?"
"No"
"Well piss off then"

More along the lines of "Welcome to the UK, you've got about 2 years to get your shit together". If you're working for say, a year and a half and you lose your job, then you tried, you earned the right through taxes for the state to look after you whilst you look for work.

Also any discussion of immigration that ignores the free movement of citizens of EU member states is moot.

I mentioned it. I mentioned it as being one of my problems with the EU. I wish it didn't exist when it comes to living in a new country.

[nowaysj]

I'm just going to keep dropping in observations from a much older and more tightly integrated union: our federal (so the highest court that has jurisdiction over relations between states) Supreme Court has determined that the right to move from state to state cannot be abridged by any one state, and so welfare shopping is allowable and cannot be restricted by states. States have tried to impose 6 month waiting periods etc before new residents can receive benefits, or paying benefits at the level they were paid in the previous state. All not allowable as it inhibits the free movement about the member states.

This was not the case for much of the history of the union, but as the union centralizes these sorts of outcomes seem to be the tendency.

[magma]

Lol at the suggestion Britons might be going to Romania just to scrounge. Come on.

Maybe not going to scrounge, but how much UK money has recently flooded out to the poorer parts of the EU to buy up assets? The amount of people buying investment property in Eastern Europe (especially Poland since it joined the EU) has gone up a lot over the last decade or so. Western buy-to-let investors have ruined the housing market in this country to the point where it's almost impossible to get on the housing ladder, so more and more people are taking their waning economic power in this country and turning it to poorer markets where they can still exert some financial dominance, pricing locals out of housing and then either leaving them as empty holiday homes or renting them back to the locals - then finally bringing the profit back home.

The UK and Germany effectively left Spain on the cusp of the third-world by the same practises followed by a housing market crash that led to panic selling of the assets... I don't think that can be entirely ignored when talking about EU or Global economics; the same could be argued to be happening with Chinese and Middle Eastern investment money in the UK/London.

We all have an effect on each other.

[garethom]

Don't disagree with any of that dude, it was just a nod to Wub's firmly tongue-in-cheek (I'm sure) remark that perhaps Britons are going to Romania to claim benefits.

[magma]

Don't disagree with any of that dude, it was just a nod to Wub's firmly tongue-in-cheek (I'm sure) remark that perhaps Britons are going to Romania to claim benefits.

Yeah, it sprung to mind separately from the thread tbh - you just said the most recent relevant thing I could reply to.

[garethom]

Am I saying anything ridiculously stupid in my post above? CHALLENGE ME MAGMA.

Nah, of all the peeps on SNH, you've probably changed my mind the most, so I kind of look forward to you picking me apart on anything political in case I'm chatting utter egg.

[magma]

Am I saying anything ridiculously stupid in my post above? CHALLENGE ME MAGMA.

Nah, of all the peeps on SNH, you've probably changed my mind the most, so I kind of look forward to you picking me apart on anything political in case I'm chatting utter egg.

I don't think there's anything stupid in there; I can only really say I disagree as a matter of personal opinion really. I've never particularly liked borders and I don't really derive any personal pride from being born a Briton - if I can grow up in the sticks of Somerset and 'emigrate' to London to look for work, claiming benefits from Tower Hamlets council rather than North Somerset if I hit difficulties, I don't really see why someone from Warsaw shouldn't be able to do the same. I don't really see why someone from Nairobi shouldn't be able to do the same too, but I understand why it's best to do these things gradually.

The shift to fast, easy and relatively cheap global transport isn't something we can hide from. Now that they can, the people will move - those of us in traditionally comfortable societies/economies are a bit more rooted than others, but that's not necessarily something other people need to pander to, rather a trend for us to recognise and become part of. Friends of mine from my rural school are currently living in Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Bankok, Tanzania, Sydney, Lima, London and New York - I see their story as no different to the Indian sitting opposite me, the American I share my life with or the Pole my best friend married - they all saw opportunity and chased it in a thoroughly modern way. A lot of Britain seems determined to cling on to living in a thoroughly old-fashioned way.

[magma]

Additional: I'm also a bit loathe to reach for suspicion as my first reaction to people asking for help. Plenty of friends and relatives have had to claim benefits at various times and I've always been disappointed to find out how emasculating the whole process is... although I'm content to admit that some people from all walks of life abuse the system, the vast majority of people sign off a sizable chunk of their personal pride just to walk in the door of Citizens Advice and ask how on Earth they're going to pay their gas bill. The more we concentrate on the tiny minority who abuse the system (and cost the country vastly less than rich people abusing their end of the system), the more we dehumanise perfectly decent people trying to exist in the hardest of circumstances.

My brother, for example, has been unable to work full time for the last few years because he has an eye condition that leaves him with extreme migraines if he uses computer screens, works under artificial light or reads for extended periods of time - despite having numerous doctors reports and a recommendation from the Blind Council that he be treated as blind, he had his disability benefit taken away almost immediately after the coalition took office because he's not actually "blind" and they can't tick a certain box on the form - luckily for him, he has parents that are able to support him during their retirement and he's managed to retrain himself and is now working for himself as a massage therapist, controlling his own light and hours - if he didn't have such comfortable parents, he'd currently be living in a cardboard box or be a suicide statistic - of that I have very little doubt... and that is NOT the result I want from our benefits system; brother or not, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged people should never be under so much pressure to prove their needs that they're forced onto the street.

[garethom]

Am I saying anything ridiculously stupid in my post above? CHALLENGE ME MAGMA.

Nah, of all the peeps on SNH, you've probably changed my mind the most, so I kind of look forward to you picking me apart on anything political in case I'm chatting utter egg.

I don't think there's anything stupid in there; I can only really say I disagree as a matter of personal opinion really. I've never particularly liked borders and I don't really derive any personal pride from being born a Briton - if I can grow up in the sticks of Somerset and 'emigrate' to London to look for work, claiming benefits from Tower Hamlets council rather than North Somerset if I hit difficulties, I don't really see why someone from Warsaw shouldn't be able to do the same. I don't really see why someone from Nairobi shouldn't be able to do the same too, but I understand why it's best to do these things gradually.

The shift to fast, easy and relatively cheap global transport isn't something we can hide from. Now that they can, the people will move - those of us in traditionally comfortable societies/economies are a bit more rooted than others, but that's not necessarily something other people need to pander to, rather a trend for us to recognise and become part of. Friends of mine from my rural school are currently living in Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Bankok, Tanzania, Sydney, Lima, London and New York - I see their story as no different to the Indian sitting opposite me, the American I share my life with or the Pole my best friend married - they all saw opportunity and chased it in a thoroughly modern way. A lot of Britain seems determined to cling on to living in a thoroughly old-fashioned way.

And I agree with you on every point there. I have no pride in being born somewhere I had no impact on. I have no issue with people moving. I have no issue with people integrating in societies and keeping their own cultural values. I have no issues with people contributing their part, wherever they decide to be. As you said, it's an international world and we'll adapt. My only point was that rather than 6,000 immigrants being somewhere purely to take advantage of a society, I'd prefer there were none. Not no immigrants, just no immigrants that have gone somewhere purely to take advantage. No society in the world wants people there just to take advantage, whether that be cultural, economic, resources, etc.

Unfortunately, we can't deport the Britons that take advantage of this with no intention of ever contributing, but we can with foreigners that do.

[garethom]

Additional: I'm also a bit loathe to reach for suspicion as my first reaction to people asking for help. Plenty of friends and relatives have had to claim benefits at various times and I've always been disappointed to find out how emasculating the whole process is... although I'm content to admit that some people from all walks of life abuse the system, the vast majority of people sign off a sizable chunk of their personal pride just to walk in the door of Citizens Advice and ask how on Earth they're going to pay their gas bill. The more we concentrate on the tiny minority who abuse the system (and cost the country vastly less than rich people abusing their end of the system), the more we dehumanise perfectly decent people trying to exist in the hardest of circumstances.

Think I addressed that here:

I wasn't implying a check at the airport along the lines of:

"Are you coming here to work?"
"No"
"Well piss off then"

More along the lines of "Welcome to the UK, you've got about 2 years to get your shit together". If you're working for say, a year and a half and you lose your job, then you tried, you earned the right through taxes for the state to look after you whilst you look for work.

I'm not suggesting just straight up pieing people off at the doors, I'm all for giving them a solid chance to make a success story, but there's a limit to that I think. I know this is a worst-case scenario, but at what point do we HAVE to say "No, sorry, we can't afford to help anymore people"? I'd love to help everybody, and teach the whole world to sing in perfect harmony, I don't think the way to do that is to open the doors to everybody without limits.

It's not something that would be at the top of my agenda after I take power by force either. Only talking about it because there was a thread and I've got nothing to do at work. I'd rather concentrate on liveable wages (and I think perhaps more controlled immigration could go some way towards that), stopping employees being taken advantage of, closing tax loopholes and working on making society more empathetic as a whole. Total sympathy can get very expensive though.

I'm not claiming to have solid answers here, I'm just as clueless as everybody else here, just bouncing ideas around, especially as most of the things I'm talking about are impossible whilst we remain in the EU.

[magma]

And I agree with you on every point there. I have no pride in being born somewhere I had no impact on. I have no issue with people moving. I have no issue with people integrating in societies and keeping their own cultural values. I have no issues with people contributing their part, wherever they decide to be. As you said, it's an international world and we'll adapt. My only point was that rather than 6,000 immigrants being somewhere purely to take advantage of a society, I'd prefer there were none. Not no immigrants, just no immigrants that have gone somewhere purely to take advantage. No society in the world wants people there just to take advantage, whether that be cultural, economic, resources, etc.

Unfortunately, we can't deport the Britons that take advantage of this with no intention of ever contributing, but we can with foreigners that do.

I get you and I do kind of agree - though I feel that there's a certain amount of wanting humanity itself to be better than it actually is.

I know I wouldn't cross the globe if I wasn't going to be in a better place than where I started. Advantage is the entire driver for emigration as far as I see it and always will be - whether that's the advantage of better employment, a better safety net, better education, better conditions for women or even just better weather... if you're going to pack your family up and cross a continent, you're probably not going to be taking them backwards.

[karmacazee]

Hey Magma, you have a very sensible outlook on the world, you see the big picture and you're not too reactionary. But one thing I will say though, about the idea of 'humanity' and 'progression', is that's it's totally false.

There is no 'plot' to history, and humans aren't really progressing, or getting better and better towards some utopian goal.

This is a religious idea, wrapped in a secular disguise. The idea of man reaching a perfect utopia(heaven) and becoming enlightened and humanity finding salvation is straight from the bible, it is a common myth in these modern times.

It is better to realise that history is just chaotic happenings, with different people wanting different things interacting in extremely complex ways.

All of this so-called progress can be wiped out and reversed in less than a generation. Just look at North Korea.

We need to remain vigilant and make sure that the advances we make on a social level aren't taken as a given, and that it's all part of a natural progression of humanity. People had to fight for that shit!

[magma]

I'm not suggesting just straight up pieing people off at the doors, I'm all for giving them a solid chance to make a success story, but there's a limit to that I think. I know this is a worst-case scenario, but at what point do we HAVE to say "No, sorry, we can't afford to help anymore people"? I'd love to help everybody, and teach the whole world to sing in perfect harmony, I don't think the way to do that is to open the doors to everybody without limits.

It's not something that would be at the top of my agenda after I take power by force either. Only talking about it because there was a thread and I've got nothing to do at work. I'd rather concentrate on liveable wages (and I think perhaps more controlled immigration could go some way towards that), stopping employees being taken advantage of, closing tax loopholes and working on making society more empathetic as a whole. Total sympathy can get very expensive though.

I'm not claiming to have solid answers here, I'm just as clueless as everybody else here, just bouncing ideas around, especially as most of the things I'm talking about are impossible whilst we remain in the EU.

Let me get some breakfast and I'll come back to this, because I think it's probably the most important bit of the discussion.

[garethom]

I get you and I do kind of agree - though I feel that there's a certain amount of wanting humanity itself to be better than it actually is.

I know I wouldn't cross the globe if I wasn't going to be in a better place than where I started. Advantage is the entire driver for emigration as far as I see it and always will be - whether that's the advantage of better employment, a better safety net, better education, better conditions for women or even just better weather... if you're going to pack your family up and cross a continent, you're probably not going to be taking them backwards.

I guess it's an issue of morals. If you have every intention of taking and never giving back, are you ok with that personally? I know many people aren't, but I guess there are some that are. I can see why they do it. A land with free health care, better conditions and money for those that can't (or in some cases won't) find work? Winner.

I can only hold people to my own standards. If I moved somewhere for a better life in a country that looks after its most vulnerable, I'd at least want to appreciate that and honour it with some effort. But that's coming from me, someone who's fairly privileged in the first place.

[magma]

Hey Magma, you have a very sensible outlook on the world, you see the big picture and you're not too reactionary. But one thing I will say though, about the idea of 'humanity' and 'progression', is that's it's totally false.

There is no 'plot' to history, and humans aren't really progressing, or getting better and better towards some utopian goal.

This is a religious idea, wrapped in a secular disguise. The idea of man reaching a perfect utopia(heaven) and becoming enlightened and humanity finding salvation is straight from the bible, it is a common myth in these modern times.

It is better to realise that history is just chaotic happenings, with different people wanting different things interacting in extremely complex ways.

All of this so-called progress can be wiped out and reversed in less than a generation. Just look at North Korea.

We need to remain vigilant and make sure that the advances we make on a social level aren't taken as a given, and that it's all part of a natural progression of humanity. People had to fight for that shit!

Absolutely; I certainly didn't ever mean to imply that progress happens independently - we enjoy our freedoms on the back of Mary Wolstenholme, Elizabeth Fry, Union Leaders with cracked skulls and the Unknown Soldier. All I said was that humanity, despite a few recent and local setbacks, is still progressing en-masse rather than heading for the dystopia Nowaysj suggested. There's never an excuse to stop being vigilant.

[m8son666]

why are you all agreeing with each other? start arguing ffs

[garethom]

We're agreeing with each other in different ways bro!

Nah, I think the thing with me and Magma is that we both share mostly the same world view, the same personal views (from what I know) but we don't always agree on how we can make those reality.

[magma]

I get you and I do kind of agree - though I feel that there's a certain amount of wanting humanity itself to be better than it actually is.

I know I wouldn't cross the globe if I wasn't going to be in a better place than where I started. Advantage is the entire driver for emigration as far as I see it and always will be - whether that's the advantage of better employment, a better safety net, better education, better conditions for women or even just better weather... if you're going to pack your family up and cross a continent, you're probably not going to be taking them backwards.

I guess it's an issue of morals. If you have every intention of taking and never giving back, are you ok with that personally? I know many people aren't, but I guess there are some that are. I can see why they do it. A land with free health care, better conditions and money for those that can't (or in some cases won't) find work? Winner.

I can only hold people to my own standards. If I moved somewhere for a better life in a country that looks after its most vulnerable, I'd at least want to appreciate that and honour it with some effort. But that's coming from me, someone who's fairly privileged in the first place.

I suspect we'll never get to a point where one can stand back and approve of the lives of all our fellow men - I think the stats from the Guardian article I posted are pretty relevant here though. Over the currently debated period of immigration, on average the people coming in are claiming less and working more than the people already here - although the overall population increased and as such the amounts claiming benefits increased, tax revenues also increased thus making the public purse more able to cover those benefits. The net effect is that our economic position is enriched rather than diluted.

I think there's a subtle distinction to make between having some sort of population cap (We're full, unless it's an emergency, try somewhere else) and means-testing all immigrants and benefit claimants within an inch of them simply giving up - there is certainly a practical argument that our small island can only support a certain number of people (I have no idea what that number is and I lean to thinking we're not quite at it yet), but I think adding a layer of suspicion on top of that detracts from the latent trust within our society and allows arguments about economic migration (which should possibly have a cap) to merge with and cloud arguments about refugees and asylum seekers (who should always be let in as a matter of human charity IMHO).

[garethom]

I think there's a subtle distinction to make between having some sort of population cap (We're full, unless it's an emergency, try somewhere else) and means-testing all immigrants and benefit claimants within an inch of them simply giving up - there is certainly a practical argument that our small island can only support a certain number of people (I have no idea what that number is and I lean to thinking we're not quite at it yet), but I think adding a layer of suspicion on top of that detracts from the latent trust within our society and allows arguments about economic migration (which should possibly have a cap) to merge with and cloud arguments about refugees and asylum seekers (who should always be let in as a matter of human charity IMHO).

I think it depends on how thick that layer of suspicion is.

Let people in with all good intentions. Give them the chance to show that, hey, they aren't just taking the piss here. It's not even that means testing needs to be that rigorous. Have they made an effort to contribute in some way? Then cool, continue to be part of a functional society of contributors! If not, then sorry, fix up or you're out. This method means that there should be no suspicion that they're all scrounging foreigners who've come to rape and pillage, but that here we have a potential contributor to society who should have every chance.

As I mentioned before, this is purely EU citizens we're talking about. Sending them back likely doesn't mean they're being sent to their death or too bad a standard of living.

refugees and asylum seekers (who should always be let in as a matter of human charity IMHO).

100%.

[Pedro Sánchez]

Had those migrants lived here for more than a decade and witnessed a newer wave of migrants at the same time as witnessing their employment rights and standards in living (work-life ratio both in time and income)drop I'd be interested to see how many adopt the attitude of most of the natives who have clocked the scam, of putting in too much and getting not enough in return, It is only today in the news that an 18 year serving soldier was made redundant, 2 days before his full pension entitlement was due. Minimum wage is now less than I earned in 1999 in my first job in a non-skilled warehouse job, I'm disgusted at that. The migrants coming here today will be more than grateful to work for 6.31 p/h given where they come from, the government and businesses know this so they will exploit the fuck out of it, most older British (I include first wave Irish, Jamaicans and southern Asians etc. migrants in this term) have 2 options, accept the lesser conditions forced on them or take out of the pot they may or may not of contributed to.