Quote:
Originally Posted by martyh
On May 1st the rules regarding migrant workers are changing .It means basically that migrant workers can claim benefits immediately upon entering the country
I suspect that these are changes agreed by Labour before they left office ,and if so why the hell can't the new government do something about it ?
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I too have serious concerns about the effects of this. It's all very well people arguing that these rules are EU wide and the same as those of the indigenous population but the attraction to migrants form the poorer parts of Europe will be huge as the benefits involved represent relatively large sums of money in those places. I believe France and Germany etc. are also supposed to be introducing similar rules but I have a sneaking suspicion that they will find ways to avoid them being taken advantage of on a large scale in practice. I do think that this is potentially a recipe for more unrest as some indigenous people perceive that, at a time when everything's being squeezed, migrants are now able to take advantage of a benefits system they haven't even contributed to, adding further to the burden we all face. Of course if the UK was booming the effects of all this may be masked but with unemployment probably not heading downwards any time soon and times tough throughout the EU, I think this measure is likely to cause trouble and cost us a lot of money we don't have. Time will tell.
As I understand it, the Lib-Dems would be unliklely to support moves to try to exclude ourselves from these rules so Cameron probably realises he can't win a fight on this issue.
I often wonder if mass migration would be deemed quite so acceptable by the great and the good if lawyers, journalists, politicians, judges and the like were more on the receiving end of it. If MPs were hired in the marketplace like everyone else and had to compete for their jobs against foreign competition able to undercut them like most of us do, I wonder if they'd be quite so keen on the free movement of migrants. Just a thought.....