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Originally Posted by jfman
The other spin on it is that EU citizens of working age - so we didn’t educate them - and enter our workforce. Immediately being net positives to the Treasury as opposed to someone born here who has had at least 11 years of education out.
The evidence simply doesn’t exist to support that there is wholesale abuse of our welfare system by people from abroad any more that the population in general. According to the newspapers the benefit system is awful anyway, maybe it needs to be cut further if it’s attracting foreigners to travel here - it’s a safety net not a lifestyle choice.
While UK citizens abroad do contribute, you ignore that EU citizens contribute here. For example in our NHS and other areas with skills our workforce doesn’t have. Once you roll the dice of racism and xenophobia it’s entirely likely that nationalist forces in other countries will do the same. Can the UK cope with a million pensioners being sent home? Even if not, do we want to facilitate our citizens losing rights in Spain and elsewhere? Increased taxation, medical costs, any other areas they see fit. They can be selective too, send home the poorest, the most ill, etc. Could we cope with that?
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Your first point is a good one. The Government has slashed support for people with children e.g. only the first two can now usually be claimed for.
When Family Allowance (now named Child Benefit) was first introduced, it was essentially a bribe to encourage people to reproduce after the war. No payment was made for the first child, only the second and any subsequent children.
It's always being said that we need more workers to pay for and look after us when we are elderly, so why limit the help available? I think it might very well be a deliberate policy of the Government to import labour to save on the expenditure that you mentioned.
There are certainly cases of welfare abuse by foreigners, but I have no evidence to hand to say whether they are any better or worse than our own people. However, I think it will annoy people more if it's done by those from abroad.
The Government changed the rules so that EU immigrants could no longer come here and sign on straight away, they have to have a job of over 16 hours a week before benefuts can be claimed. One of the ruses that they use to get round this is to become 'self employed' as taxi drivers earning £1 an hour, or a scrap metal collector who hardly finds anything (officially). This entitles them to claim the maximum amount of in work benefits.
It has been claimed that most immigrants contribute positively to the economy, but I dont accept the way that this is calculated. On paper, if someone comes here and gets a job, they may well be taking out less than they are putting in, however, what if they have taken a job that an unemployed person over here would have obtained? In this case, the continuing benefit payments to the third party must be taken into consideration and would usually negate any profit made by letting them live here.
Then there is also the impact of them being here on our public services, housing, resentment caused by a perceived loss of culture by the indigenous population etc.
You also make a good point about the consequences of an army of pensioners being forced to return to the UK. In Spain, for example, if not entitled to free healthcare, pensioners have to pay a basic monthly fee of €157 a month and receive little or nothing in the way of help with prescription costs. If they returned to the UK, all this would have to be met by the UK taxpayer, but I think that overall we would still be better off financially and otherwise.
Perhaps we could exempt pensioners from the trawl as they may have health conditions that benefit from a warmer climate or who have settled abroad?
I personally think that there are pros and cons to staying or leaving the EU, but if we are to leave then ridding ourselves of those who aren't doing anything positive for the UK (or are actually participating in activities that are detrimental to the UK) should be done ASAP.
After talking to various different people from all walks of life, I firmly believe that it is the amount and quality of immigrants that led to most people voting to leave the EU above any other reason.
One of the good things about Mays deal is that those who pass the test to come and work here will still be able to come here, but not indefinitely.
I cannot stress how much automation will change our society and we will face a real problem working out a solution to providing a means of support for much of the indigenous population, let alone those from abroad whose Government's will be facing exactly the same predicament.