Your country or your family

[almostwitty]

UPDATE: The proposals have actually been announced, and the minimum income starts at £18,600 - and rises to £22,400 if you have a child. Thereafter, it’s £2,400 for every additional child.

However, the probation time between getting further leave to stay in the UK and indefinite leave to remain in the UK has been expanded from two to five years. We

Comments

[maitressep]

I don't think immigration is a bad thing. I think paying dole and benefits to immigrants is a bad thing. Ergo, either having enough dosh up front, or earning a certain amount before you can start bringing family etc over is a good thing. Other countries have being doing this since forever, ask Australia! I'm glad we're catching up and becoming less of a soft touch at last.

There is no set figure for having a wife and 3 kids financially, so anything anybody says is guesswork, but it needs to be a substantial figure. 3 kids and a wife ain't cheap.

Apparently there will also be tests on spoken English. About time!

[maitressep]

Your link cites 370,000 immigrants on benefits. Let's just say they ONLY claim joobseekers at £65 a week for 52 weeks. That comes out to
£ 1250600000 a year, and that's without housing benefit etc etc, which they would all get. Now, even if you were to cut that down by two thirds, that's an astronomical figure. What other country is that generous?

[almostwitty]

The 370k figure presumably refers to EU immigrants (for which there is no cap or restriction), since they're the only ones allowed to claim jobseekers' allowance. And conversely, UK people who emigrate to France, Spain or other countries can claim benefit in those countries.

By all means, if you want to stop EU immigrants from claiming the same rights as any other EU citizen in any EU country, then campaign to pull out of the EU. And lose access to the EU single market, and stand alone as an island in a world of ever-interlinked economies.

PS: Not sure why you posted this anonymously.

[sioneva]

You're assuming that they're all jobseekers, all out of work for 52 weeks. I'll let you track down the budget figure that says how much they're actually paid, rather than working on assumptions.

And never mind that, when in work, they're paying a pretty hefty amount out in taxes. God forbid someone come to the country legally, pay thousands for visas, etc., and then lose their job, probably through no fault of their own, and need to live in the meantime. God forbid.

[maitressep]

The figures say that they're all jobseekers, although personally I'd doubt that. Why work when you can get so many freebies here, LOL.

I couldn't possibly work out how much they get, JSA, housing benefit, child benefit, free school meals, free healthcare etc etc, could you? Millions upon millions of pounds is the closest I can get.

If I had the misfortune to go to another country and then lose my job, I would expect to have to go home, and not live off the generosity of others. But maybe that's just me and my work ethic.

And I ask you again, what other country is THAT generous?

[almostwitty]

Housing benefit only "kicks in" when you've been homeless for at least six months, and is paid by the local council for a start.

And really, doing something "because other countries do" is not the best metric to live by. Let's start reneging on our country's debts, stopping women who wear religious clothing from entering the country in the first place, arresting foreigners for not carrying ID papers (even if they happen to be the chief Honda executive at a local plant), banning gay marriage and jailing women for having abortions while we're at it.

Surely half the point of being an independent nation is being able to decide what laws, rules and regulations to have without necessarily referring to other countries' rules and practises all the time?

[maitressep]

And housing benefit comes from the magical cash fairies right? Nope, it comes from taxpayers like me. Councils get their money from the government. The government gets their money from people who work, like me. And you. You may wish to pay umpteen benefits to people who don't come from the UK, myself and many others do not. We have 5 million unemployed here already, we don't need immigration at anywhere near the current level. We don't have the jobs, the housing, or the cash. It really is that simple now. That's why even Socialist Red ED Milliband hasn't has a lot to say about the proposals. It was nice to see him uncomfortable though

[almostwitty]

My point re: housing council is that the policy is set by individual councils based on national guidelines.

And we do have a reciprocal arrangement with other EU countries.

But obviously, we're at rather different ends of the political spectrum on this. I happen to see legal migration as a generally good thing, that broadens the skillbase and cultures of the UK. What you think of legal migrants, I shudder to think.

[maitressep]

The reciprocal arrangement in NO WAY cover what they get from the UK. It's amusing that you even think they might, LOL.

And I'm quite happy with legal migrants, I live with one and work for another :)

[almostwitty]

According to europa.eu:
"As a migrant worker, you and your family are entitled to be treated as nationals of your new country. This means you are entitled to the same benefits as native workers from the day you start working there"

And if you're happy with legal migrants, what have we both been arguing about for the last 50-odd posts ?!

[maitressep]

Yes, exactly, as nationals of your new country. Which is nowhere near anywhere as good as the UK, hence everybody wanting to come here innit!

Happy with the existing. We really do need to stem it a great deal now, it'd become far too much. Unfortunately, Mrs May's proposals, whilst a good start, really haven't gone anywhere near far enough, and I hope that's addressed sooner rather than later. And the illegal immigrants also costing us millions, - we need to start deporting en-masse, ditto the failed asylum seekers. We spend millions looking after those too.

[almostwitty]

You really think the benefits system here is better than, say, Sweden? France? Where people riot in the streets when their pension retirement age is raised from 60 to 62? Denmark, where those who have worked 52 weeks over the previous three years are eligible to receive 90% of their average earnings for up to four years? Or the Netherlands, which has an excellent pension system?

But hey ho, we're obviously on different sides of the political spectrum. Presumbaly you're OK with the UK deporting a mother of two with cancer, who was getting the life-saving treatment she needed in the UK. She later died in her home country.

[maitressep]

Now you're just being silly, and you'll get nul points for that. Are we being flooded with Swedes? No. We are being flooded with Eastern Europeans. But you know that.

[almostwitty]

How am I being silly by refuting the points you make with factual data and references? You said they're all over here because our benefits system is better. It isn't. If Eastern Europeans were solely concerned with going to countries with a better benefit system, Germany or Denmark or Sweden or the Netherlands would be a better choice for them. And they're closer.

Aside from anything else, I don't know any unemployed Eastern Europeans. The ones I meet are the ones doing the jobs that generally we don't want to do - cleaning, building etc. - and presumably if they're employed, they're not claiming benefits.

Plus, really, using "flooded" as a description? That's the same language that MigrationWatch and the BNP use.

[maitressep]

Then ask yourself WHY they come here. And when you've Googled it to death, come back with an answer, and you too can sound like the BNP. It must be our lovely weather, or the chance to join the ranks of the 5 million unemployed if it's not our plethora of freebies.

And where on earth do you live if you imagine there are no EE's on the rock n roll? Mayfair?

Everyone now agrees that the immigration levels now need to be stemmed.