to think that large scale immigrantion harms easten europe more than us

[ReallyTired]

Countries like Poland has spent thousands of pounds educating their most able people. These gifted and hard working people then to move the UK for a better life. They pay UK tax instead of Polish tax. This means that they do not pay back the costs of their education to Poland. Poland needs money if they are going to improve their economy and lifestyle.

The brain drain of talented Poles to the UK means that it is harder for Poland to improve its intrastructure and make high quality employment opportunities in Poland. Polish businesses need high quality staff initative to generate revenue.

Rather than taking a little englander point of view of closing UK boarders to Eastern Europeans I feel the EU should look at improving opportunites in poor EU countries.

Yes, I just noticed my typos in the title.

Possibly.

OTOH a lot of people move over here then move back, don't they? A flow of people between countries is generally quite a good thing.

I also don't know how easy it is for the UK to improve opportunities in poorer countries. How would that work? Would it not become paternalistic quite soon?

Not dismissing what you say at all, just thinking about it.

Yes brain drain having surgons driving taxies here rather than woring in hospitals in Poland is not good

I wonder about this when someone makes a speech about how immigrants are bringing vital skills into the country. The more true it is the worse it is for the countries they come from and vice versa.

"OTOH a lot of people move over here then move back, don't they? A flow of people between countries is generally quite a good thing. "

I completely agree. I am not anti immigration. There are mutral benefits if say a Polish doctor spends a couple of years in the NHS and then takes his/her knowledge back to Poland. There is zero benefit in having a Polish doctor driving taxis in London. We need to have high ablity people in high ablity jobs.

I imagine that a Polish doctor would only become a taxi driver because of lack of opportunities to practice medicine in either Poland or the UK.

"I also don't know how easy it is for the UK to improve opportunities in poorer countries. How would that work? Would it not become paternalistic quite soon?"

Development opportunites would need to come through the EU that we all contribute to. I suppose the UK hasn't yet managed to improve opportunities in Darlington or Doncaster so prehaps its over ambitious to try and improve Poland. How do we ensure a good standard of living in all parts of the EU.

You have the same sort of effect within the UK itself, London pulls people in because of the higher pay or lack of employment opportunities in some sectors elsewhere in the country. Then the rest of the country is left with a disproportionate amount of less qualified and lower initiative people. Strange that in our 'globalised' world the opportunities are increasingly restricted to specific locations.

A lot of money is sent back to Poland by Polish workers here which must benefit their economy so it is not all bad

People from Eastern Europe tend to send money back to support mostly vulnerable members of the society: elderly and children. So the burden of social security is lifted. They also either buy or build a house as they tend to think of going back at some point. And the easy phrase of improving opportunities is about everybody moving along on EU bench, i.e. for Poland to expand its external market for agricultural produce, so less subsidies to French farmers, having shipbuilding industry there and not in Northern Europe. The question is whether Europe is ready to share.

It may be that they pick up on the way we do things here, then return and integrate into their country's work practice.

If you read the history of Poland, which has been dumped on for 200 years, it is an eye opener and you less begrudge the central and Eastern Europeans their chance to cash in. I mean, Poland got wiped off the map for 100 years or so, and was under the Nazi, then Soviet thumb after fighting in WW2 to bring about its own liberation. A bloody nightmare, but they got off light compared to Romania.

I mean we had the whole pop culture 1960s Swinging London thing, rock n roll coffee shops, they got none of that. All we have to moan about is the three-day week and unemployment under Thatcher, well it is small beer compared to what they had to put up with.

And naturally we also pick up the way they do things there, which can be positive too (without wishing to make 'them' and 'us' sound like monolithic groups).

It sounds likely but I don't know enough to say if YABU or not for sure.

One thing though - a lot of our most intelligent and best educated people also move abroad. I don't know if it is a statistically significant number but just from observation it seems like a lot.

I believe that British people have a lot to learn from Poland. Poland has a lot to give. However the UK needs a reciprocal relationship with Poland. It would be more equitable if it was easier for British people to live or study in Poland.

I think the benefits and downsides of this type of immigration are probably fairly equal for both of the countries involved, it's just that they are different.

I don't think we should be contributing to improving other parts of the EU until we have much better public services ourselves. As long as UK residents are still putting up with an NHS that can't cope with demand, we shouldn't even begin to think about financial contributions to other countries.

It is just as easy for brits to work or study in any other EU country. his whole open borders thing works 27 ways.

The only reason it might be harder for brits is the language barrier: pretty much everyone in the world speaks English, few people outside of Poland speak polish. You could definitely jump on a plane and set up in Poland today, if you wanted.

"
I don't think we should be contributing to improving other parts of the EU until we have much better public services ourselves. As long as UK residents are still putting up with an NHS that can't cope with demand, we shouldn't even begin to think about financial contributions to other countries."

How long is a piece of string? Our public services will always need improvement.

I have a polish friend who loves the NHS. Her son needed paediatric intensive care and the only worry she had was whether her son was going to make it through the night. In lots of other countries her family would be facing bankcrupty. Incidently both she and her husband work hard in good jobs. They send their children to private school so as a family the contribute more into the system than they take out.

How can we guarentee that no child in the EU dies because their parents cannot afford the medical bills. How do we make sure that every EU citizen has high quality medical care from cradle to grave? I believe that good health care and good education needs to replicated through out the EU.

Is it hard for British people to live or study in Poland? Forgive me, I know nothing about it, just curious.

I know an Irish person who is studying for a veterinary degree (through English) in Hungary.

Lots of universities teach in English. I'm applying for jobs at the moment and it surprises me how often they don't even put down fluency in the language as a desirable quality, let alone an essential one.

The barrier for British nationals is getting the funding to study abroad. A British student could get accepted by Polish/ Hungarian university but would not be able to get a student loan. They would need rich parents to fund their degree and living expenses.

Can Poles in Poland apply for student loans and just come and study over here then? I wasn't aware of that being the case.

The NHS isn't even adequate at the moment though. You might get lucky and receive great treatment if you have the right illness in the right postcode, but it is severely lacking in many cases.

While there will always be room for improvement, there shouldn't be as much room for it as we have at the moment.

I don't think it's our responsibility to ensure good healthcare for everyone in the EU, so to me that isn't a question worth asking.

How we can ensure everyone in the UK has adequate healthcare, education and social services is much more relevant for now, because we can't expect to be able to help anyone else before we can do it for ourselves anyway.

I didn't know Poles could apply for student loans over here either.

People go back though. My father worked in factories/building sites in England in the 60's, paid taxes etc., and eventually went home to Ireland & bought a house with what he had saved in a very short time (which is why it drives me mad when Irish people moan about immigration - as if we'd never done it ourselves). So no brain drain there - labour & taxes for England when it needed it and a great foundation for the future for my Dad.

I think people massively exaggerate the amount of money sent back. If you are a single person with a high wage and live in shared accomodation, then there may be spare wages to send back. But most professional families who are immigrants, who say work as a nurse in the NHS, are struggling to pay the rent and bills just like we are, so they are not particularly rich enough to return vast sums to their home country. They come here as in general there are more jobs and a higher standard of living here, where they live.