To worry that benefits (WTC, Housing, CB, CT) will be stopped for EU UK residents

[feellikeahugefailure]

It's obvious that EU residents will be allowed to stay, but could they try to limit benefits for these people?

Without these it would be near impossible for many people to afford to have a family, myself included.

I know it is :) and they are rare.

But there are numerous families with more children they can afford because to do so props them up with benefits.

If you work and earn £30,000 a year and have two children, you might decide not to have a third even though you'd like one as the money just won't stretch that far. If your employer offered you a cash incentive to have a third you probably would. That's what's happening with the benefits system.

I literally cannot believe this debate is turning into migrants v lone parents v disabled and carers v deprived families.

Awful

If you work and earn £30,000 a year and have two children, you might decide not to have a third even though you'd like one as the money just won't stretch that far. If your employer offered you a cash incentive to have a third you probably would. That's what's happening with the benefits system.

This is like bathing in daily mail articles

It isn't. It isn't only lone parents who use the welfare system. I think we do need to review the welfare system generally and I disagree that that is 'awful.'

"It sounds suspiciously as though you think all single parents are poor, uneducated and living on benefits"

40% of single parent families live in poverty. The majority of non-resident parents pay nothing towards the upkeep of their children. Those figures speak for themselves. And of course the main problem with single parent families isn't the resident parent (usually the mother) who stays to work her self into the ground to support her children, it's the absent parent who lets the tax payer subsidise the living costs of his (it's usually a he) family.

I do know hard working, educated women who've been left in the lurch by a shitty irresponsible man, but I'm afraid I also know too many young and poorly educated women who have chosen single parenthood (by having children without another parent resident in their home) repeatedly, having one child after another while not working.

I sympathise with poorly educated women who choose single parenthood on the state, over badly paid and insecure work with no access to public sector housing, or a secure home of their own. If I was in that position I might have made similar choices.

As for being a facist - I can't help my views being informed by what I see in the community in which I live. I live in a poor area and this is what I see around me. 70% of my dc's friends come from single parent households, and many come from large families who have had decades of dependency on benefits. I appreciate that this isn't representative of the U.K as a whole.

It isn't facist

Arguably, it is a poorer and certainly more condescending attitude to make the assumption that individuals are incapable of doing anything other than rely on welfare and build the welfare system accordingly.

Far better to equip people with the skills and the wherewithal to build a life independent for the most part of state support.

The divisiveness of different groups pitching themselves against each other in a "because I'm worth it" is really really awful and terribly sad call.

At around the time of the last general election there where dozens of rebutting anti -benefits rhetoric on these boards.

Here we are again with all the same nonsense being spewed but apparently when the proponents identify themselves as 'migrant' rather than 'tory' not so many posters feel able to challenge it.

But it's still part of the same process of talking the welfare state into extinction, using the cartoonish outliers (the most extreme and chaotic examples of claimants) as 'proof '

40% of single parent families live in poverty.

And most of that 40% will be working, studying, training or caters.

'Poor' isn't a synonym for feckless, lazy or irresponsible, you know. It just means 'poor'.

Carers .^

*It isn't facist

it sounds it
*
Arguably, it is a poorer and certainly more condescending attitude to make the assumption that individuals are incapable of doing anything other than rely on welfare and build the welfare system accordingly.*

Who is making that assumption? The welfare state doesn't have that as a premise.

Far better to equip people with the skills and the wherewithal to build a life independent for the most part of state support.

Massively improved and accessible training opportunities are definitely needed, I agree. The lack of really market- relevant vocational training has contributed to a decline in skills.

So every time we question whether the benefits system is working as it should, we are being facist? Sorry, but that makes no logical sense.

I'm certainly not pitching different groups against each other. I just feel that the current system is not working, and that flinging money at problems does not make problems disappear. Is this what passes for a 'left' view nowadays? Querying the welfare system = facist?

So every time we question whether the benefits system is working as it should, we are being facist? Sorry, but that makes no logical sense.

Erm no

I was quite clear about which remarks sounded a bit fascist.

There's not much point talking to you if you are going to keep making these strange extrapolations from my words.

There are plenty of British people who rely on benefits, not just immigrants. However, I do feel that our government should prioritise our own people first - most do. I have worked in the UAE on teaching contracts, and the rules were very strict - you come in if you are sponsored by your employer, and when your employment contract ends, you leave. You don't get state medical care, and your children don't get free education - these things are only for nationals.
People coming in should have enough money for their flight home, and this could be kept by a government agency. If they lose their job they would then be able to go home, and wouldn't be trapped here unable to support themselves. I just can't believe that people would move to a foreign country and expect to be supported.

Just, but that is what I am doing :) I'm saying I feel the benefits system doesn't work as well as it could as it has the by product of actually encouraging children to be born into families who can't afford them. That's not facist!

There are plenty of British people who rely on benefits, not just immigrants.

Of course.

However, I do feel that our government should prioritise our own people first - most do.

The opposite would be bizarre, wouldn't it? But hopefully it won't actually become an either/or issue.

Non-EU migrants gain access to the full welfare state when they are granted ILR. So logically the same should apply to EU nationals residents in the UK post-brexit.

Most EU nationals living here will already have accrued enough residence for ILR by then, so even if nothing is changed in the rules, I can't see much of an issue.

People coming in should have enough money for their flight home, and this could be kept by a government agency. If they lose their job they would then be able to go home, and wouldn't be trapped here unable to support themselves.

But in this thread we have heard that many EU citizens have been in the UK a long, long time. They have not taken up British citizenship, although entitled to, because it was unnecessary and would mean giving up their original nationalities/paying a chunk of money.

I have colleagues who have been in the UK for decades. Do you seriously think it is fair or even workable that somebody who has paid tax in the UK for over 20 years should be sent "home", to a country that they haven't lived in or paid tax in for decades?

^So logically the same should apply to EU nationals RESIDENT in the UK post-brexit.

Bloody autocorrect.

My country hasn't been "home" for 16 years.

Should I go back if I lost my job and leave my children here?
Or should I take there somewhere they don't speak the language?

Goodness, don't know why I got involved with this thread. I have probably paid more tax than many people moaning here about us EU citizens using their taxes!

But you'd get Indefinite Leave to Remain (or any special post-Brexit equivalent), and hence full access to the system, as things stand Tiny, so what's the problem?

The problem, obviously, is that as things stand now may not be the same in the future.
As we can see from just this thread, there are people who would like to be able to deport EU citizens, to send them back with nothing the minute they lose their jobs....
And of course you're going to say: that will never happen. But these days, who knows what might happen? The worlds gone mad. The country is not what it was.

And of course you're going to say: that will never happen. But these days, who knows what might happen?

But that would mean treating EU nationals resident here much much worse than the way we treat other foreign nationals. It really won't be allowed to happen. It won't. Nobody is going to anything mad enough to cause rioting in the streets. And demoting EU passport holders to an inferior system to everyone else WOULD cause uproar.

The default will be that EU nationals here default onto the same system as all other UK domiciled foreign nationals. That's if no special arrangements are made.

The likelihood is that something slightly better will be put in place for them, I would think, but obviously that ISN'T guaranteed.

People who have been here for a long time will still be able to take up British citizenship, and then would have full access to the welfare state.
But yes, in many countries, foreign nationals are not allowed to stay if they lose their jobs and become dependent on the state. I don't actually see a problem with this. When I taught in Dubai, it was clear that I was there for the duration of the contract and, after this was over, I would have to go home. There's no way I could have decided to stay forever with no means of supporting myself. They have free education and healthcare there for Dubai citizens, but everyone else needed health insurance.

harsh you keep going on about your time in Dubai and how clear it all was - that is exactly the issue. EU nationals came here under a clear set of rules with clear expectations. Now suddenly those rules have changed. And I think a government that changes rules dramatically should take some responsibility for the consequences of their actions. That is what we EU nationals here want, need and deserve - a bit of clarity and fairness. Not so much to ask.

People coming in should have enough money for their flight home, and this could be kept by a government agency. If they lose their job they would then be able to go home, and wouldn't be trapped here unable to support themselves

Let's just look at that in the mirror, shall we ?

Mr and Mrs Smith and brood go to live and work in (say) Spain. They are there for 3, 4 years, and build a life and kids are in school etc etc.

Then Banco Pensionista has a bad run, and jobs go.

Mr & Mrs Smith plus brood+1 (because they had a child while working at Banco GrandeFuerto) find the Spanish government cashes their "Britsback bond" books them all tickets on the next flight to Heathrow.

2 hours later, we have a family of 5 dropped on the UK doorstep. No home. No job. (Presumably) No or little money.

This thread really has attracted the brightest and best minds of Mumsnet, hasn't it.

Unless I misunderstood the PP (reads quoted text very carefully).

No, they really did say and mean that.

EU nationals came here under a clear set of rules with clear expectations. Now suddenly those rules have changed.

Exactly. Families like mine came here under the expectation that we would be treated equally to British citizens. We bought houses, invested in our pensions, made decisions about our lives under these conditions. Now the rug has been pulled out from underneath us.