I would love someone to define to me what 'we look after our own first' means??

[SnipeBird]

Whenever I have political or brexit driven discussions this is a constant arguement thrown back at me - and genuinely I'd love to know what it means? Does it mean those who pay taxes here (includes people here and abroad, but not those on benefits maybe?), does it mean if you live here (all expats are out then), does it mean if you're British? (What does that mean? I'm half English, half German?), does it mean if you have a passport (well my 2yr old ds is out?)
What does it actually mean, who are 'our own'?

Im a single parent who worked for years and paid into the system but had to give up when not only did I become disabled but I have a disabled child and ex fucked off as it was a 'blight on his manhood to have a freak'. his words. and it was my fault of course.

anyway, not all single parents are benefit cheats on Jeremy kyle, which is what some posters seem to be implying, all the while defending foreign aid etc.

we don't provide benefits to the world at large. There are borders to the UK and our benefits apply within those borders and not outside.

The UK pays child benefit and child tax credits to almost 50,000 children who live in another EU country. The most common country of residence is Poland, where claims are made for almost 30,000 children. British rates are about four times those in Poland. The cost to the British taxpayer is just over £1 million per week. Only in four other EU countries do the rules allow for such payments to be made to non-resident children.

www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/288

the UK should fund a world wide NHS

We already do

Welcome to the UK

Free Healthcare for All

Ok - back. i thought faith schools could operate under different admissions critera to non faith schools - i have no idea how they decide, i have friends who work at the school - i'll ask them. Perhaps it was partly down to a sibling thing - i don't know.

All i can say from a personal level is that i had no problem 4 yrs earlier having my older child accepted though in the end we couldn't take the place. Buses ran from other parts of town bussing kids into a school that for years had educated siblings and even their parents and posdibly even gps. The school had a very strong family history and community. You might think it serves all these folk right for having expectations or being entitled - but no one expected the influx of immigrants to an area near the school which completely changed the demographics of the school in a few years. I guess many parents who had expectations or assumed that their children would follow onto the school just as they had done and their siblings had done - just had to find other schools instead. That's life but people have to come to terms with and deal with this.

I wasn't that bothered as didn't have the deeper connections to the school but it did surprise me and inconvenience me. And i'll admit i'm human and had a brief pang of annoyance at having to drive by the school that i thought i'd have no problem getting my child into.

We were brought up with this saying. You looked after your own first.

Initially family. It's the most important thing, as kids we watched out for siblings, you didn't speak or take sides against them or your family. We were a unit. Case in point my sister whacking another girl with her school bag containing her cooking tins after she punched my other little sister.

Then it means community. Your street, village, town. They are your people, you look after them. Wheather that's making sure your elderly neighbour is ok in the winter or giving lifts to work or donating to a charity drive that comes first. So if Mrs Smith is fundraising for cancer treatment you'd donate to that before you donated to some overseas charity.

Then your country. We seem to be terrified of being proud of who we are. Our culture, history, the achievements we have as a nation. These are our people. We look after them first. Do I wonder why we are sending 1 million pounds a week to children who have never set foot in our country? Yes. When services here are being cut to the bone. I wonder why we send aid to country's like India who have a space programme and nuclear weapons. Why are we supporting them when we have our own financial problems. As an analogy if my family was going without, I wouldn't regularly give money to the family down the road to support them.

I don't think I'm racist or xenophobic but then I doubt anyone short of white supremacists do.

There is a tipping point when you do have to look after your own. When times are rich you can help others. When they are lean you help yourself.

What do I mean by our own: British people (born or nationalised), people who have given to this country and have potential to give in the future, citizens who can't give and need help (disabled/single mothers/illness).

You can claim child benefit for children NOT living here? What's the justification for that?

two

I believe its a reciprocal arrangement

You can claim child benefit for children NOT living here? What's the justification for that?

Parents work here, pay tax here, therefore they are entitled to something in return, in this case - child benefit.
As an immgrant myself, i completely agree this is bonkers.

Parents work here, pay tax here, therefore they are entitled to something in return, in this case - child benefit.
The something in return is called a salary.

"Buses ran from other parts of town bussing kids into a school that for years had educated siblings and even their parents and posdibly even gps"

So immigrants were bussed into a school that you lived across the road from so you didn't get a place? Is that what you're saying?

No Bert.

That's not what i'm saying.

*two

I believe its a reciprocal arrangement*
well- That's useful for the thousands of British immigrants in ( for example) Poland (NOT) - where child Benefit is £13.80 per month. Equal balance - no problem then, what with the cost of living being so much cheaper in the U.K.!

So why do you think immigrants who lived further away from the school you live across the road from and for which you meet the faith criteria got places when you didn't?

Yes theoretically we could move to Poland and get £13 a month CB.

Given the kids are still in Poland I doubt it's both parents here working. So one adult paying tax (if it's even over the threashold) triggers CB payments for the children still in Poland.

And the figures quoted for how much money they bring into the country and spend here are based on them spending their money here. Whereas the reality is that most of the money is sent home whilst they live very cheaply in a HMO. It isn't spent in the UK at all.

This covers all remittances sent home (not just to EU countries). But billions of £ being earned in the U.K. are not being put back into the economy.

Forgot image

It isn't spent in the UK at all.

You assume people have free accommodation and live off air?

You do realise that if all us scrounging immigrants fucked off the country would fall over in a week?

As long as a week albert

I wouldnt mind but the question was asked re justification, the answer is thats its reciprocal and now people are unhappy because it's not reciprocal enough

I find it a really irritating phrase. We did "looking after our own" when we decided to have a massive empire and plunder other people's lands for our own gain. Hell yeah, we should be helping out countries less rich than our own. The wealth of our nation is built on what we helped ourselves to from other lands. It's the least we owe them.

Natalie...you're choosing to ignore facts and focusing on one turn of phrase.

I'm not talking about families of EU origin coming here and making it their home.

I'm talking about single Eu men coming here, living very cheaply in HMOs and send the vast majority of their wages out of the uk. Whilst we pay the CB for their chilldren who still live in their country of origin.

This came from the discussion on paying CB to residents of other countries. I have no issue paying CB to children who live in the UK no matter where they come from.

Comments like "oh we'll all just fuck off" and scrounging immigrants are just inflammatory and the same old hackneyed phrases designed to shut down discussion.

WE didn't do anything.

Our ancestors did. A bloody long time ago.

Rigby We're still reaping the benefits. The wealth still pours in from our foreign interests. The empire was alive and kicking well into the 20th century. The people who were alive during the days of empire - you might call them ancestors, I call them my parents and grandparents.

Britain spent its cash fighting the second world war. UK paid off its war debt to USA just a few years ago.

You're talking reparations? How far back should we go with that?

The Americans can start paying reperations to black people too, Irish slaves, European slaves

East India trading company can pay some money to India

Rome can pay some money for sacking Europe?

Or is there a time limit on how far back we're supposed to feel monetary guilt?

Was that aimed at me, DalekBred? No, no judginess about single parents from me.

The OP asked who are "our own".

Looking after one's own is about looking after an "in-group", often at the expense of an "out-group", so it really matters who the in-group is.

That could be geographical groups like your street, as Rigby describes - and the elderly neighbour in need could have come to the UK as an immigrant from India in 1960.

But people use plenty of other meanings.

Some people would consider the elderly, Indian-born neighbour not to be their own. They might be very certain that "their own" was based on birthplace or race.

Some Tories have been overt in recent years that Tory voters are their own, and brought in policies towards local govt designed to beggar traditionally Labour-voting areas - article in LRB just now about this, which is why that eg is in my mind.

I've also had in mind the moment when single mothers were famously made the scapegoats at a Tory party conference under Thatcher.

For some, families which send their children to state schools are not "our own". Or families which rely on state healthcare.

And having been through that grindstone myself I can be pretty damn sure that being disabled and poor was not "our own" for Cameron and Osborne. (Though the disabled and rich were.)

And so on.

When people are using "look after our own" to, very understandably, complain about not getting cataract operations, they do so from the point of view of believing they are members of the in-group and it's some other poor bugger who should be being left out. Not realising that someone else has already drawn the in-group rather smaller, and neither the person needing the cataract operation nor the other poor bugger are in... So rather a case of be careful what you wish for.

Sorry, that's a tired ramble. But asking who the in-group actually is in any given political context, is a perfectly valid Q by the OP.

(I know thread's moved on, but I didn't want DalekBred to feel I was somehow judging her for being a single parent - who does that for heaven's sake?! That is, it's clear some people do, but, WTF?)