Solution for Brexit....coming from Germany

[watchingwithinterest]

Watching Mrs Merkel in Germany with some considerable interest, she is now under a great deal of pressure to start imposing migrant restrictions in Germany. Her own interior minister threatened to impose them immediately defying her authority but has allowed her the opportunity to find a solution at the EU summit.

Are we now seeing the start of freedom of movement coming to an end?

And if we are, what does that mean for brexit? If countries are able to implement their own immigration policies again given the huge surge in support for some controls surely this could actually mean that brexit may not need to happen.

I am posting as a leaver, I would like a considered orderly brexit. I would certainly reconsider staying in the EU if the immigration decisions were based here and if the EU became more democratic and transparent (I do believe this is all achievable)

If the EU wishes to ignore the tsunami of growing opinion right across Europe that some controls are needed, then the project truly deserves to be dead in the water, if it can show it is open and flexible to change it may save itself just in time....

What are your thoughts? Civil posts only please.

topcat that was my point
Most EU immigrants are NOT wasters, they work more than Native Brits and non EU immigrants
It’s non working people from ANYWHERE we don’t want and after Brexit we are likely to get more

You are saying things which people do not want to hear. We are not allowed to talk about feckless work refusers because there are apparently only a tiny minority of them. And yet the same voices complain about EU migrants coming over here and taking low skilled jobs and driving down wages and clogging up schools and the nhs and houses etc. It can't be both

Exactly.

My parents worked and paid taxes in UK for 40 years, never claimed a penny.

DDs partner is Spanish he works 2 jobs

Go to any dole office see if you can say the vast majority of claimants are foreign.

You have engrained laziness here. Workshy, and entitled. That is why the Windrush arrived, despite Britain having more than enough people here already who could have turned their hand to work (but didn't) and it's no different today.

That is why foreign workers are still invited here, that is why you go out to restaurants where you eat foreign food (yet complain about foreigners) and are served by foreign staff.

Instead of seeing the cynicism in government driving down wages and decimating local services, so many people are busy looking at the 'foreigner next door' and thinking s/he are to blame for their ills. Can't see the bigger picture

Immigration won't stop as England would never survive without it. The collapse would be swift. Brexit is not going to stop immigration, period.

It's naive to think the government will suddenly take notice of the pot bellied pub man pompously waxing lyrical over several pints about how he'd get rid of all foreigners and put England to rights again

There were, and are, not enough people prepared to work hard.

Better get used to immigration.

"Go to any dole office see if you can say the vast majority of claimants are foreign."

Unfortunately that's not backed up by data only 2% of all claimants are from the EU, non EU immigrants cannot claim benefits.

"That is why the Windrush arrived, despite Britain having more than enough people here already who could have turned their hand to work (but didn't) and it's no different today. "

Bullshit, we had a shortage of people to do jobs and extremely low unemployment at the time.

My mum came over at the same time as the Windrush programme. She was from Ireland. There weren't enough British nurses to staff the new NHS. She was an invited worker.
Thanks to her I get to have an EU passport post Brexit. I voted Remain. As did she. She lived here, worked and paid taxes all her adult life.

An influx of cheap foreign workers happens when you have a sweat-shop type exonomy with poor safeguards for workers. We don't have it in France because our law says you have to pay workers from wherever the same and pay their social cover as well.
There are stiff penalties for illegally employing people (happens all the time where I live, generally to British people who think they are under the radar, shipping in builders etc from Poland to do up their holiday houses).
The immigrants who are noticed because they don't speak our language and don't integrate tend to be the English-speaking ones, in my area.

Economy, not exonomy.

@Scaryteacher
I too was traveling from Belgium to France that day. Although you can drive through the borders at speed you are photographed on both sides of the border and since security services are interlinked across most of the EU countries they could be pretty sure who I am as they have the car registration and could see that there was only me in the car although it would be possible to have others covered of course. Thus both countries know who I am and where I 'belong' unless it was someone stealing my car in which case I would have reported it and hopefully someone would look for it. I presume the police have powers to 'stop and search' or at least they check paperwork but they don't routinely do this without a reason such as that atrocity, which was very localised.

Personally I would prefer the local police to ask (tell, but nicely) to see my ID rather than CCTV everywhere where the operators can 'perv' watching someone trying to scratch an itch in an inconvenient place.
If you have an itch in the groin area, how many 'scratches' are you allowed before it becomes a 'lewd act'? Would you like it to appear on facebook?

The reality is that the UK contributes about €8.6bn a year (net) out of a total EU budget of about €145bn - so somewhere in the order of 6%.

Havanana.. Sorry but I know as a fact that the various grants programmes within the EU have been asked to prepare for 25% cuts.

@mummymeister

That may be true, but it is various programmes - not the whole EU spending. The EU is not going to cut expenditure by €36bn due to the loss of €8.5bn from the UK.

Its to do with fixed and variable costs within the EU. Us leaving wont see much of a change in the government side of things. That wont suddenly cost less because there is one less member. So the savings needed to make up for the shortfall will come from cutting back the EU's grant programme because that is a variable cost that can be cut.

Exactly - some programmes will be cut back, but not the entire EU spend.

Meanwhile the UK can look forward to losing 100% of the EU grants. The lowest estimate of a Brexit dividend is a loss of £15bn a year (not a gain) so no additional money for the NHS, or Cornwall and Wales, or farmers. And no more jobs for about 800,000 people reliant on frictionless EU trade for their employment.

since security services are interlinked across most of the EU countries In principle, yes, but the practice leaves much to be desired, or so I am told. Anyone could of course have been driving your car,

I would far rather have the CCTV than an armed policewoman going through my knicker drawer, as happened in 2014, or an armed policeman in my sitting room having an anxiety attack that my ds would be back in the UK at uni without his Belgian ID card, and how would he manage without it (September 2017)?

As to an itch in an inconvenient place - I would tend to find a convenient cafe with a loo to go and scratch in - I don't make a habit of scratching in public. Furthermore, in the UK, there is no CCTV where I live - scratching in rural Cornwall isn't likely to end up on FB. I don't have FB anyway, so couldn't care less what is on there, as I am sublimely unaware if anyone has posted anything about me anyway.

Unfortunately that's not backed up by data only 2% of all claimants are from the EU, non EU immigrants cannot claim benefits

Excuse me?

In March 2014 738,900 families who were in receipt of tax credits
(15.9% of the total) contained at least one adult who was a non-UK
national at NINo registration. 317,800 of these claimants were EU
nationals, 43% of total non-UK claimants and 6.8% of total claimants.

A471 Your data refers only to claimants in receipt of tax credits which is only one part of working-age benefits. It also refers to 2014. The most recent statistics from the House of Commons (published in March 17 briefing paper, based on data gathered in 2016) says

What proportion of benefit claimants are non-UK nationals?
In February 2016, 359,430 working-age claimants of DWP benefits
(7.4% of total claimants) were non-UK nationals when they first
registered for a National Insurance Number (NINo). 104,850 of these were EU nationals, 29.2% of non-UK claimants and 2.1% of total claimants

"Unfortunately that's not backed up by data only 2% of all claimants are from the EU"

The data I was using was the JSA claimant count, only 2% of all claimants are from the EU.

6.8% of total claimants for WTCs means that EU nationals ( as they make up 10% of the working population) are under represented.

Using the data that Childrenofthesun uses its still low, and the EU nationals are still under represented.

topcat are you referring to this report from August 2017?

Analysis of Migrants’ Access to Income-Related Benefits

It does indeed show that EEA nationals account for 2% of JSA claimants.

Following on from changes to JSA and HB during 2014:

 In the period following the introduction of the measures (November 2013 to January 2017), there was a 47% fall in the number of new JSA claims by EEA nationals, and from November 2013 to November 2016, a 76% fall in the caseload of EEA nationals claiming JSA.

 Since the introduction of the measures, there has been a 76% fall in the number of new HB claims made by EEA jobseekers (March 2014 to February 2017), and an 83% fall in the national caseload of EEA jobseekers claiming HB (February 2014 to November 2016).

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/639597/analysis-of-migrants-access-to-income-related-benefits.pdf

However A4701 data (from The Guardian) is for in work benefits (tax credits):

www.theguardian.com/money/datablog/2015/oct/19/tax-credit-claimants-nationalities-and-non-uk-families-the-data

Note that more than 7% of all couples in the UK comprise one UK national and one non-UK national, according to analysis compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the Guardian.

But when any such couples claim tax credits, they could be considered migrant families by the British government.

As a result of this classification:

Inflates the number of migrants claiming tax credits, while downplaying the figures for UK nationals on tax credits.

HMRC data claims that – based on its definition – there were 1.7 million UK couples and 431,500 “non-UK” couples claiming tax credits in 2014.

So using your data couples with one EU national make up 2.1% of all WTC claimaints?

Its hilarious that the "immigrants need benefits" rhetoric is skewered by the actual data.

So 2.1% of all claimaints, yet 10% of people in work?

Isn't it the Schrodinger's Immigrant effect? They come to steal our jobs whilst at the same time claiming all our benefits.

Why are intra EU (Free Movement) immigrants allowed to claim benefits if EU/UK regs say they must be able to support themselves financially and housing wise for at least three months. Then go back home or be deported.

That option was not chosen by Theresa May as Foreign Sec who has the uncanny ability to speak out of both sides of her mouth.

I welcome some clarification though.

There are many ways EU migrants can claim benefits. They may have permanent residency. They may be in a household with a UK national. They may have lost their job.

Unless you're suggesting anytime an EU national loses their job, regardless of how long they've been here, they should be "deported"?

They can't just arrive and claim benefits. There are also restrictions on when an EU national can exercise their treaty rights as a jobseeker rather than worker, student or self sufficient.

The UK economy needs migrant workers. Currently these predominantly come from the EU. EU migrants are far more likely to work and not bring dependents (so pay taxes but less of a burden in terms of benefits, NHS, schools etc)

Restricting free movement will mean migrant labour has to be sourced from outside the EU.

Jager,

That is not the issue though is it? i.e claiming benefits willy nilly.

If you have contributed for a certain period of time, I don't see the problem, do you?

@keyboardkate

You asked why EU migrants were allowed to claim benefits, and I explained. They aren't just allowed to claim in the first three months. That's my point, the vast majority of EU migrants are here contributing, and ending FOM will in all likelihood remove that contribution to the detriment of the UK economy