Blaming brown for brexit because of Eastern Europeans coming here because of tax credits is ridiculous!
The benefits in the UK are way less generous than other countries like Germany and France! Ee people pay far more than they take out anyway.
Not true. Until Brexit, the pound was much stronger than the Euro, which mean that money received in benefits here was worth much, much more when exchanged and taken or sent back to their home country. (So yes, covering the Brown period and a long while after).
Also, tax credits are in work benefits, so as soon as you are working, you can claim them. France and Germany are geared towards out of work benefits, which are much harder to get in all EU countries including the EU. In Germany the wait is 5 years and in France you need to have worked 122 days in the last year.
The issue with exchange rates also caused big inequality. A Polish or Romanian worker could come here alone and claim tax credits for children in their home country and lead a lifestyle not possible with children - living in cheap shared housing, digs, sometimes even having a time share bed or sleeping in vans and tents. Housing is much cheaper in their countries. They could work here for a couple of years and go home set up to buy a property with a nice little nest egg behind them.
A worker doing the same job and for same money who is settled here and has a partner and children, if they received tax credits they would be able to afford a basic lifestyle with very little opportunity to save and very little prospect of ever improving their lifestyle or prospects.
Even if a UK employee managed to live the same lifestyle as a migrant and save up the same amount of money, without the prospect of being able to exchange it and go to a county where it is worth much more and cost of living far cheaper, they probably would only have scraped together enough to buy a second hand car and could only dream in about a deposit.