To think freedom of movement is not understood by most!

[Onetwothree4]

I'm an EU citizen, lived most of my life in the UK and I can't stand this political nonsense of lies and misinterpretation anymore! Do you guys know that the freedom of movement exercised by most EU countries is as follows:

1. You can move to another EU country without a visa for 3 months to stay, study or look for work
2. After 3 months you will have to apply for a permission to settle based on your employment, family ties or studies
3. You will also have to prove you are financially able to look after yourself and not become a burden on the country's social welfare system.
4. You have to apply to be included in the social security system to be entitled to healthcare, education, benefits etc..

The UK GOVERNMENT decided to operate this free for all approach of people being able to just jump on the plane and go straight to the doctors. Most EU countries (maybe even all others!) did not! You can not do this in other EU countries.

The culprit is the UK government, not the EU! Why did they do that? I don't know. Probably needed the workforce? This is all smoke and mirrors and a big game played by the privileged boys in politics who want the top job.

Just to spell it out: If you wanted to move to my country, which is a full EU country with euro as currency, you would have to LEAVE after 3 months if you could not prove a valid reason to be there. This is how EU works. It's the UK law makers who took a very liberal approach to these rules and created this mess called Brexit.

No - it rests on your generalised rant about how impossible and expensive the infrastructure etc would be, which follows the expletive ridden start to your post.
So no actual counter arguments then, just a general sneer and dismissal of "rants" and "expletives". That's fine - just tell me what I'd be gaining from an ID card?

Well, if you already have access to all those things then an id card wouldn't directly benefit you, that's true....but it would ensure that from now on only those people who are actually entitled to those things have access to them. It would ulitmately mean that it's not possible (or very much harder to) play the system and get something when you're not entitled to it. In theory, there is then more control over money and resources, meaning that the right people (those who have paid into the system or are otherwise entitled) get the benefits etc that they are entitled to.

Benefit fraud related is estimated at a tiny amount - less than 1% - even if that was ALL people pretending to be someone else the cost and effort of a universal ID scheme wouldn't make it worth implementing for that.

In all the contentions that UK government could have stopped the high level of migration to the UK from the rest of the EU but failed to - we've only seen the Blair government's failure to adopt the interim arrangements cited. That was only ever going to be a short term thing anyway. Even if we'd had an ID card system and spent a fortune on enforcement, we'd have had the very high levels of migration here from poorer countries and I still haven't seen anyone explain how it could ever have been prevented whilst staying in the EU. Citing places like Belgium is, frankly, silly as they have a totally different system and have nothing like the volume of immigration.

BTW I'd like to thank the OP for this thread - some excellent points have been raised.

Benefit fraud related is estimated at a tiny amount

We're often told what powerhouses of intellect Leavers are (mainly, it has to be said, by leavers) so I wonder what their combined brainpower would chose to do, when confronted with these statistics ?

Tax "avoidance" isn't illegal. It's not really appropriate to include perfectly legal tax avoidance figures with illegal tax "evasion" figures - the tax justice network has form for deliberately confusing the two. The HMRC figures are far more reliable as they just include illegal activity, not morally dubious.

If people want to close tax loopholes and reduce legal tax avoidance, then they need to lobby the politicians to do that.

Or how about a level playing field. In the benefit figures, you should include people who arrange their affairs deliberately to get more benefits, even if legal, such as choosing to have more children, choosing to spend savings to get under the benefit threshold, choosing to work part time to maximise tax credits, etc etc. It's the same as people who legally take tax avoidance opportunities.

If you're going to make comparisons, at least compare like for like!

We're often told what powerhouses of intellect Leavers are
Fuck off with that sneering

(mainly, it has to be said, by leavers) so I wonder what their combined brainpower would chose to do, when confronted with these statistics ?
We're agreed on the stats. Benefit fraud of 1.3 Billion is tiny as a proportion of benefits - as the infographic you posted shows it's less than mistakes.

My point is that a universal ID card system would cost way more than £1.3 billion a year to solve a "problem" that doesn't actually exist.

We're agreed on the stats.

All I wanted

My point is that a universal ID card system would cost way more than £1.3 billion a year to solve a "problem" that doesn't actually exist.

nope ... can't really fault that either.

But I'm not talking about people screwing the benefits system - if anyone is entitled to rock up and start claiming benefits, use NHS, enrol kids in school etc when there is no burden to prove that they can support themselves, then they are legally taking money out of a system that they have not paid into.
In countries which have an ID system you can't do any of that.

familycourtq - Benefit fraud related is estimated at a tiny amount - less than 1% - even if that was ALL people pretending to be someone else the cost and effort of a universal ID scheme wouldn't make it worth implementing for that.

But noone is talking about benefit fraud at all. The UK has made it perfectly legal for EU nationals to access all sorts of services on arrival so it isn't even classed as fraud.

So while (these days) British residents have to faff around with utility bills and passports to prove their right to to healthcare and education etc - I just recite my number or show my card.

Where I live ID cards and registration numbers are linked to tax. All new arrivals have to register with the tax office on arrival. There are 2 types of id numbers - full id numbers for those with residence rights and coordination numbers for those without full residence rights.

The cards are used as an integrated system across all government bodies in everyday life
to prevent all sorts of fraud -- healthcare (also prevented me from getting the wrong treatment once)- Uni exams - collecting parcels etc

• it has a chip and pin that you use for benefit applications, contact with official bodies
• I can use the chip and pin to view my medical

I got my id as a package deal with my passport from the Police station and both together cost £65

But all that aside - in order for ID cards to work - i.e. prevent illegal immigration and overstayers, black market work, health tourism etc, they'd have to be demanded on a very regular basis for everyday transactions.

Such as? I've shown my (shiny and lovely new) ID card about 3 times since i got it in March.
First time was when i rented a car, they wanted proof of ID with an address. So I showed them my ID card (they wanted a driving licence too, of course, but that doesn't have an address on it). People without ID cards had to show passports and other documents and in the case of one person without a passport or proof address sent away (proof of address: you go to the town hall and they print you one, it costs €9)

Second time was when I flew from one EU country to another and back. That was hugely exciting for me.

Third time was when I bought a new kitchen and signed the forms for the loan.

When I go to the doctor, if i haven't been within that quarter i hand over my health insurance (chip) card. It's scanned and that's it. If I don't have it, they would want proof of residence, photo ID and me to sign a form that i will pay for the treatment (or the EHIC card if a EU citizen but also with photo ID)

Oh and i had a car accident, the police checked my ID card then, too. As a foreigner without an ID card I'd have had to hand over my passport and driving licence, and they would have had to check me on the central database to find out where I lived and that would have taken a few hours instead of the 10 minutes an ID card took.

Sure the administration (and set up) of an ID card scheme would be expensive - but it would prevent a lot of things happening that people in the UK don't think should happen. Surely?

Sure the administration (and set up) of an ID card scheme would be expensive - but it would prevent a lot of things happening that people in the UK don't think should happen. Surely?

What things? And how would it prevent them?

But all that aside - in order for ID cards to work - i.e. prevent illegal immigration and overstayers, black market work, health tourism etc, they'd have to be demanded on a very regular basis for everyday transactions.

What "everyday" transactions are you talking about? The vast majority of Joe Public aren't having daily interactions with governmental bodies.

I don't think people are rocking up to A&E on a daily basis, nor their GPs nor dentists? And anyone, once you've registered at a GP or dentist, there'll be no need to keep showing the card at every subsequent appointment - maybe once every few years just to keep records up to date?

Sure the administration (and set up) of an ID card scheme would be expensive

May not be as expensive as people think. We're actually starting to see "joined up thinking" between governmental departments. I renewed my passport earlier in the year - all done online, just took a selfie of myself and sent it via their website. New passport arrived within a week. Last month I finally decided to ditch my old paper driving licence and get a photo driving licence instead - I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was - all done online - linked my passport number to the driving licence, photo automatically taken from the passport, new photo driving licence arrived a week later.

I thought at the time how quick and easy it would be for ID cards if they could be linked the same way to driving licences and passports. For the vast majority of people, it would just be a few clicks and the card would arrive - all based on data held on the passport and driving licence databases. Of course, for people without both, people without a NI number, etc,. it wouldn't be that easy, but it needs to be based on the 80/20 principal. If 80% of people could get a card easily based on existing data, you can concentrate resources on the 20% who'll need more attention, i.e. checking against birth records, immigration databases, etc.