One million immigrants claiming benefits

[AnxiousApocalypse]

Just been reading the comments sections of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail articles about the one million foreigners claiming benefits in the UK. It feels like the final nail in the coffin and a lot of people will feel even more justified in expressing their anger and hate towards immigrants. What happens when Reform win the next general election and come into power? Will people be rounded up en masse and put in detention centres like the USA?

Yep

As expected, the thread has descended into people throwing insults at each other because they have different opinions. That's just what the (failing) governments want. Rats in a sack fighting about immigrants, poor people, brown people, the wealthy paying or not paying more tax, etc.

Labour cannot even define who “working people” are.

So wealthy people are "stealing"?

It's hard to take anything you say seriously. I hope you never get involved in politics or any position of influence.

Laxmi Mittal perhaps. Chairman of Arcelor Mittal, the second largest steel company in the world. He was in the paper the other day, saying he is leaving the UK. Taking his jobs with him.

Not sure the Public Accounts Committee believe we have complete clarity regarding of wealthy people accounts & tax -

From the public accounts committee-
A higher risk of error may be presented by wealthy taxpayers, due to the larger amounts involved with the potential for more complex financial affairs.
The PAC reported on collecting tax from high net worth individuals in 2016. The Committee at the time expressed alarm that HMRC had around one third of these individuals under enquiry at any one time, and in 2015–16 was investigating cases with a value of around £1.9bn extra tax revenue that might be due.

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9050/collecting-the-right-tax-from-wealthy-individuals/

Oh! You mean Tony Blair ex- Fettes schoolboy worth a joint net worth of 70 million with his wife. And of course their son Ewan, who admittedly went to a state school, allbeit one of the most sought after and elite state schools in the country, which can't possibly have been for any reason other than it was allocated to him completely at random by his local education authority at the time. He's worth a trifling 350 million.

@Nelliemellie

I think we decided to leave India alone, or it wasn’t financially viable.
Whereas countries that have valuable resources (oil) we sought/seek to plunder for our financial gain.
I read about some countries having borders that are literally straight lines - imperialism decided resulted in drawing borders with a pencil line - with complete disregard for families, cultures, the inhabitants within.
Resulting in the poverty, wars and displacements we see today.

3rd richest person in the world. He’s not going to hang around and pay a wealth tax that the uk claims is a one off but I wouldn’t trust them at all.

And he doesn’t have to. The truly wealthy in this country are international people. That’s generally how you get rich, being prepared to move around to where the opportunities are. They don’t care about moving countries because it’s very long time since they were based anywhere.

And yes we think these people are going to fund our welfare state???

The UK won't default in the sense it will fail to pay it's debts.

That's because our debts are denominated in our own currency. And we can print as much of that as we like.

Printing currency does have consequences though, as currency is not wealth, it is a store of wealth and printing could end up trashing the currency. So a technical default as it were.

I think there is a general acceptance that the markets feel that the UK has come to the end of it's credit line, and further spending needs to be paid for directly, in other words raised by taxation. In some ways I think the markets are exercising a greater control over democracy than the voting public (it appears the government(s) can seemingly lie to the voting public, cover up information and not do what they promised as part of their manifestos, whereas it appears they cannot do this to the markets who vote on a daily basis. However that discussion is probably one for a different thread).

And here we find the crux of the issue, it can be loosely categorised as a productive population that feels they are being taxed too much, a non productive population that feels they are under attack and having their benefits reduced, and to complete the toxic mix, a substantial number of people coming into the country that are adding to the spending burden, simultaneously requiring increased taxation for the productive and decreased benefits for the non productive in order to balance the books.

This is the situation the current government has to work itself out of. Not surprisingly the opposition parties are attempting to make political capital out of this difficult situation, the benefits of course of not being in power.

To come back to the point (defaults), every GBP someone holds is a bet that the government(s) (plural includes future governments) can resolve this tricky situation without trashing the currency in the process.

www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553.amp

Euan set up his own company. Probably helped that his dad was PM but do you have knowledge of either of them:

a) doing anything corrupt, or
b) not paying their taxes?

Or are you just letting your envy show?

Big thing here for me is the facts about what benefits, if any, are available to asylum seekers and other immigrants are not widely known. Many believe that 'farsands of 'em' are living the life of Riley on generous benefits. TV and press do little to make the facts clear.

100% agree.

After the Labour rebels trashed the welfare bill one of them was heard saying ‘I don’t know what the fuss is all about. Surely we can just borrow some more money’. They’re just not very bright at all.

If this country was underpopulated then we should accept immigrants and welcome them. It isn't. it's overpopulated and sevices are stretched to the limit. So incomers need to be restricted, and also large families should not be encouraged by generous benefits for larger families.

If you're unsure why don't you educate yourself?

It helps me understand that you don’t know the difference between income and wealth or what the proposed wealth tax would mean. It wouldn’t be annual for a start.

You do know there’s a two child benefit cap?

If this country was underpopulated then we should accept immigrants and welcome them. It isn't. it's overpopulated and sevices are stretched to the limit. So incomers need to be restricted, and also large families should not be encouraged by generous benefits for larger families.

Sorry for duplicate post. Yes. But for how long.

I know alot of taxi drivers that are claiming universal credit. They work less hours and claim.

I think it is perfectly possible the country will descend into chaos over this. DH and I are currently planning our exit from the country to a place where they have managed the immigrant situation more sensibly, and to avoid the next tax raid. I have long said I wouldn't leave the UK again (having lived in several EU countries) but the point has come that I won't tolerate any longer being taxed to the hilt for very little in return. I feel like I've had the piss taken during my entire working life. I personally am paying £13K per year for the NHS from my tax and I literally can't get an appointment for my son who has been extremely unwell with a heart condition. We are going somewhere where we may be taxed more highly but at least you can see the benefits of that in the form of a well run community. It is clear to me that Reform will landslide the next election and I usually guess these things right.

I think that figure is likely to be true for universal credit claimed by refugees. I see quite a few through my work. Many of them don't speak English well enough to work and a lot are either homeless or on temp accomodation once they move from asylum seeker status to refugee and are not longer supported by the home office.

We've been lied to for years about all the economic benefits of mass immigration..

Open borders have destroyed the housing market, suppressed wages and seen benefit bills skyrocket.

I've seen it for years in my own area. The same groups of men just standing around talking in foreign languages all day in the middle of the street.

@ffsfindmeausername

Hmm. Wonder how the grandparents of those ‘immigrants’ you see in the park felt when their lives were torn apart by Europeans swarming their country, plundering their resources, destroying their family life, causing war and extreme poverty.
We’ll gloss over that though shall we? Bit inconvenient when you just want to eat your ice cream in peace.