100k Eastern European migrants free to claim benefits in UK after EU ruling

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12633382

100,000 Eastern European migrants now free to claim full benefits in Britain worth tens of millions of pounds after EU ruling

Hundreds of thousands of migrants will gain full access to Britain’s generous benefits system within weeks. When eight former Eastern Bloc countries joined the EU in 2004, rules were put in place to restrict access to welfare. But these rules lapse on May 1 and cannot be renewed, raising fears of mass benefits tourism.

After just three months’ ‘residency’ in the country, eastern European migrants will be able to claim hundreds of pounds a week in jobseeker’s allowance, council tax and housing benefits. Previously they had to work for a full year before being able to claim welfare. Critics said Labour made a ‘huge mistake’ when agreeing that the rules would last for just seven years and called safeguards ‘paper thin’. Since the EU expanded in 2004, Britain has experienced its largest ever wave of migration – despite official predictions that just 13,000 workers would want to move here.

Those searching for jobs have been required to pay £90 and sign up with the Worker Registration Scheme, run by the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions. They were then denied access to benefits until they had completed a full year of work. More than a million have joined the scheme and figures suggest there are some 625,000 still in work in the UK. But from May migrants from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic will simply have to pass a ‘habitual residency test’ – showing they have been looking for work for three months. The only other requirement is that they show benefits officials where they live, prove they want to settle here and show any employment history.

At that point they can get access to a council tax rebate, housing benefit worth hundreds of pounds a week and jobseeker’s allowance of £65 a week. The change in rules will also lead to a rise in the number of eastern Europeans living in Britain who receive child benefit for children still living in their home country. Figures last year showed there are already more than 32,000 children living in eastern Europe whose parents receive child benefit in Britain. Under EU rules, child benefit is paid to all parents in the UK, even if their children have stayed in their home countries.

All three of the main parties are in on this, they blame one another but none of them will put an end to this madness and it will not end until we get our chance to leave the European Union and its courts with their ridiculous and costly rules they enforce on us. A national debt of £7.9tn and yet this just continues happening.. along with billions in funding to the EU very year, billions in foreign aid to countries in India and a bloated public sector full of non-jobs - yet its the lollipop ladies, the nurses and so forth who are punished along with the taxpayer.

In the May elections remember this.

Thoughts?

[Chippiewill]

The problem is not the immigration or who it is given too, it is the currently broken benefits system currently in use that needs to be revamped or replaced.

If the EU wants us to give them benefits then they should pay for them, not hold a gun to the British taxpayer's head and force them to dole out the cash.

[jam666]

The problem with the EU is that they do not own a single penny. Everything they own is paid for by EU citizens.

[alexxxxx]

The problem with the EU is that they do not own a single penny. Everything they own is paid for by EU citizens.

That's like saying 'The british government don't own a single penny, everything they own is paid for by UK citizens' :S

OnT: If the rules are tight then i can't see any problems.

[-:Undertaker:-]

That's like saying 'The british government don't own a single penny, everything they own is paid for by UK citizens' :S

OnT: If the rules are tight then i can't see any problems.

Which is true, who pays for the state/EU? the taxpayer does.

You can't see a problem? why should people who have not paid into the system get out of the system?

And as for our benefits system being ruled tightly, yeah right and i'm a flying cake.

[GommeInc]

That's like saying 'The british government don't own a single penny, everything they own is paid for by UK citizens' :S

OnT: If the rules are tight then i can't see any problems.

Then you get the problem arising of why the British Taxpayer should churn out benefits to people who they (the British Taxpayers) feel do not deserve them. If the EU wants something, they should do it, not expect another nation to do it for them when aforementioned nation already gives money to that organisation which so happens to be sticking its grimey hand into financial situations which it shouldn't have any say in - much like our legal system, tax system, educational system and so forth.

[Eoin247]

The problem with the EU is that they do not own a single penny. Everything they own is paid for by EU citizens.

So your solution is that th EU gets funded by the generous money tree in the sky right....

I agree with European unity, i don't agree that the years work requirement be removed.

despite official predictions that just 13,000 workers would want to move here.

That was a very short sighted prediction from whoever created it. Even though i was younger, i still remember all the talk and worries about huge influxes of migrantscoming in from the east. I find it hard to believe that anybody looking at the statistics properly would only think that that amount would move to the UK.

[-:Undertaker:-]

So your solution is that th EU gets funded by the generous money tree in the sky right....

Not really, the solution of the majority in Great Britain would be to leave.

[Suspective]

This is disgraceful quite frankly, we already have enough unqualified eastern European migrants roaming our streets and I can see there being a much bigger increase in the numbers, now that they will be allowed to claim our benefits. I'm all for having a diverse nation, but this is one step to far and really highlights the problem of Europeans coming (avoiding any immigration control systems) and claiming benefits paid for by the British taxpayer and British government.

I'm sure that if the European Parliament were paying out their benefits, they wouldn't allow this to happen. Its a major flaw in the EU. Hence why they bring out such ludicrous laws and directives - as they aren't the ones paying for it in the long term. What next? Instant benefits!

If only, the politicians in Westminster would see sense and leave the dastardly European Union.