Why is free movement of labour so sacred to the EU.

[towny44]

Having done Brexit to death I thought I would move the subject on to the likely sticking point in any new trade deal with the EU as we head for the exit.
To start us off, presumably we already have free enough movement in the UK, but how many would up sticks and relocate without first securing a new job, not too many I guess.
So since we apparently need extra workers in the UK, to fill the jobs our workshy won't accept, what would be wrong with a "green card" type system that allowed EU nationals free access to the UK.
I will stop there for the moment to allow the discussion to meander back my way.

[david63]

how many would up sticks and relocate without first securing a new job

You, I and probably most members of this board wouldn't - but many young folk still do - they go off and hope that something turns up, and for some it works out. But in reality it is not that much different than the situation with our ancestors a couple or so generations ago - the did up sticks and move to where the work was, just that now it is across borders whereas it used to be within the country.

since we apparently need extra workers in the UK, to fill the jobs our workshy won't accept

That, however, is the crux of the problem and is what needs to be tackled first.

what would be wrong with a "green card" type system that allowed EU nationals free access to the UK.

Nothing for those who have a "skill" that we need - the emphasis being on need. My understanding of the American green card system is that you have to have a job to go to that cannot be filled by an American (although I am sure there are some pretty big loopholes in the system)

[barney]

What I find amusing towny is that the EU say that you cannot have the good bits- single market, without the bad bits - free movement.

So they openly admit that free movement is bad. ?????

In my opinion, it's nothing to do with commerce but all to do with political dogma.

The EU is a political alliance working towards a federal Europe, with ultimately one single governing body.
Individual parliaments will become redundant should the EU survive that long.

Working permits are certainly the future as far as the UK is concerned.

That fact that a foreign passport holder can rock up to our shores and just settle here seems bizarre to me anyway.
They need no means of support at all and it's all legal at the moment.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I have no problem with immigration to fill jobs and skills we can't fill here.

And it should be open to all from across the world based on skills alone, not nationality.

I do have a problem with immigration to claim benefits and/or beg on the streets, to plot terrorism against the people already here, or to fill jobs which could perfectly well be filled from the unemployment queues.

[Jack Staff]

Why is free movement of labour so sacred to the EU.

Wasn't it Norman Tebbit that said people should get on their bikes to find work?
Strikes me it's a true British Tory policy, just on a bigger scale.

[barney]

I'm pretty sure that Storming Norman didn't mean travel to a foreign country, arrive with no means of support, take the first low paid job you can get, apply for working tax credits, child tax credits, child allowance, housing benefit and a few more that I've forgotten.

A bigger scale is an understatement. It's on a huge scale.

Now, I fully accept that they do nothing wrong and it's all totally above board, but when the UK benefit system was set up, the intention could not have been to subsidise half of eastern Europe.

The scale of the in work benefits introduced by Blair is mind bogging.

In certain parts of the South East, a low paid worker can triple his/her salary with available benefits.

Remember reading about the French chap in Luton with eight kids ?

His family were getting a staggering £44K a year (tax free)
You would need to earn about £55K to bring that amount home.
Then on top of that, he was a student doing a nursing degree and that was also being paid for. Another £27K for the course.
IS he going to work in the UK once qualified. Well, I doubt it because he will lose a fortune in money.

That one story is enough to question whether total free movement is a good idea.

[Stephen]

I have no problem with immigration to fill jobs and skills we can't fill here.

And it should be open to all from across the world based on skills alone, not nationality.

I do have a problem with immigration to claim benefits and/or beg on the streets, to plot terrorism against the people already here, or to fill jobs which could perfectly well be filled from the unemployment queues.

Spot on Merv

[Jack Staff]

I thought we all wanted to move on and stop going round and round.
Seems like we're back again to....
"Those immigrants, comin' over 'ere......"

[barney]

I much prefer the Maltese system of unemployment benefit.

Six months to find a job, then it stops.
That is of course assuming that you are healthy and able bodied.
And you cannot claim anything until you have contributed for 52 weeks.
That applies to all.

Like the UK, they have very low unemployment but also very low wages.
The minimum wage in Malta for an adult is 4.20 Euros so many have more than one job.

[Jack Staff]

Reading the comments above, everyone seems happy with the idea of people comin' over 'ere......
until the subject of benefits.
Benefits are decided by the UK government (though the EU does want us to treat other nationals the same as ours).

[barney]

Exactly Jack, but that will change when/if we leave, saving billions.

oops ! going round again

[Jack Staff]

Exactly Jack, but that will change when/if we leave, saving billions.

oops ! going round again

Well, as you know, foreign workers contribute more tax to the UK than paid in benefits.
So we will not save billions.
We will lose millions of £ tax revenue.

[towny44]

Exactly Jack, but that will change when/if we leave, saving billions.

oops ! going round again

Well, as you know, foreign workers contribute more tax to the UK than paid in benefits.
So we will not save billions.
We will lose millions of £ tax revenue.

Jack if you take into account the extra spent in schools to teach their children english, the extra NHS resources that they use, because its free compared to in their own country and the pressure on local govt in providing extra housing and social services, then I am fairly certain they are well into negative tax benefit.

[barney]

That's a fallacy worked out on the back of a fag packet Jack.

No one has fully analysed the true impact because IT'S IMPOSSIBLE.

Take my neighbours, a truly lovely Polish family.

Mr M works as a driver and pays tax & NI
Mrs M doesn't work so therefore pays nothing but still uses all the facilities available. i.e. doctors, hospital etc
The two little Ms are both at school. Education has a cost.
Gandma & Grampa M also live with them but do not work at all so pay nothing in tax but still use all the facilities available.

So are we expected to believe that the tax paid my Mr M as a driver exceeds to cost of his family to the country.
I'd guess not.

I'm not decrying them at all. They are very welcome. But let's not believe all the rubbish that is spoken about.
Granted there are some high earners who would balance this out, but many, many more in low paid jobs.

Most of the farm & packing workers in Kent do not even work the full financial year so they can claim all there tax back in a rebate.
They have it down to a fine art. They generally live on site in porta cabins and pay rent to the agency who brings them in.
They can work 9 months at minimum wage, go back home for a three month break which leaves them under the tax threshold and reclaim what has been paid online.
They are all at it. It's common practice.
Nothing illegal about it, but little known about.

The sole reason that 3.5 million EU citizens live in the UK is money.
My neighbours go 'home' regularly and openly admit that if they could get a similar living standard in Poland, they would be off like a shot, but admit that they can't.
Once all the in work benefits are added, they live pretty nicely.
Should the Polish economy ever catch up, many would return.

[Jack Staff]

So what it all boils down to is we have money.
People with little money come here to earn some of ours.
We don't like to share.
We are willing to trash our economy so that they can not have the money we have no longer got.

[towny44]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... /10638283/

How-much-we-give-the-state-in-tax-and-how-much-we-get-back.htmlack

I don't know the correct figues either, but I am sure I have read somewhere that well over half of UK taxpayers actally contribute less into the state coffers than they receive in benefits. Of course this is an average but I suspect that most EU immigrants fall into the bottom half of taxpayers.
Now that is not to say that they are not contributing as well as any of their UK equivalents, and filling jobs that might otherwise remain vacant, but please don't try to make out that without them we would be worse off, our GDP would be lower but the average per capita would be higher.

Check out the figures in the above link.

[Jack Staff]

Jack I don't know the correct figues either, but I am sure I have read somewhere that well over half of UK taxpayers actally contribute less into the state coffers than they receive in benefits. Of course this is an average but I suspect that most EU immigrants fall into the bottom half of taxpayers.
Now that is not to say that they are not contributing as well as any of their UK equivalents, and filling jobs that might otherwise remain vacant, but please don't try to make out that without them we would be worse off, our GDP would be lower but the average per capita would be higher.

Mulberry bush anyone?

My point was that to be without them would mean we would have left th EU, with all the economic implications that entails.

[Jack Staff]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... /10638283/

How-much-we-give-the-state-in-tax-and-how-much-we-get-back.htmlack

I don't know the correct figues either, but I am sure I have read somewhere that well over half of UK taxpayers actally contribute less into the state coffers than they receive in benefits. Of course this is an average but I suspect that most EU immigrants fall into the bottom half of taxpayers.
Now that is not to say that they are not contributing as well as any of their UK equivalents, and filling jobs that might otherwise remain vacant, but please don't try to make out that without them we would be worse off, our GDP would be lower but the average per capita would be higher.

Check out the figures in the above link.

This link should work...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... -back.html

[Silver_Shiney]

Reading the comments above, everyone seems happy with the idea of people comin' over 'ere......
until the subject of benefits.
Benefits are decided by the UK government (though the EU does want us to treat other nationals the same as ours).

Nobody is unhappy with the prospect of foreigners (European or otherwise) coming here to fill a job that no Brit is qualified to do.

Our system of benefits is more generous than many European countries, that's why they're coming here.

From what you say, Jack, it appears very much that you are happy for us hard_working taxpayers to be so fleeced. We're being adequately screwed by our own working without importing more. DO NOT misunderstand me again, if Johnny Foreigner has a job to come to and contribute to our economy, he is more than welcome

[allatc]

In answer to the original question I reckon Barney has it right :-

The EU is a political alliance working towards a federal Europe, with ultimately one single governing body.

and one currency, and one tax system all governed by Brussels

[barney]

Absolutely. If it was a genuine trading block it wouldn't require a flag anthem president and army .

[towny44]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... /10638283/

How-much-we-give-the-state-in-tax-and-how-much-we-get-back.htmlack

I don't know the correct figues either, but I am sure I have read somewhere that well over half of UK taxpayers actally contribute less into the state coffers than they receive in benefits. Of course this is an average but I suspect that most EU immigrants fall into the bottom half of taxpayers.
Now that is not to say that they are not contributing as well as any of their UK equivalents, and filling jobs that might otherwise remain vacant, but please don't try to make out that without them we would be worse off, our GDP would be lower but the average per capita would be higher.

Check out the figures in the above link.

This link should work...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... -back.html

Did you get chance to read the article Jack? It seems my memory was pretty accurate, the lowest earning 60% of UK households are net beneficiaries from the tax system which I would hazard a guess includes the majority of the 3.5m EU citizens currently living, and hopefully, working in the UK.
So even where they are working in jobs which UK workers don't want, and filling a much needed role, they are still not contributing to the tax system, even though they are helping the economy to grow. I hope you will now stop using this argument to support the unfettered free movement of labour and perhaps agree that change to this strange EU deity is well overdue.

[Jack Staff]

Reading the comments above, everyone seems happy with the idea of people comin' over 'ere......
until the subject of benefits.
Benefits are decided by the UK government (though the EU does want us to treat other nationals the same as ours).

Nobody is unhappy with the prospect of foreigners (European or otherwise) coming here to fill a job that no Brit is qualified to do.

Good, so there is some hope.

Our system of benefits is more generous than many European countries, that's why they're coming here.

Than some, we can quote different benefits in different countries til the cows come home.
They are coming everywhere. This is a problem FOR Europe, NOT of Europe. Many more are going to other countries than here.
Once we leave the EU we will be on our own and we will not be able to cope.

From what you say, Jack, it appears very much that you are happy for us hard_working taxpayers to be so fleeced.

From what you say, it appears I am now able to say things about you that are untrue.

We're being adequately screwed by our own working without importing more.

Every country has it's own lazy slobs. Luckily for us they are not the type that travel here to make a valuable contribution.

DO NOT misunderstand me again, if Johnny Foreigner has a job to come to and contribute to our economy, he is more than welcome

[Jack Staff]

In answer to the original question I reckon Barney has it right :-

The EU is a political alliance working towards a federal Europe, with ultimately one single governing body.

and one currency, and one tax system all governed by Brussels

Since Maastricht 1992 yes.
That is why we negotiated the opt outs.
We will lose these when we rejoin

[Jack Staff]

Absolutely. If it was a genuine trading block it wouldn't require a flag anthem president and army .

It's not just a trading block, hasn't been for twenty five years.
It's far more than that. Proves you do not realising what we will be losing.