http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8798095/Brussels-threatens-to-sue-Britain-to-let-in-benefit-tourists.html

So do we get a lot of benefit tourists then?

Tea or beer? It’s past midday

HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS!

UUUURRRRGGGGGGGH… You’ll pay for this, Tin Tin!

* Waggles fist angrily in the vague direction of Europe *

But i,m already here. 😉

Can we set up an exchange programme? I fancy drinking lighter fuel and abusing passers by in Brasov in Romania. Its nice there 🙂

there’s one! quick, get him!

And the latest little nasty from the coalition…

http://www.channel4.com/news/700-000-terminally-ill-to-lose-benefits

I fancy drinking lighter fuel and abusing passers by in Brasov in Romania

you can take the boy out of manchester……………………..

The bad news is that you’ve a month to live. The good news is that you’re premature death will be helping pay off the deficit. You must be so proud

Oh I see, to be in any way resistant to Brussels or the Euro is to be a Fascist is that correct? You must have a missed Peter Oborne on Newsnight this week.

Have a read of this.

http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog2/oborne%20guilty%20men.pdf

And again there appears the notion that euro-sceptics are evil seducers, who tempt you into wrong by tricking you or infecting you with their virus. At best, silky seducers; at worst conquering anti-Euro “forces” or armies that march to the “drum-beat” of the pound whilst on a “crusade” that is “messianic”,35 and who have, indeed,
“stormed the citadel”.36 David Aaronovitch took this deliberate
misrepresentation of euro-sceptics as menacing troops to its logical conclusion when he wrote:

“Echoes of the Europhobes’ golden age were to be heard on the streets of Riga this week, when veterans of the Latvian legion of the Waffen SS observed their annual get-together, drinking beer and reliving old massacres.”

Few of Aaronovitch’s target audience would take the time to look behind the Nazi imagery to the baffling assumptions hidden there: that British euro-sceptics were rabid, nationalistic Europe-haters who fought against the Nazis in World War Two, while simultaneously viewing the time that German fascism was at its height as a “golden age”. Most would be happy to lazily enjoy the connection between euro-sceptics and their natural fascist, anti-semitic, genocidal partners in Latvia.

In the argument over the Euro, for those in the consensus there
was no real opposition – there were just those within it, the
establishment, who were reasoned and logical “grown-ups”; and
those without, who weren’t worth listening to.

So do we get a lot of benefit tourists then?

No, we don’t. Because you cannot at the moment come here and go straight onto benefits. The EU is saying that’s “unfair”. I say tough titty.

So do we get a lot of benefit tourists then?

Benefits are more generous in Germany, probably also in France, Holland and Belgium. Seems the UK would be pretty low on the list of benefit tourists.

Article seems to imply that it’s not just Britain that’s against this.

Will this only apply to unemployment benefits do you think? Or will I be able to pick and choose dependent on my stage of life? Might need to swot up on retirement benefits in the rest of the eu.

Benefits are more generous in Germany, probably also in France, Holland and Belgium. Seems the UK would be pretty low on the list of benefit tourists.

Therefore no problem with us saying thanks but no thanks OK?

But lets do this. Rather than us argue about it, what say we have a vote, how about that?

you can take the boy out of manchester…

He’s not from Manchester though is he?

He’s from Warrington, the poor lad. 🙁

I’m still scum though fred. The detail is irrelevant

GERTCHA!

It’s not like we can’t go to Europe and reciprocally claim their benefits isn’t it?

Bloody Daily Heil idiots…

Good point, that makes it OK then

Well done bright spark, everyone should listen to you more

I think the Telegraph article is completely missing the point in order to prove some kind of eurosceptic point, and it seems to me that the government are probably also publicising / distorting the facts around all this in a particular way because they are having a big party conference season publicity drive to speak to their traditional core voters (see also the 80mph speed limit stuff).

At least as I understand it:

If you read the actual example quoted in the EU’s case, where they are arguing that someone should get benefits, it is of someone who lived and worked in the UK for some years, but was still told they hadn’t gained a ‘right to reside’, so weren’t able to claim JSA when they were made redundant, despite having paid UK NI and tax prior to that.

It isn’t about people being able to just move here without any money and claim benefits – it is about people who have been allowed to move here for work having the same rights as people from the UK.

The particularly relevant EU thing guarantees free movement of *workers*, not free movement of anyone. You can move to get a job, and in doing/applying for that job you should be treated the same as anyone from anywhere in the EU including the nation the job is in. Unpaid people in whichever other EU state can’t just choose to move here, they need to get a job here (and hence pay tax, NI and all the other ways people contribute to society financially) to move here.

i don’t really understand this one. the UK ‘right to reside’ test for benefit claimants is drawn almost word for word from an EC directive – 2004/38 if you’re bored/interested. so, i’ve not worked out what the eu is upset about.

i could read the news articles, but i doubt the average journo’s knowledge of benefit law is up to much. hey ho…

Thia is all getting a bit confusing. So can I go and drink lighter fluid in Romania or not?

It isn’t about people being able to just move here without any money and claim benefits – it is about people who have been allowed to move here for work having the same rights as people from the UK.

No

You are entirely wrong. The EU wants ANYONE to be able to move to the UK and claim housing and employment benefits from day 1, despite never having worked or paid tax in the UK. EU citizens can already come here and work and after a period claim benefits if they become unemployed.

What exactly is a ‘benefits tourist’?

Do they do package holidays where you get to go on coach trips to deprived areas such as Tower Hamlets, Newham and The North? Stay in run-down Local Authority Housing, and are provided daily with such exciting challenges as ‘how to make less money than a Tory MP would spend on newspapers each day last for a week’? ‘How to provide your children with the barest semblance of a stable, happy upbringing whilst trying to keep them away from drugs, crime and negative destructive influences’? ‘How many applications for non-existant jobs you can fill in per day’? ‘How to cope with a serious disability or care for a sick person on a pittance that would barely feed a dog’?

Sounds exciting. Surely there must be millions of people signing up for such a wondrous experience…

You are entirely wrong. The EU wants ANYONE to be able to move to the UK

Does that mean we can move anywhere then?
Excellent – what are the benefits like there?

Its the Tory right wing press just on another softening up excercise, ready for an anouncement of the next onslaught against benefit ‘scroungers’ (ie: like the 3000 who just lost their jobs at Bae

Just be a good chap and don’t mention Fraud other than with the word ‘benefit’ before it, MP’s expenses, bankers bonuses, the obscene pay rises in FTSE 100 companies

Can I mention Vodafone?

Its the Tory right wing press just on another softening up excercise, ready for an anouncement of the next onslaught against benefit ‘scroungers’ (ie: like the 3000 who just lost their jobs at Bae

Just be a good chap and don’t mention Fraud other than with the word ‘benefit’ before it, MP’s expenses, bankers bonuses, the obscene pay rises in FTSE 100 companies

Straw man. Fail.

The actual EU are taking the Government of the UK (for the benefit of any doubt, thats our government) to court. The Telegraph havent made it up however much you wish that were the case.

Does that mean we can move anywhere then?

Don’t let the door hit you etc…..

We already have overpaid benefit fraudsters
,the Royal Family.Funny how all the South East
Computer tossers on here never criticise them.

Straw man. Fail.

The actual EU are taking the Government of the UK (for the benefit of any doubt, thats our government) to court. The Telegraph havent made it up however much you wish that were the case.
accuracy fail even the link/title says threatens and the article say they MAY

The commission said it had given Britain two months to bring its rules into line with the weaker EU standard. “Otherwise, the commission may decide to refer the UK to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

so they have “threatened” [ read said] that they “may” do something.
It may just play to a right wing agenda that is anti european, anti immigration and anti benefit scroungers with only a modicum of fact to support this agenda.
It is not unreasonable to suggest there is a right wing agenda behind the story

so why not go to Germany and claim there benefits, far more generous than ours, It works both ways.

The point is to allow labour to move freely around Europe, you may say it is to aid benefit tourism, you could also say it makes it easier for someone to move to a different country and get a job there.

We should probably stop our businesses from going to those countries and exploiting cheap labour too.

We already have overpaid benefit fraudsters
,the Royal Family.Funny how all the South East
Computer tossers on here never criticise them.

Would you like salt & vingear, or mayonnaise on that?
I’m guessing gravy possibly.

we are Not Europe (and Never should be) that is all!

Lefties in sarcastic denial shocker!

we are Not Europe (and Never should be) that is all!

We are.

we are Not Europe (and Never should be) that is all!

So where are we? north america? oceania?

Where do most of the goods we sell go, you can object as much as you like but the choice is as follows.

Do as the swiss, be outside the EU but do as your told by the EU and have no real say in making the rules
Or do as we should be doing, accept we are part of the EU and use it to our advantage and stop moaning that it is so unfair that the world is no longer subject to british rule and get on with dealing in the present.

Do as the swiss, be outside the EU but do as your told by the EU and have no real say in making the rules

and save a few francs/quid maybe?

We already have overpaid benefit fraudsters
,the Royal Family

Not really fraudsters though are they?

The sooner Europe is one united country the better!