Robin Hood wrote:Kikapu:
I agree with you RH. All I am saying is, if immigrants are coming to work in the UK and paying taxes through different avenues, they should have the same benefits afforded to them as it is given to anyone else in the UK and not have a two tier system. Nothing more, nothing less.
I can’t agree although it does seem unfair. If you take out car insurance you have to wait to build up enough years without an accident to be entitled to a no-claims bonus? Much the same with a job. You and the guy next to you may have the same qualifications and do the same job but he gets paid more than you as he has been there longer ...... does his extra time and experience not entitle him to more money than you get? Vice versa, if you had been working there for some years and a new employee with equal qualifications was paid the same as you ‘
just to be fair’ would you not be a bit miffed? I believe your ‘
extra contribution’ should entitle you to more.
I agree there should be a minimum level cover for all, but not for pre-existing conditions or on-going conditions and only then to cover essential/emergency treatment level. The number of foreign women who turn up for delivery at LHR or Dover is apparently quiet a large number and I don’t think we should treat them. That is exploiting the system.
When Cameron asked the EU to except the UK for 13 years with a possibility to extend not to provide any benefits to EU immigrants, the EU bent backwards to give him 7 years. In the end, that was not enough, so it seems like Brexit is not about money, the economics or services given to legitimate immigrants. It has more to do with the UK not being able to be part of EU in making collective decision for the good of Europe and the EU citizens, but instead in wanting to believe they can be an empire again, much like Turkey is trying to be, no matter how delusional they may be
.
But if our system is being dragged down by providing carte-blanche medical and social services to people from Europe who have never contributed then it is those that have contributed all their lives that will pay through a degradation of the service. Is
THAT fair? I really don’t go for the ‘
Little Englander’ or the ‘
returning to the colonial era’ as a valid observation. The British, or at least those I know, are not that shallow or stupid.
I only get the modest UK pension entitlement because I have the full contribution requirement to get it, plus SERPS, so I get a bit more because I paid extra for it. If I had fallen short I would either have had to pay more to reach the minimum requirement or take a smaller pension.
Let me put a question to you? What if we were talking pensions here? I make full contributions of some 45 years of paying for NI stamps. A Polish guy aged 64 arrives in the UK to join a son/daughter ........ on the same basis would you think it fair if he got an equal UK minimum pension when he reached 65 just because he was from an EU country, although he had never contibuted?
Being fair and giving equal treatment to all is all well and good if, as a State, you have the unlimited resources to be so benevolent.
We are only talking about public benefits here for the legal immigrants, which would be access to NHS, education and housing if needed, once they have meet all the required conditions as would anyone else living in the UK. We are not talking about someone getting the same car insurance rate with someone who may have 40% discount for many years of no claims. Not talking about a new employee getting the same salary as someone who has been at the job much longer with greater experience, but that, at the very least the minimum wage is paid whatever it may be. We are not talking about giving the same minimum state pension to someone who has worked for 20+ years to someone who has only worked 1 or 5 years. The list goes on. In fact, one needs to work minimum of 7 years (use to be 5 years) before they might be eligible to receive about £100 a month is pension. This applies to everyone, so no immigrant is going to come to the UK, work one year and then receive the same minimum pension of about £700 a month. That is silly.
As for a family selling up their business in another EU country and putting their money in an offshore account and then come and live the "Good Life" in the UK on public assistance, is even sillier. I have a cousin, a British citizen but living in Cyprus who came to the UK twice to give birth with the NHS, using her sister's address in the UK as her base. On her third attempt, she was questioned by the NHS and was ordered to pay £3,000, for the past 2 deliveries and the upcoming 3rd one in few months. She took the first flight back to Cyprus before it was too late for her to fly pregnant. Many Brits abuse the system already. The point is, if an immigrant lives and works in the UK, they should be given the same public benefits as anyone else once they qualify for that service as any other citizen, regardless what their preconditions may be.
Hypothetically, should an immigrant commits a serious crime in the UK and has gone through the costly justice system and put in prison in the UK, doesn't the state have the responsibility to make sure they are fed and should they become ill to be cared for, even if they have/get cancer, to be treated like any other citizen in the prison? If your answer is a yes, then why wouldn't the same benefits apply to law abiding tax paying immigrants and their families?
In any case, the EU did grant Cameron 7 years to deny the immigrants such benefits and it was still not enough to convince the Brexiteers to remain in the EU, so obviously, that was just a Red Herring excuse for the Brexit supporters. The reasons are far more fundamental perhaps, like just wanting to keep Britain just British with it's own laws, away from the EU's laws in protecting Human Rights, workers rights and so on, to which we may yet bring old TV shows back from the 60'/70's where black people were called "wogs" on shows like "Till Death us do Part" with Alf Garnett, or perform "Black & White Minstrel shows" where there were no black people performing, and yet, half the cast were "black"!
