“”The notion that Eastern Europeans are travelling across Germany and France, ignoring Scandinavia and the low countries is bonkers”"”

Rubbish!
If that is so please explain why so many migrants travel through so many other Euro countries to get to the UK?
Why are there people camping out near the French ports to get into the UK?

SO MANY migrants travel through perfectly fine/safe countries to get to the weak ass, everyone’s bitch, UK that to state the above is what is bonkers!

And boo hoo…Don’t we give out enough to people who have done absolutely zero to earn it or contributed nothing at all?
Oh dear!
Perhaps we’ll see more riots, like the French next, where migrants who should be on their knees giving thanks instead riot and burn things down because the free hand outs are not fucking good enough!

Laughing Boy, obviously there are immigrants travelling from Eastern Europe to the UK, but the post doesn’t claim otherwise. The point here is that the immigrants are not being attracted by unusually large handouts, because UK handouts are smaller than practically anywhere else in Europe.

People doubtless immigrate to the UK for a wide variety of reasons – to find work, for medical treatment or education, for the simple fact that the UK is a better place to live and to bring up your kids than most countries. I suspect the fact that English is the global Lingua Franca probably encourages people to move here rather than, e.g. Germany or France too. But quite frankly the idea that significant numbers of people move to the UK to soak up massive, no-questions-asked benefits handouts is totally ridiculous.

Why would anyone want to come here?
Britain is the pits apparently – according to this we have, the second lowest hours of sunshine a year, the fourth highest retirement age, and the third lowest spend on health as a percentage of GDP.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/29/uk-worst-quality-of-life-europe

Britons have 5.5 fewer days holiday a year than the European average and endure a below average government spend on education.

UK households also struggle with a high cost of living, with food and diesel prices the highest in Europe, and unleaded petrol, alcohol and cigarettes all costing more than the European average.

In short it is claimed many Brits are now simply ‘living to work’ – and for christ’s sake don’t mention the Uni fees – you’ll still be paying them back when your own kids go to university.

I’m not sure about this analysis. Spain, for example, has a time-limited generous system of unemployment benefits provided you have already paid into the system for a certain amount of time. If you just turn up in Spain asking for benefits I believe you would get close to nothing. Whereas the UK system (as far as I know, I don’t claim to be an expert) puts much less emphasis on your previous National Insurance payments – i.e. the system is less generous, but available to more people. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The British unemployment benefits are really not very generous compared to the continent.
But some other aspects of the British benefits system do have some appeal, for example housing benefits and also how relatively easy it is to obtain benefits.

Still, most people who come to the UK and bypass France or Germany simply do so because they speak (some) English but not French or German. The language is one of the most attractive aspects of the UK to many immigrants.

Says an immigrant from Germany.

Britain gives you the full whack if you just turn up. Other European countries do not as their systems tend to pre-date World War Two and so are based on a system of insurance – you must work first. Take Italy:

To obtain up to 40% of the previous wages (for a maximum of around 1000 € monthly in 2007) for up to seven months, a worker must have been previously employed and enrolled for the insurance, and depositing contributions for at least 52 weeks in two years.

The rest of Europe is similar – time limits before claiming, a limited period in which you can claim, restrictions on what you have to do – like seek work. Countries like Sweden have them all.

Obviously a lot of people may prefer the British system.

We will have to move to a more regressive Swedish-style system. Yippee!

@ 4 Liberal Martin,

I think what you say is correct.If you’ve worked and paid in, you get more in other countries. If you haven’t, you get less or nothing.

Thanks Richard for helping to dispell this myth that the UK has a generous benefits system.

As someone who lived in another EU country (Belgium) for many years, I can confirm that the Belgian system is far more generous than the British one. If I had lost my job in Belgium, I would have been entitled to €1100 a month unemployment benefit. My mortgage in Belgium was €800 a month, so had I rented out my 2nd bedroom (I would have been allowed to do this without losing benefit), then I would have had enough to get by on (pay mortgage, bills, feed and clothe myself), although I certainly wouldn’t have been living a luxurious life.

In the UK with a similar mortgage and a similar contributions record, I would get £65 a week! If I had any savings, this £65 a week would be reduced and if I had income from a lodger, I’m pretty sure this would also reduce the amount I would receive as well.

I had always thought that there was a 6 month rule on benefit eligibility for people working in other EU countries i.e. you had to work for 6 months to be eligible and if you moved from one EU country to another, for the first 6 months, you would be expected to claim from the last country you were working in and not the new one.
Did I imagine this?

8. Rebecca

As someone who lived in another EU country (Belgium) for many years, I can confirm that the Belgian system is far more generous than the British one. If I had lost my job in Belgium, I would have been entitled to €1100 a month unemployment benefit.

That depends on what you mean by generous. Belgium too has a system you must pay into to get something out of. So the benefits are determined by contribution. Hard to get much if you have not made a contribution yet. It is also less generous than you think.

Unemployment benefits are paid only when you become unemployed involuntarily, e.g. if you’re made redundant, and not when you quit your job voluntarily. If you’re fired, you may still be eligible for unemployment benefit after a certain period. To qualify for benefit, you must be fit and available for work (which usually means you must enrol with the national employment office), and register with your local benefits office on a regular basis.

After one year, single claimants are reduced to 42 per cent of previous earnings, whereas those with dependants and no other wage earner in the family continue to receive 60 per cent benefit, in both cases for as long as they’re unemployed (provided you continue to meet other criteria). If your spouse or partner is earning, your benefit is reduced to 35 per cent of your previous salary after one year, and this reduced amount is paid for three months only, plus an additional three months for each year you had been in work before you became unemployed. After that period, your benefit is further reduced to around €13 per day (to encourage you to get a job!).

I like the idea of reducing benefits over time. Seems sensible. We should do that too.

The other side of benefits is the cost of living. £64 seems like a huge amount to some who have never had to claim any benefits but I suspect it doesn’t go very far to judge by how far my £1000 a month take home pay goes.

Has anyone ever done a survey to find out how many EU nationals (this article is not about asylum seekers as the first poster seems to think – you’re a bit confused there mate) come to the UK and immediately claim benefits? Or a survey to find out why migrants mad the journey in the first place? I’d be interested to know.

The table above is for REPLACEMENT RATE, not the amount of benefits. The replacement rate is a function of the amount earnt before losing a job against amount after the job from benefits.

As such, the chart above tells us NOTHING about how generous UK benefits are on an outright basis.

As we know from the millions of new immigrants, UK salaries are quite high compared to the rest of Euroipe. This skews the UK position on the chart downwards, allowing the author of the article to falsely claim UK benefits aren’t that good…..remebering also that the above chart doesn’t include housing benefit costs – a major part of the costs of welfare.

Basically, if you are an out of work pole, you might proportionally be better off than your UK counterpart to someone who has a job in your country….but you would still be getting more money in pure nominal terms in the UK (and in the case of UK/poland I know this to be fact). Likewise hungary where the amount of social security is much lower than the UK, but lower wages for those working skews the table.

This is slightly off topic, but a consequence of the European-style system of unemployment benefits is that because the state will continue to pay you at a reasonable level for a year or two, many people consider it their ‘right’ to take a year off every seven or eight years. So you have huge numbers of skilled workers regularly opting out of the jobs market. Of course this phenomenon has decreased as it now no longer certain that you will get a job after a year off, but I think it’s an unforeseen consequence of the system that we would do well not to repeat.

Such a pity about the ignorance displayed by various posters here about benefits here…

There are two forms of jobseekers allowance; income-based and contribution-based. The second is available for a limited period following unemployment (6 months) and is – guess what – only available if you’ve paid in. It isn’t affected by other income.

After 6 months JSA-IB cuts in, and is means tested.

As for why people might come here because of the UK’s fabled generosioty – if it happens, perhaps its because people hear from politicians and others who should know better that the UK’s streets are paved with benefit gold – d’ya think?

…or, following on my final thought; Ms Girling’s witterings are part of the problem.

Hmmm, is this from the same set of researchers who said it was ‘unlikely’ that more than 13,000 Eastern Europeans would come to the UK once they had free movement? When in fact 1,500,000+ came, and continue to come.

It is not just about the unemployment benefits – what about incapacity benefits, what about housing, what about the NHS.. The fact is, in Britain they will literally be able to get something for nothing, as other countries have it linked to contributions and other such mechanisms, we have no such linkage here.

The people who will pay the highest price are vulnerable British people, as the resources will be spread more thinly. Labour is right to try and protect and look after people who live and work in Britain.

I used to be very strongly in favour of the EU, but it has brought nothing but misery for millions of people. The EU is a far bigger threat to jobs than the Tories, hopefully they will be kicked out at the next election… we have no way of kicking the EU out.

The JSA thing is a red herring; you need to show that you’re actively looking for work to qualify, to prove that you haven’t made yourself intentionally jobless and to take any job they offer you. Anyone who can’t put together a simple CV or use the internet to apply for at least five jobs a fortnight will quickly find their JSA cut.

Similarly, only those with children in full time education will receive child benefit, and to get into school you need an address. To get an address you need an income, and to get an income you need either a job or benefit. See how the circle works to regulate itself?

Oh yeah?

Eva Katona, 22, is considering moving to Britain from the Hungarian capital, Budapest, to work as a nanny or carer.

‘The unemployment benefit in England is higher than a salary here and I have been told I can go on the dole as soon as I get there,’ she said.

‘It is not my intention to do that but it is nice to have the sort of security you would not find here.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1380204/Bar-benefits-lifted-East-European-migrants-able-claim-250-week.html#ixzz1ZS1NvN36</blockquote

@ 17 Flowerpower

One swallow does not make a summer. And one Daily Mail article does not make a reliale source.

Eva Katona, 22, is considering moving to Britain from the Hungarian capital, Budapest, to work as a nanny or carer.
—-
Richard Whittington, 17, is considering moving to London where, apparently, the streets are paved with gold.

Unfortunately, like Eva Katona, he hadn’t made enough National Insurance contributions to qualify for JSA, and as he couldn’t apply for Housing Benefit as he wasn’t on the register ended up sleeping on the floor chasing rats.

@Roger Thate #15:

what about housing

What about housing – for those 1.5m (?) Eastern Europeanms that flocked here after accession?

@Roger Thate #15:

what about housing

What about housing – for those 1.5m (?) Eastern Europeanms that flocked here after accession?

Fair points – just one niggle. Replacement rates imply having had a job to start with though, and most countries with initial high replacement rates tend to cut the amount you get drastically after relatively short periods of time.

You only had to see the chaos caused when scheming East Europeans literally flooded the NHS with newly born babies recently.

Coming here while pregnant or while planning a baby to get instant free NHS treatment and, because the child was born in the UK, instant and complete access to any and all benefits and citizens rights for it and them.

This lie must stop about the UK not being a weak willed, self-loathing, country that guiltily takes in everyone who wants to come here no matter how dubious, how unskilled and generally hopeless because of bullshit while/colonial guilt and self-imposed destruction of any and all national identity seems the ‘moral’ thing to do.

We’re easy, soft and have little fight of anu kind left in us. And even less pride.

So no wonder people who want to literally take everything for nothing, that the rest of us have to work for, come here.
Hell you don’t have to know anything about the country, you don’t have to speak English, you don’t have to write English, you don’t have to have any kind of skill, you don’t have to have any kind of job waiting, you don’t have to have contributed anything at all….and you can still get a house, money, medical treatment and schooling.
Schooling that has already seen a massive numbers of British schools flooded by children of a dozen cultures and languages making any kind of proper education impossible and that sees British children reduced to minorities along with their language!

The EU was broken when it stupidly let ex-Communist countries in (literally rusting away thanks to typically awful Communist rule, oh Lefties) thus meaning the balance of similar social/financial levels of the original member countries was utterly lost.
Of course someone from a rust bucket, ex-Soviet, country is going to take advantage of British, French, German and Italian levels of living!
The whole point was that the original countries had no great distance between their standards of living…thus minimising immigration needs.

Again lost when morons and ‘liberals’ decided anyone and everyone can take a slice of our hard fought for, hard worked for and very finite pie no matter who they are, where they came from, or what they’ve contributed!
It was a farce waiting to happen.

And when you add non-ER migration (so much of which is unskilled and from utterly alien cultures/religious cultures…again unlike the basic idea of the original countries in the EU) then the whole thing is a tragedy. With the idiot Western Europeans sowing their own seeds of cultural, racial, social, historical and financial destruction.

Laughing Boy,

You don’t seem to be living up to your name you know…

Still, nice to see you see the benefits of migration.

“Still, nice to see you see the benefits of migration.”

I do. A see it in controlled and assessed immigration. Which benefits all.

Sadly though we have not had such controlled and assessed immigration.

Hence we have Somali gunmen shooting police women, Yardie gangsters shooting each other in London, East European trafficking and prostitution rings and Islamic fanatics who think it’s 1500 years ago…but almost all on very modern benefits. Like almost all the high ranking members of Chowdry’s gang of thugs and their ilk.

Again. The Left has seen positive immigration swamped by grotesquely negative immigration. Just because it bleeds a heart for any and anything not British.

Speal to anyone who works in a job centre and you might find a different story. I nthe last two weeks I have seen three obviously unemployable Africans ( one hadn’t worked for eleven years) who have emigrated from Holland.

Until the ‘left grasps the nettle and tackle’s immigration it can say goodbye to the ‘proles’ voting for it!

@ISC #26:

Until the ‘left grasps the nettle and tackle’s immigration it can say goodbye to the ‘proles’ voting for it!

Since “the left” has no power I take it you mean address immigration in its speeches etc? Problem is, “the left” has been banging on about immigration in concert with “the right” for decades; not in any sensible terms, but competing with the BNP and talking up the “eevuls” of immigration. When in power, it was no less simplistic in its approach to the subject than the previous government.

Epic fail.

In most European countries, when people in a job lose that job, benefits are set at a certain fairly high % of their previous salary, so if you lose a £30,000 a year job, you end up with £15,000 benefits (by and large not taxable) so your fall in living standards is not particularly high.

But these benefits are time limited, after six or twelve months they dry up and you have to look for a new job.

So somebody who has just lost a £30,000 job in Germany is unlikely to come to the UK to claim Income Support.

The UK welfare system is quite different – it is more like universal benefit (hooray) but it is at a much lower level (obviously it has to be, as it is not time limited – also hooray).

So if the bloke in Germany really can’t find a job after six months or a year, and his benefits dry up, then he is very much motivated to come to the UK.

Well actually not a German, because they think our country is a shit hole, but for poor people from the poorer East European countries, the living standards of somebody in the UK who is on welfare is probably better than their living standards in a low paid job.

So there.

@25. Laughing Boy: “Hence we have Somali gunmen shooting police women, Yardie gangsters shooting each other in London, East European trafficking and prostitution rings…”

Let’s try applying taxonomy to this situation.

For the Somali gunmen et al, the primary class could be “Criminal” and the sub-classes might be “Migrant” or more distinctly “Violent Criminal:Migrant Violent Criminal”. Depending on how we define the sub-classes, migrants may be more highly represented than overall population membership.

Another approach might be to divide the primary class of “Migrant” into sub-classes “Non-criminal”, “Petty Criminal” or “Violent Criminal”. The clarity provided by this methodology is that almost all migrants are non-criminal.

Daily Mail convention is to use the first taxonomy, looking at criminals and investigating further where they came from (abroad, sink estates, unstable families). The convention that most of us use in every day life is the second one — concluding that migrants and people from difficult backgrounds are mostly like us. The root of the second convention is probably empathy but we reinforce it rationally (we know that Jo is socially or economically useful to us, and do not see the need for deportation/exclusion).

Spin from the media continually puts the high probability Migrant = Criminal argument before us. That is why so many people hold contradictory opinions about migration: “stop them coming here, but not people like her who I like”. The spin about migration also lets politicians and senior police officers escape the heat. If the police cannot control gunmen and gangsters, that is a failure of policing.

The UK could conduct an experiment. Borders could be closed to anyone who did not qualify for admission under EU rights or strict rules for Commonwealth nationals. I am suggesting for the experiment that all refugees are denied entrance to the UK. Some career criminals could still walk straight into the UK to establish business as EU/Commonwealth citizens. The skin colour and accents of gangsters would change. The breadth or degree of gangsterism would not change, of course, unless policing changed.

@4 – The *base* benefits in most countries are still higher. AND, unlike us, they have a period when you get earnings-related benefit. There UK simply doesn’t means-test the same amount of benefit for a period, if you’ve been paying in.

@9 – “I like the idea of reducing benefits over time. Seems sensible. We should do that too.”

Right. So, after several YEARS of claiming a % of salary, you’re reduced to the equivalent of ~15% MORE than the UK’s unemployment benefit from day 1. So, yea, we should use that model. Contributing should give you a LOT more than at present, going down to the same sort of level for LONG term claims.

@23 – You mean the countries where UK companies are doing VERY good business? Yea, those.

A blunt question: Are there any EU nations where a refugee would be dumped on the street?

Pfft, don’t talk about facts and numbers. The “immigrants come here for our generous benefits” line is there to propagate two different myths – that all immigrants (all foreigners and folks who are not like us, really) are drains on our resources, and that people on welfare are living the high life off the government teat. By conflating them it’s a twofer.

Facts don’t matter when you’re dealing with propaganda.

Charliemann,

It is perfectly reasonable to look at the conditional expectation of migrant status, given criminality, and equally just as reasonable to look at the conditional expectation of criminality, given migrant status. I am not sure why you are proposing that it is necessary to choose between the two, since one is the right way to look at the situation, and the other the wrong.

You also seem to be reproducing the fallacy (quite common in these parts) that the crime rate is set in stone or handed down from on high, so that regardless of anything else we do, we’ll have the crime rate we were predestined to have. Surely it’s quite obvious that if we import from populations with higher rates of criminality than our own, this will raise our crime rate, cet par. So for instance, if all incidents of crime X were committed by immigrants, with no immigrants, there would be no incidents of crime X.

And, of course, if we import from populations with lower rates of criminality than our own, this will lower the crime rate, cet par.

The same argument holds just as well for benefits. If we import high productivity, high net worth populations, we can live off them (or at least, our native lumpen-proletariat can). Hooray! Or is it (I forget), boo! If we import low productivity, low net worth populations, they will live off us. Boo! Or, perhaps, yay! Whatever your views, at the end of the day not all populations are the same, and as we import from these populations, averages in our own will naturally tend to change. Why not select for the changes that we actually want to see?

What truly misleading article.

“That generous benefit system, just how generous is it? Well, as it happens, the OECD’s database has fairly recent data (2007) on replacement rates across the industrialised world (for people who were paid between two-thirds and 100% of average earnings when they lost their jobs):”

Two thirds replacement rates firstly describes how much benefit each nation pays with regard to what you actually earned in your last job and what you can expect to get in benefit from each state if you lose your job.

So average wage in say France is say £200 pw. France’s replacement rate is 71.4% so in France you get £142.80pw.

Eastern European wages are much lower than this so say Poland £128pw BUT.

The furor isn’t about people who have worked in the UK and then receive Benefits. The Right to reside rule was introduced to STOP unemployed europeans arriving in the UK and demanding benefits.

Unemployed Rate = 0 (they’re being supported by the state, so don’t pay taxes)
UK Replacement Rate = £67.50 per week, plus Housing Allowances, child benefits, free healthcare, free education etc etc etc.

It might surprise you that the average unemployment benefit in Eastern Europe is around £110 per MONTH so moving to the UK and getting free housing et al makes you significantly better off and the UK picks up the bill for people with no ties and no tax receipts paid to the UK.

The authors of course understand all of this. That’s why they chose these particular OECD figures. Impressive as the other countries figures look, 78% of Zero still equals Zero.

The authors are the ones guilty of trying to mislead the UK public.

@33. vimothy: “I am not sure why you are proposing that it is necessary to choose between the two, since one is the right way to look at the situation, and the other the wrong.”

I am not proposing that there is a right way. If I was studying criminality, data about the class labelled “Criminals” would be helpful; if I was investigating migrant behaviour, I would go to the data about “Migrants”. Where would you go to if asked to investigate migrant criminality? To the data sample of millions (“Migrants”) or to a sample one tenth of the size (“Criminals”)? You would use both sets of data, but the “Criminal” set would be most illuminating.

“You also seem to be reproducing the fallacy (quite common in these parts) that the crime rate is set in stone…”

I do not presume that crime rate is fixed or that the nature/practice of crime is invariant. Pickpocketry died off years ago in the UK and its re-emergence is a south/eastern european migrant phenomenon. Gangsterism is fairly constant which is why I used it in my hypothesis. If you knock out the migrant criminal gangs, they will be replaced by other gangsters unless you remove the infrastructure that allows gangs to thrive.

“Surely it’s quite obvious that if we import from populations with higher rates of criminality than our own, this will raise our crime rate, cet par.”

There is no Windrush “importing” migrants. Migrants are people who wish to live and work in the UK because it is where people can make money. Some of those migrants will be criminals , but most migrants are highly motivated people and criminals are motivated by money. Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Copied from Wikipedia: “Sutton is famously known for answering a reporter, Mitch Ohnstad, who asked why he robbed banks by saying, “because that’s where the money is.”"

“Why not select for the changes that we actually want to see?”

Because we are and will eternally be crap at it.

1. In relation to this specific issue, it’s completely unimportant if Britain has a less ‘generous’ welfare system than the countries listed above it, laughable as it someone is claiming the Slovak Republic pays better…

The point is Britain is more generous than the home countries of potential ‘welfare tourists’, and its pays in GBP, which aint bad.

2. Britain will be a prime target for one reason single reason this piece doesn’t mention. The more generous systems in places like Germany and Norway are hundreds of times more difficult to get onto. Not only that, in places like Germany they stop payments after a certain amount of time. Do you really think the Germans would allow this to happen to them? Its the same reason illegals travel across all of Europe to reach Britain, rightly or wrongly they think we’re a soft touch and LC is running the country.

This will be good news for the eastern European Roma people in my city, who have been – as far as I know – unable to get regular welfare payments up to now.
Being here in large family groups with children in school, it seems unfair if they haven’t even been able to get child benifit. And for the Romanians and Bulgarians amongst them – the rule that treats them differently can’t be changed quickly enough. Dole money plus housing benifit, on top of what they make already from selling the Big Issue etc, will really make a difference to their earning potential. And could result in bringing family members to join them from overseas too.

@34 – It might surprise you that Britain is far, far more expensive to live in, and double the money here buys you far, far less. Housing benefit also pays very poorly now, and is like other benefits *well* below inflation for the poor.

The question is when people will be dying from turning their utilities off all winter and not being able to afford shelter. It won’t be many years, and you’ll be cheering all the way.

@36 – Sure, keep repeating propaganda. The systems in other countries you mention have contributory components, yes, but their base is still more generous than the UK’s. Especially now.

Thanks for that information Richard.

One of the problems I have with the Right to Reside test is that it is fiendishly complex- even specialist benefit lawyers and trained benefits staff struggle with it, leading to a wide variety of outcomes.

Often it produces dreadful results- EAA nationals who may have worked, paid into the system and then find themselves disbenefited.

Perhaps the most insidious result affects women single parents. I have lost count of the cases where the mother works, pays contributions, has a baby, is advised to claim Income Support (as would be the case with a British mum), and is then refused under the Right to Reside test. Instead they are forced to claim JSA immediately after the birth, when the reality is that there is very little work out there for single parents with very young babies.

In extreme cases the test has cost lives- see http://frontlinehackney.blogspot.com/2011/01/ballad-for-child-j.html

So Much For Subtlety; “Britain gives you the full whack if you just turn up” I’m here to tell you that this simply isn’t the case. I have had to advise very many claimants who were entitled but were refused. If your point is that other countries are more heavily reliant on NI based benefits, then the point is a valid one.

Laughing Boy: “migrants who should be on their knees giving thanks”- most EAA nationals here are working and contributing to the economy. The EAA migrants have in general been more, not less skilled than the average UK worker. We’ve always been a nation of migrants. Characterising the Polish nurse who recently helped my wife in hospital as “scheming”- well.

Roger Thate: I agree that open labour markets have brought problems for native working class people. We can’t turn the clock back though- our wealth depends on trade and open borders with the EAA. We need to invest in better training and education. Which are what the taxes paid by most EAA migrants are for.

Robin Levett: Homes? Yes, homes, schools, GP’s. We have had difficulties adjusting local services to migration. That shouldn’t mean we can’t do this PS Think we’ve met?

@Nathaniel Matthews #40:

My point on housing was that A8 nationals immediately following accession, indeed until recently, had no right to housing unless working; so the notion that an A8 Eastern European could turn up in the UK and claim both benefits and a house whilst unemployed is nonsense.

Yes, we have met – more than once