EU freedom of movement.

[Workingman]

Theresa May has come out and said that it should mean to take up a job or to look for work. Theresa, those were the original rules (for EU citizens). The mess we are in today is because of the lily-livered actions of the political classes and challenges made in the ECHR (nothing at all to do with the EU). The ECHR decisions could have been ignored and there never was any need to pay anything but basic benefits to those 'looking for work'.

Another thing, do not conflate Freedom of Movement for work with Schengen's open borders asnd the illegal immigrant crisis. They are not, and never have been, the same thing. Freedom of Movement was in operation long before Schengen became a dream. The illegal immigrant crisis is also nothing to do with either of the above.

[Suff]

All true. But the point is the ECHR has been used so widely and to such damaging effect, that the UK now needs to implement national laws to control the impact of the EU cross border policies on travel, living, working and benefits.

The very best thing that the UK could do is raise a motion to set a _base_ level EU benefit which is paid to any EU citizen who finds themselves in another EU country without work. Then we can set it on the poorest country in the EU and we can then enforce it with the ECHR as the "base" "human right" of the EU......

Then those who are working will have to leave. Because they won't be able to afford to live.

Of course the downside will be that the Tories will try to apply it to UK people living in the UK. But that's what we have elections for.....

The only interesting point in this is that Germany is filling up with refugees. Probably close to 1M by the end of this year. That will grow as more and more economic refugees try and get across and the word gets out that getting into the UK is a non starter. Perhaps they'll even start learning German before the try and come over.....

My sympathy levels? Nil. We've been impacted to the tune of millions by this and it's about time Germany had the same impact.

There is one point that gets missed a lot. The true and real impact of cross border EU and Schengen working. Back in 2009 I worked in Basel in Switzerland. Then my pay was CHF 1,300 per day. I worked in Zurich in 2012 and my pay was CHF 1,100 per day. Today, now that Schengen really has got a foothold with automatic visas and freedom and right to work, the average pay for what I was doing is now CHF 750 per day.

The picture should be pretty clear from that. Switzerland is one country I can directly draw personal wage related parallels to. Switzerland is one of the very latest country to join Schengen and the cross border working rules and it is very easy to see the direct impact.

I don't think it is any wonder that companies and to an extent governments, want this kind of cross border working. They just don't want to pay for it at current benefits levels when the employment pool shrinks. What they want is location flexible workers who just vanish to where the work is as soon as it is no longer in the UK. This is how the US works but it works that way because benefits are pretty much non existent. So when a job ends, the worker either has personal insurance or moves as fast as possible somewhere else where there is work.

If the EU was not tied up with rules and regulations on how people can work and where, plus overly generous benefits designed to buy votes, then it would work pretty well.

It is just another example of the hodge podge way in which the EU is being brought into being. Rules to force benefits for people who fall out of work even if they are not your citizens, whilst not harmonising the rules on how and where a person can work in the EU, creates pressure bubbles like the UK.

There are ways to burst the bubble, but the most certain is to leave the EU....