Bulgarians and Romanians

[Suff]

However, my rant was not about benefits it was about the myth that immigration is and always has been good for the country. Whenever the subject comes up the debate is always silenced by the PC mantra of "Immigration is good, stopping it is bad". No hard facts are ever given for this, but any negative examples are always, always, put down as racist.

The point is WM, in the context of the EU, this is not immigration. It's like moving from Leeds to London to find work. THAT is the point I'm making. Your are for the EU but not for the consequences. Especially the consequences where the EU Says we must apply local laws to ALL EU citizens equally. This is due to the way that other EU countries work and the fact that they refuse to do the decent thing in terms of EU citizens.

The UK is very different, as you have said. It is the biggest reason I think the UK should be out of the EU. We are DIFFERENT. So different, in fact, that we will be massively impacted by the EU.

The UK has led the world. Not followed. We've already been where the bulk of the EU is but we've exited there and moved on. The EU is dragging us back over and over and over again because they don't lead. They are following, reluctantly, with a bunch of nations who will do Anything and I do mean ANYTHING but follow the UK lead.

You can't complain about Bulgarians or Romanians in the UK if you want to be in the EU. This is simply cross EU migrant labour. Something the EU is unwilling to resolve when it comes to unemployment and benefits.

[Workingman]

Bulgaria/Romania - UK v Leeds - London.

Not even remotely the same.

I do not need a passport. There are no Zoll/Duane booths on the A1 or M1. I do not need to inform HMRC, re-register my car or buy one with the steering wheel on the "proper" side. I do not have to register with the NHS for treatment, learn a new language - though I might need an interpreter south of Watford - dress differently, use a different currency, learn new laws or apply for all sorts off official documents. The reason being is because I am English, British, a UK citizen.

Bulgarians, Romanians, et al, are not UK citizens, even though they are citizens of the EU. They have their own nationalities, the same as we do. They are foreigners, and if they come here to live and work they are immigrants. When they get here they have to live under our rules and laws, not the ones back home, including EU ones.

I have said it before and I will keep on saying it: It is the way we applied EU rules that helped cause the problem. It is partly our fault. Had we been less liberal with our past interpretation of the rules we would not have seen the influx we did. The message would have gone out, loud and clear, the UK is not a soft touch. Those wishing to come here thinking that it was would have got a shock. I blame successive UK governments, Labour in particular, for not sending out that message.

[cromwell]

However, my rant was not about benefits it was about the myth that immigration is and always has been good for the country. Whenever the subject comes up the debate is always silenced by the PC mantra of "Immigration is good, stopping it is bad". No hard facts are ever given for this

They aren't, are they? "The well known economic benefits of immigration" which are apparently so well known that no politician ever bothers to explain what the benefits actually are, or who gets these benefits.
Immigration helps depress wages and working conditions and increases the "lucky to have a job" mentality. Beneficiary - Big Business.
Immigration also increases consumption. More food, cars, clothes, gas, electric, newspapers, TV's and drink gets sold.
Beneficiary - Big Business.
Which is why no politician will ever explain what the "well known economic benefits" of immigration actually are! Because Joe Soap, the man in the street, doesn't benefit from it and never has.

[Suff]

WM you don’t see it do you?

They have Schengen. They have ID cards. They have Green Card insurance covering the entire EU 365 as standard.

Yes they need to register with the tax authorities and get permits to work when they go to, say, Germany. But then, in the US, everyone who works has to register locally with the state too anyway. The may have a federal Social service number but it is registered locally in the state. They have the right but they don’t automatically have a single administration like we have in the UK. State and federal are different in the US just as they are in the EU. It doesn’t stop work migration any more than it does in the EU.

This is where I keep saying that if we want to be EU we have to embrace the EU as it is today. Schengen, free travel, free right to work throughout the EU with the correct registration. Correct insurance for our vehicles, ID cards, the whole shebang.

If we don’t want that then we should leave and we should leave sooner rather than later.

The message is clear and if people in the UK had spent any time living and working in the Schengen EU zones, they would understand it. The EU is one country, will work as one country and we have to accept that internal borders and blocks to migrant workers, are unacceptable.

That is the reality of the EU. Almost nobody in the UK, outside of politicians; have a clue what it is all about and even most of the politicians don’t really have a clue.

It’s why I get so irritated with the whole “EU Immigration” argument. There is no such thing.

Illegal immigrants from non EU countries. Fine that has to be resolved. EU migrant work? Suck it up, it’s now and it’s the future.

[Workingman]

Suff, what I do see is that I am not in the US. I see that I couldn't care less about how the US decides to operate its social welfare, its green card system, cross state rules and a whole host of other things. These thing are irrelevant to me.

I also see that a Romanian in Germany is, well, a Romanian in Germany. They will have a Romanian passport, a Romanian NI card and number and so on - a migrant. They will have passed through other EU states, possibly without ever being stopped, to get to Germany. In German terms, though, they are an immigrant. If Germany so wishes she could a) deny entry, or if entry is allowed, b) expel them at a later date, both on public security grounds.

[Suff]

A uniquely British point of view I would not have expected from you WM.

The Romanian in Germany will be an EU citizen, with an EU identity card (or EU passport but almost certainly will be an identity card), but will have to get a German Social Services and tax registration. That Romanian will simply have got in his/her car and driven from Romania to Germany (or anywhere else in Schengen land, which is every where but Britain and Ireland), without hassle.

Because the Romanian is an EU citizen.

When the restrictions on working expire, the Romanian will be an EU citizen with exactly the same rights to work in Germany (once the paperwork is done), as any other EU citizen. Including Germans.

Germany cannot deny entry or expel this EU citizen until they have proven that this EU citizen has committed some kind of crime.

This is not just EU law. This is a series of rights, enshrined in that "treaty tidy up" of 400 pages called the Lisbon Treaty, of which we are a signatory.

This is really simple. EU citizens are not immigrants to any EU country. They are citizens. The only right they do not get is to vote in the national elections. They will, however, have the right to vote in the EU elections where they are resident. Think that one through.....

This is reality. It's time we woke up and started smelling the java. The Lisbon Treaty was a "Constitution Lite" for a country called the EU with EU citizens with EU rights, which supersede National rights.

It's time to get in the boat and start bailing or get out and let it sink....

[Workingman]

Land Baden-Württemberg v Panagiotis Tsakouridis (C-145/09) of 23 November, the Grand Chamber of the CJEU actually upheld the lawfulness/compatibility with the Directive of the expulsion from Germany of an individual of Greek parentage who had been born in Germany and who had lived there for over 30 years – most, if not all, of his life. But for the purposes of German nationality law – which ascribes nationality on the basis of descent rather than on the basis of place of birth – his nationality was Greek and not German. He had been convicted in Germany for drugs related offences and the Grand Chamber of the CJEU held that “imperative grounds of public security” namely the “war against drugs were sufficient to allow the German authorities to justify his expulsion from Germany as a matter of EU law.

Notice the words "German", "nationality" and "law".

Under German law he could be deemed not the be a German national/citizen and therefore subject to expulsion, even though he was an EU "citizen".

It shows that properly formulated National laws, and a strong defence of them by the nation formulating them, can trump the EU.

[Suff]

The important bit.

He had been convicted in Germany for drugs related offences

Without that, he would not be deported. You'll find that if they are convicted of criminal activity they can be deported. If not, they can't. National law works for that, but not for living and working.

[Workingman]

If the EU was a country then the only places to deport people to would be outside of the EU.

It is not a country, even though citizens of its member states are also citizens of the EU, which means that migrants can be deported from one state to another within the EU.

[Suff]

It is not a country, even though citizens of its member states are also citizens of the EU, which means that migrants can be deported from one state to another within the EU.

Oh it's a country all right. They just haven't had the chance to sneak in all the little refinements by the back door yet.

However, again, if the EU is something you want, it's no big deal. Most Europeans recognise what it is.

Notably we in the UK are NOT Europeans.... So most of us either don't want it or don't believe it's happening.