European elections 2014 your thoughts OMO

Deja Vu?

EU? Great idea in principal but IMO suffering from lousy implementation.

If they had stuck with the founder nations with roughly similar economies or at least similar potential, it could have worked but trying to apply a one size fits all approach to countries as disparate as Germany and the Baltic States strikes me as plain daft... Well we have seen what happens when nations start cooking the books. If the Euro is so fantastic then why are the Scots making noises about keeping Sterling?

The European Commission seems to be a dumping ground for failed politicians (and their families) and has become a self serving bureaucracy/gravy train which lacks transparency... Who else would bring in the Italians to investigate institutional corruption?

Free movement of labour... Again a good idea in theory. If you can move half way across Europe to a country where they don't speak your language and still be in legitimate employment within a few days well, all power to you. Those are the sort of motivated individuals we need here. Free movement of benefit claimants probably wasn't foreseen. I see this all the time in my line of work and wonder why when you have no job, family or friends in this country, why are you here?

I object to the lack of backbone our politicians show when other nations seem to adopt a pick and mix approach to which EU directives to implement while at the same time being too quick to pass the buck to Brussels when it comes to unpopular measures.

In short it's broken. On one hand it's trying to expand while on the other it's rotten at the core.

[embee]

All the leaders of the EU countries are now realising that democracy is a bit of a be-atch when it really works, the grubby electorate can get in the way of their plans. Hey guys (an' gals), guess what, we don't like what you're doing. Get your act together and listen for a change.

I suspect these election results will actually be the best thing Cameron could have hoped for. Brussels will almost certainly have to ease off the loud pedal, which Cameron couldn't possibly have achieved on his own without the extreme left/right success. This will play straight into his hands come the next general election.

Interesting how the media have also suddenly changed their tune, having realised that accusing various candidates of being little short of racist scum is effectively also accusing 30% of the electorate (who voted) of being racist scum, which is getting a bit hairy for even the good old Beeb.

Ah, joyous times.

[21QUEST]

I don't usually vote but I went out and voted UKIP.

Part catalyst for actually going out to vote was actually watching an old episode of 'Question Time' which had the UKIP leader on the panel....where the representatives of the main parties just made me shake my head, every time they spoke.
You'd have been better off trusting(don't laugh now) something that moved on it's belly. It's almost like they've got their 'spin' spinning so far up their ar_ses, they'd completely lost contact with reality.

I remember watching a senior UKIP Member who sits on their policy panel essentially say they don't have many policies set in stone yet, and once they have them they will tell us. Bit rubbish really if you don't know what you even want to do should you get into power.

The whole EU thing is such a complex issue. For example, you have no rights to benefits unless you've worked in a country for a certain amount of time, and you can have social welfare stopped should you become a long term burden on the state. The problem is, in implementation, it is more work to sift through all of this than just pay it all - so it gets left. That isn't the EU - we have the power to stop it, but we just don't bother.

I know a lot of people who have come from the EU and effectively contribute to our economy. They have all learnt our language sufficiently to converse in their job in English and have adjusted to our way of life. One is a doctor, one is a cleaner and another a teacher.

Most of the negative things about the EU reported in the press are overly exaggerated, or emphasis is placed on the amount of money.

For example, so many people complain about foreign aid, but the percentage of GDP we spend on it is miniscule. Another one people commonly bemoan is employment benefits, which are less than a third of pension benefits.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't issues with the system. The problem quite often lies with people willing to listen to what they are told by the press, who are undoubtedly pursuing their own agenda and so people vote without all the facts.

Mark my words, if we leave Europe, our country will falter. Big time.

Wait, but I thought punks were lefties.



confused

Well if all euro countries are supposed to offer the same unemployment payments as per eu directives, then why the hell do migrants (the ones who have no interest in working here) travel past a lot of other eu member states on their way here? Surely they could stop at the first one?

The direct money it costs us in benefits isn't so important, it's the hidden costs that are mind boggling.

Our country is just too small for the unnatural high growth in population, issues this causes for example;
-Shortfall in housing, resulting in mass house building required.
-Busier road network, capacity won't be met and no roads will be built.
-More strain on emergency services, fire, police, ambulance etc
-NHS, this is where the real costs will be, more hospitals or capacity, more treatments etc, costs are huge.
We already have healthcare migrants costing this country mega money, my wife has worked in the NHS for 22 years so knows this first hand.

-Then there's the benefits, housing, unemployment etc etc, these are not small figures and I guarantee any official figures are down sized to make it look like its not that bad, but the real cost is a lot higher but unquantifiable.

We, as a country just need to say enough is enough before its too late, it's got nothing to do with race, discrimination or any other excuse, it's purely self preservation and a logistics issue and if UKIP help change in that direction, directly or indirectly, then I welcome it.

Originally Posted by EssexDave

For example, so many people complain about foreign aid, but the percentage of GDP we spend on it is miniscule.

Good point, isn't it only 0.7% of GDP?

So it would take about 100 years to use it alone to pay off our current national debt?

[keith_d]

I think it's entertaining to look at the enormous difference between European politics and what's going on in the UK.

Brussels is pushing for wider integration and more centralised control, effectively trying to engineer a United States of Europe. While here in the UK we're voting on splitting up a four hundred year old union where the participants have far more in common than any of the EU member states. What does that say for the future of European integration?

Judging by the results, voters have noticed that Brussels is p**sing into wind. Perhaps it's time to recognise that the economic gains of a single market are important, but they don't necessarily require a full economic and political union.

Originally Posted by Specialone

Well if all euro countries are supposed to offer the same unemployment payments as per eu directives, then why the hell do migrants (the ones who have no interest in working here) travel past a lot of other eu member states on their way here? Surely they could stop at the first one?

Directives generally aren't laws set by the EU, but more requirements to be met. This means they say something along the lines of, you must make a law to accomplish this goal. In reality, the Member States have a lot of autonomy in doing so, but if somebody says you must pay an unemployment benefit to those who are entitled to it, in order to support their job search. That's very open to the amount and will depend on country to country as to how much it is.

Originally Posted by Specialone

We already have healthcare migrants costing this country mega money, my wife has worked in the NHS for 22 years so knows this first hand.

My very limited understanding, and perhaps somebody who knows better can tell me, was that unless you're a UK citizen, you get basic healthcare, and we recover the cost of that from your nation. It isn't unless you're a UK citizen that you get the 'proper' full healthcare.

In terms of benefits, the majority go to those who were born and live in the UK.

I'd really recommend reading http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25134521 if you're interested on the topic.

I've seen various figures being batted around, but most of them agree we pay benefits to about 140,000 EU citizens, whilst we pay benefits to over 300,000 non EU citizens (e.g. from Africa and other countries). We pay less than 1% of our benefits bill to EU nationals despite them making up 2% of the country's population.

You mention unquantifiable costs, but let me also talk about unquantifiable benefits - we have an ageing population and as it stands the pension age is having to increase rapidly to enable us to cope with this issue. Yes it was made worse by the recession and the huge debt left behind by the previous labour government, but regardless, it was an issue because of the demographic of the UK.

Having an influx of workers, have rarely bring their parents over will help to mitigate this problem. The problem is that everybody talks about the amounts in question being millions of pounds here and a couple hundred million there.

We spend roughly £720,000,000,000 a year. £137,000,000,000 is spent on Healthcare (after claiming back from other countries). We spend about £200,000,000,000 on benefits, of which around £2,000,000,000 is spent on EU nationals. Now, given the fact that if they are on benefits long term and we don't think they will be able to find a job, we can get rid of them.

I should add here, pensions make up roughly £100,000,000,000 of the total benefit spend, with family benefits such as child tax credits, and child benefit at around £55m. The next is housing benefit coming in at around £23,000,000,000 and unemployment at £4,900,000,000. The rest are others (all figures are rough guides and not supposed to add up to anything above!)

The EU doesn't have a free movement of persons for the fun of it, it provides for free movement of workers - people who are economically active.

That is the reason why you cannot claim benefits in your first three months of being in the UK. No way around it, you cannot do it.