Why can't unemployed Polish people on benefits just leave UK and go home please?

i have a friend whos polish got pregnant at the age of sixteen with her english boyfriend, she was at college studying to be a physio therapist, she had no accent what so ever and you couldnt even tell she was polish, shes now had her baby and taken three months out of college, she will return in january and the baby will stay at the nursery all day, my friend recives no benefit because she doesnt wont them , shes stll living at home with her parents which have a loverly house because they work bloody hard and do the jobs us english are far to lazy to do. My friend and her well paid boyfriend are saving to get a morgage and his income alone is enough to support both the mother and baby, so my point is not all polish sit around using our system, she simply came here for a better life she doesnt abuse it what so ever, infact she more switch on then all my other teenager english mums which have no ambition in life. i dispised polish untill i met her, because thats the society that we live in,.

if you want to peddle that new labour bollox, speak for yourself

It's extremely annoying, I agree.

Polish people are happy to work for minimum wage in the UK. Six quid buys you far more then six PLN (according to everyone other than Delphi, of course).

No doubt Bangladeshis would be overjoyed at the chance to earn six PLN an hour (or less) in Poland. And if they arrived in Poland en masse, no doubt they would complain about 'lazy' Poles who refused to do agricultural work for a pittance.

Is that what you get from that post? Funny.

You must be referring to the politicians, in the UK the royal family are the worst benefit scroungers.

Here's an idea. Make the benefits people can get in other EU countries identical to what they would receive in their own country. I bet this would send them scurrying back home pretty quickly.

That's quite a logical suggestion. Would that mean, however, that Brits could get British benefits in Poland?

Well yes, because if we applied the same rules across the board, then the benefits would be paid from the country where the person is a citizen not where they are residing.

+1 It's tedious listening to this drivel.


She is quite correct. What the poster fails to recognise is that due to the extremely low incomes EE's generally work for they are supported by other benefits which the UK government is more reluctant to reveal. Fortunately while the UK government were quite happy to say 14,000 the EU were more generous and said 600,000. Another misconception peddled in particular by the BBC is the financial benefit that immigration has brought. If the non A8 European countries are removed from the equation I believe the financial benefit is negative to the tune of £95bn.

Ironside if you want a real picture of what's going on extremely biased report from the BBC. The BBC are pro immigration. The comments below are more relevant than the article.

That wouldn't make any sense at all. Minus 95 million is believable, but billion? Given that NHS England has a budget of around 95 billion, it seems pretty unlikely that immigration would cause that kind of number.

How about. No benefits for anyone. No NHS, NO DSS no nothing. Boom! 10% flat tax for workers.
If you don't work NO MONEY, NOTHING, ZILCH.

That would never work the middle class would be up in arms, no one to subsidise their cleaners, where are they supposed to get cheap labour, that would be a breach of their human rights.

Farmers not being subsidised is unthinkable never mind the opera or theatre, transport would be great without benefits, all those businesses having to pay for the roads they dont pay for at the moment. I'm with you, benefits should only be for royalty.

I'd go along with that up to a point.. But what when it isn't your fault. No-one can be blamed for being born blind, for example.

At what point would it be OK to remove health care?

I wouldn't remove health care from anyone who (a) genuinely needed it and (b) simply couldn't pay for it themselves.

However, it doesn't make sense for me to pay young and healthy people to do nothing.

I dont mean royalty, would you like to see all subsidies removed not just subsidies to individuals.

It would be strange to remove subsidies from the unemployed yet retain them for farmers and most commerce for example

Generally speaking, farmers grow things and industry produces things.

However, I do know that in some circumstances farmers are paid for leaving their fields idle.

Personally, I'm in favour of a minimalist state.

As far as possible, I would remove state help from agriculture and industry.

How much would things cost if haulage companies had to pay for the roads and their upkeep? Removing subsidies from the unemployed or people with large families is easy to argue while enjoying all the other state subsidies however the economic and social consequences would be too big to hide.

It's a self flattering delusion that one can be an independent man island which is impossible unless one is Robinson Crusoe.

I believe they make a significant contribution through taxation in the UK at least. Its hard to see what the "Grand Plan" regarding road haulage was or is across the EU. The plan has certainly damaged the UK haulage industry when trying to compete with extremely low wages and lower fuel costs.

No-one (sensible) is suggesting road haulage companies pay for roads themselves. Much of the country's infrastructure, security and so on is the responsibility of the state. As is basic health and education for most people for the foreseeable future.

However, I don't really see the sense in importing workers from other countries, while simultaneously paying your own citizens to do nothing. Do you?

Haulage companies are just an example of subsidies that free marketeers like. In places like Dublin or London the entire economy is propped up with state subsidies. Without benefits these places would stop generating wealth.

The free movement of capital means the free movement of people that's what the EU is designed for. With the lack of an economic policy beyond nationalise debt, privatise profit it's not really surprising that people have been ignored. The crazy economic nonsense of the 80s is responsible for this mess.

Not really. The damage done by lorries is significant - and the utter failure of the UK to do anything about foreign trucks that don't pay road tax is astonishing. There's a good reason why most of Europe has gone to distance-based tolls for trucks.

The richest countries tend to be those where the state does the least. This may come as a shock to you, but as Margaret Thatcher rightly stated, "there's no such thing as public money." The state can only redistribute wealth, not create it itself.


The EU is an unaccountable, multinational, corporatist, bureaucratic mess that I would like to see the UK break free from. It's 'big government' on steroids.

I dunno, look at the Arab oil countries, or Norway - both heavily interventionist...

Can you work out why?

The converse is true, poor countries have next to no regulation rich countries have lots.

The point is that benefits subsidise the rich by supplying a cheap pool of labour so that industry and commerce can thrive, thats the business plan Thatcher implemented. Of course they had to go back to good old nationalisation to save the western economies, its great to be able to say I told you so when the benefits of Socialism have been tested and worked.

Well done, Barney. The history of Socialism 1917-89 taught you nothing. Off to the North Korea re-education camp with you then, and enjoy the fruits of socialism.

I dont have to leave Europe to enjoy the fruits of the state, in fact all rich countries have much more state intervention than poor countries it is clearly good for business.

That is why Germany has a better economy than Somalia....

Somalia doesn't have a functioning government at present. Did they have a better economy than Germany when they were under communist rule 1969-91? They must have had state intervention aplenty then.

No government nothing to get in the way of the free market so all should be good after all you said that rich countries tend to have less government. Are you not astounded that Somalia isnt thriving?

If a lack of a functioning government is a problem for economic growth move next door and look at other African countries. What one finds is that as the state becomes more competent and regulatory the economy becomes more productive. Rich countries have more government intervention than poor countries. If you are suggesting that there is some kind of threshold after which government intervention becomes a hinderance I can only point you to the disaster that hit the west when socialist nationalisation saved the day. Regulation was removed in the financial sector and look what happened.

You have no problem with the state subsidising everything but the poor, look at the amount of money thrown at the banking sector for example, socialism in practice for the rich but how dare the poor be subsidised. It is morally and economically wrong to write off whole generations of people but why should they not be subsidised like the rich in the absence of any other strategy. EU citizens going to Britain have to be treated the same as everyone else the tiny amount of money involved is not an issue.