EU Freedom of movement, has there ever been a more idiotic idea in history?

its fine if the countries in the system have roughly the same standard of living and culture, but if you have rich countries and poor in the same zone it will leave to depopulation of the poor countries.

yes its idiotic, and painfully predictable. but there was a desire to include all the poorer eastern european states in the project to bring up their standard of living.

yep stupid idea

controlled movement of people would benefit everyone so much

Want to tell me how uneducated, unskilled people benefit the UK?

they mostly don't hence i want controlled immigration

-Some countries in the EU have a "culture of crime",

So now we've allowed every single poor European in to the UK, why don't we go the full mile and allow every single African, Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian and Bangladeshi to move here?

I find it funny how the EU has never proposed an equal level of social welfare benefits to be paid. Whats up, Romania not want to put their money where their mouth is? The UK welfare cap is £26,000, lets see Romania pay their citizens £26,000 for doing nothing. Lets see Romania pay-out child credits and £2,000-a-month housing benefits. Romania, you wanted equality for your citizens amongst the EU and now you got it. You've gone silent?

How about immigrants' benefits are funded by their original country of origin? So Poland can fund all the child benefits of its citizens living in the UK and so can Romania...... then the UK Government can fund the benefits of British people living in Romania...... oh wait- there aren't any. This EU Freedom of Movement was a smart idea........ one-way traffic to the wealthier EU countries. Greaaaaat!

A few axioms:

-Anybody in the EU can move to any EU country (unless they are known to be a terrorist etc).

I find it funny how the EU has never proposed an equal level of social welfare benefits to be paid. Whats up, Romania not want to put their money where their mouth is? The UK welfare cap is £26,000, lets see Romania pay their citizens £26,000 for doing nothing. Lets see Romania pay-out child credits and £2,000-a-month housing benefits. Romania, you wanted equality for your citizens amongst the EU and now you got it. You've gone silent?

British people living in Romania...... oh wait- there aren't any.

funny thing is- vast majority of EU migrants move here to work. not to suck on (the most idiotic in the EU) benefit system.
Actually, EU migrants are less likely to use benefit system than natives- will I hear your complains about work-shy Brits?

I find it funny when I hear such stupid comparisons.

If you would move to, lets say, Germany, Spain or Poland (or Romania)- you would be subjected to local laws in the same way as local, native people. Do you want benefits? Work for them (in the same way as natives do)!

Only UK is whinging about it, it wants to treat workshy Brits better than EU citizens.

As long as they pay taxes to the UK government, they should be able to get benefits from the same government.

Only because Brits cannot sort their idiotic benefit system (which other country pays their citizens for not working?) doesn't mean that there is something wrong with non-natives using it.

Also- why are you so afraid of labour movement? Oh, I forgot- you have to roll up sleeves and actually start working. what a shame!

Well, no. The treaty right is to the free movement of workers. If someone comes to the UK and doesn't get a job in a reasonable amount of time, we are perfectly free to get them to leave.

Well, in fairness we don't pay an equal level of social welfare benefits across the UK. Many are consistent, yes, which prevents the entrenchment of economic disparity. But there are equally those which are not: the Local Housing Allowance used in the calculation of housing benefit will not provide the same level of support to someone in Bolton whose rent is £600 a month as it would to a person in London whose rent is the same.

Once economies converge more effectively across the EU, consistent welfare benefits would be rational. However the obvious point, for now, is that UK social security would be extremely generous by Romanian standards, while Romanian benefits would be paltry by UK standards: the cost of living is hugely different.

I'm not sure what problem you have with Romanians coming to Britain to work. If they want to come here, take a job, pay tax then I have no problem with them.

I don't find bullfighting any more barbaric than fox hunting to be honest. Getting killed by a sword seems to be just as painful as getting slowly ripped apart by hunting dogs. Dogfighting and badger baiting are all too common in the UK.

It worked until 2004, when countries with whom we do not share a similar standard of living were granted freedom of movement.