The FT has this headline this morning:
Reform UK has vowed to cut £50bn from the welfare bill by slashing benefits for foreign nationals and people with disabilities if it wins the next general election.
So, just what is a foreign national in their minds?
The question matters. For me, it is even rather personal. I receive a state benefit. It is the state old-age pension. I qualify for the full pension, having paid UK National Insurance for well more than the required number of years.
I am also a foreign national. I have both UK and Irish passports, but I have lived in the UK all my life, and nothing I can do will remove my entitlement to an Irish passport: that is embedded in Irish law, and Reform cannot change that.
I am far from alone in being in this situation. I know many who are, and many more who have the passports of other states, or entitlement to them. According to the last census, more than 1.2 million do this. I suspect the number has risen significantly since then in the aftermath of Brexit.
So will Reform deny us all benefits and state pensions? It is a necessary question. I am not sure there is a known answer. I am assuming the worst in that case. These people are possessed of toxic xenophobia.
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Reform have stated that they will expel all those EU citizens with Settled Status. That’s over 3 million people.
Agreed
The FAQs on the Reform website say that EU nationals with settled status will not lose their settled status but will lose their right to welfare payments. Whether this xenophobic bunch will stick to that if they get into power is another matter.
https://www.reformparty.uk/policy-faqs
this is what they say
https://www.reformparty.uk/policy-faqs
I am not clear if someone with settled status paying National Insurance and taxes, who loses their job will get unemployment benefits. And if not, might other countries retaliate against British people working overseas?
But it seems they are getting more extreme by the day…
That would see the end of any relationship with the EU, and all current agreements I would assume.
Of course, it is what Farage has wanted all along, but the cost to Britain would be a disaster.
Then there is Northern Ireland, as Reform don’t recognise European court jurisdiction, and things could very quickly get out of hand. Who is classed as a “Foreign” national there?
“Fortress Britain”… Insular, disliked, pariah of Europe.
Much to agree with
I remember an ex girlfriend many years ago getting worried as she was like Boris Johnson born in the US to English parents.
Didnt hold, although may have been entitled to a US passport and there was some proposal in the early 90’s that she thought might have adversely affected her.
That of course is before you get to The Common Travel Area between the UK & Ireland
They will just tie themselves in knots. The hostile environment policy has affected the partners of many British nationals. My former neighbour was Zimbabwean married to a British women. In the five years before he got citizenship he worked full-time, paid UK taxes and had two British children, but he couldn’t get a mortgage or be named on their family home. During this time on top of all the normal British taxes he paid an NHS surcharge. It was an expensive five years during which he had little rights. Then there all those of British heritage born overseas etc. What they really mean is anyone that might make demands on the state that they can offload. It is a despicable policy as it would include many who have worked here for many years and have no other home.
Thank you
This is fast becoming my new favourite quote “Here where we live is our country.” ~ The Jewish Bund, via Molly Crabapple.
Residues of Empire. John Masters, 1950s historical novelist, was born in India, and served with a Gurkha regiment. His father was born in India, Indian Army officer. His grandfather was born in India, Police Superintendent, when these positions were reserved for the British. His great grandfather was born in India, school headmaster, also an occupation then reserved for the British. You have to go back to his great-great-grandfather, born in England in 1773, who went to India with the 7th Hussars. I have no doubt that Masters was English, nor did me. What would Reform think?
More pithily, if a man is born in a stable it doesn’t make him a horse.
(John Masters wrote many popular historical novels about the British in India, of which Bhowani Junction is perhaps the most recognisable title. The story comes from the 3rd volume of his autobiography, Pilgrim Son, 1971)
We have a great family friend who is Dutch. He has lived and worked in the UK, paying NI, for the last 50 years. When a similar idea was mentioned when the UK left the EU he contacted the Dutch embassy in London to ask for their thoughts. The response was very clear – the Netherlands would demand that all NI contributions be repaid plus compensation.
I am happy to ignore the continuous nonsense coming from Reform and amazed that some media channels give this twaddle any credence.
I know they have some solid support from a minority of the public who seem to have been hoodwinked by Farage, but the vast majority let the Reform pronouncements pass them by, taking most of it with a pinch of salt.
We are almost three years away from a General Election and yet a political party with eight MPs are trying to grab the headlines with stuff so ridiculous, they know the news channels will discuss it. Who’s fooling who, here?
We should just smile and let them get on with it. At least, for now.
Smile? At abuse? I don’t think so.
Their argument seems to be “Why should UK tax payers fund the welfare benefits of foreigners.” Yet another pernicious milking of the ‘tax and spend’ myth.
Richard, you have a colleague in the Wee Ginger Dug. Here’s the link to his posting today: https: weegingerdug.wordpress.com/
At least you have an Irish passport if anarchy breaks out in the UK; up here beyond the wall we don’t have that luxury and as a bonus have to put up with the BBC praising Reform while simultaneously defiling the SNP on a daily basis.
When I was a child, my father (who had worked all over the western hemisphere) kept reminding me that I was Scottish first and foremost, European second, Citizen of the World third and British fourth (the passport was worth having). UK politics is now so degraded that the long-running Scottish diaspora continues: I don’t have to drum it into my grandchildren. One was born abroad and is at school there, another is studying at a German University and is considering emigration to Canada, as is his younger brother, three are half-Spanish and bi-lingual. They are all bright, multi-lingual kids and all bar one are/were educated in Scottish schools. I despair that they feel they’ll get a better life overseas and I despair that the underlying reason is the politics of the UK and, in particular, the restrictions that Westminster puts on Scotland, the extractionism of natural resources, the interference in our culture – the list goes on.
I imagine it’s tough to see children and grandchildren go.
But we have politicians who do not believe in this country.
Go well, Ken.
Quite insane. I am an EEA National resident in the UK since 1980. My daughter born in the UK, always lived here, done all her education in the UK , working already for 15 years (Tax / NI). We are both French nationals. I was not married to her father when she was born and not working in the last few weeks of my pregnancy, not under a contract of employment. When I applied for British Nationality for my daughter as a child, the Home Office replied that I was “not exercising my Treaty Rights” at the time of her birth, she was not eligible. Her main language in English, she is “British” culturally but a French passport and settled status. I am State Pension Age, still working and paying tax but have contributed all the years towards my state pension…. It is getting better every day! We are all going to have to get some legal advice now.. I personally will not change my nationality, particulary in this climate. It is too late for me to become a British Citizen certainly not “under duress” (and costly). But clearly concerned for my daughter and all those similarly concerned. I cannot see how a Reform government (God Forbid! hope it never happens) could get away not paying contribution-based benefits (e.g. New Style Employment Support Allowance) to EEA Nationals who have contributed and because of this, meet the eligibility conditions for these benefits. However, it could be a different matter working towards barring access to UC. Clearly the Withdrawal Agreement will have to be renegotiated. It will have consequences for British Citizens settled in EEA countries too.. and there are quite a few… Insanity is the only word for all of this. Fascism.
I continue to be offended that as a minimum wage earner I am forbidden to bring a foreign born spouse to the UK. Yet the rich are not. Maybe Farage would like to ensure his wife is deported when she divorces him.
Totally fair comment
These issues are not unique to Reform. While living in Western Australia, we met a lady born in Scotland who had come to Australia, married and had two children. The family plan was always to relocate to Scotland before the children reached high-school age but Teresa May put paid to that by changing the rules so that her husband and children had no right to UK residency, effectively removing her own right to return to the country where she was born and had extensive family ties.
I wish more people would focus more on foreign residents trying to influence what we do rather than on foreign nationals.
Immigrants are a net contributor to our society through their taxes, and those who shift their residence or financial affairs abroad to minimise their UK taxes are not contributing their share.
Therefore, contributing immigrants should have more of a voice than they do now, while those like Tice who choose to move their wife and kids abroad to minimise tax should, to put it bluntly, shut the … up.