Migrant crisis, swarms, stampede, the menace at the train station, endless floods, a never ending stream, by the thousand, criminals, rapists, a clear danger. Look at the news over the last few weeks and you will see every type of name calling and fear mongering. It’s almost as if our political class can’t actually debate a subject anymore and reason or logic are long forgotten concepts. Instead we have nothing but fear, threats, the danger within or without. Give up security, give up rights, give up benefits. Yep, give up benefits. The BBC today are reporting that the government, in their ongoing drive to fight the peril of immigration, is trying to find a way to get out of paying any form of benefits to the horde of immigrants that are swarming over the fences. Problem is those pesky EU types won’t allow the UK to get out of paying benefits to legitimate immigrants or EU citizens. So our caring and compassionate government has decided that to get around the problem and to pander to the far right of their own voter base, and at the same time continue the ongoing effort to divide and conquer the population, they have little choice but to pass laws blocking everyone from benefits. In this case they are setting on a four year period of residency as a condition of the right to receive in work benefits, to go with the restriction on out of work benefits already in place. Now a reasonable person, one who wasn’t a power crazed politician determined to keep his nose in the trough and bent on providing his corporate masters and old school chums with the most profitable deals possible regardless of the human cost that is, would say that four years of residency in the UK would actually start when someone became a resident, say at birth. Instead our caring and compassionate government is considering setting the residency start point at the legal age when someone is considered an adult under the law, that being the 18th birthday. So young men and women, on their 18th birthday will suddenly become non residents of the UK and will have to spend 4 years living here before they are classified as residents and allowed to claim in work benefits like tax credits or anything linked to it. Remember that over this same age they are denied out of work benefits as well There are roughly 800,000 18 year olds in the UK, I’m not going to search for an exact figure, I haven’t had enough coffee yet today. So roughly will do for now. 3.5 million 18 to 22 year olds who will suddenly find themselves non residents of the UK. The newspapers are saying 50,000 will be affected, that’s nonsense. Every single person in the UK from the day of their 18th birthday will be hit by this and will have to wait exactly four years till they have the residency to then qualify, oh but they still have three more years until they are 25 before the restrictions on benefits and wages are gone and they are actually treated like the rest of the citizens. No benefits, low paid jobs OR full time education to build up a crushing debt that will hang round their necks for decades to come. That is the Tory choice for the young men and women in UKplc these days. I know I talk about our government trying to rule as if it was the 19th century but not treating people as adults until they are 25 is ridiculous even by Victorian standards. Will they deny anyone under 25 the vote, how about killing off the vote for anyone under 22 on the grounds that they do not qualify since they aren’t legal residents until they’ve lived in the UK for four years. Now this is being talked about as a way of dealing with the numberless hordes at our gates since the EU can’t moan if EVERYONE is denied benefits until they have been an adult living in the UK for four years. But like so much our government does this is a short term knee jerk response to deal with a specific situation and to pander to a limited group of vocal voters. The mid to long term implications are far worse if every single 18 to 22 year old is suddenly classified as a non resident person.. It was clear that the Tories had a real hate going for the under 25s, this is just putting the nail in the coffin so to speak. Any political party that can catch the interest of the under 25s, offer them the respect they earn and treat them as grownups rather than sources of educational debts or useless hungry mouths has millions of votes for the asking. Probably why the right are shitting themselves over Corbyn. |
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