From today’s Open Europe news summary:
Influential Conservative MPs call for tougher rules on EU migrants’ access to benefits The Times reports that the Fresh Start Group of Conservative MPs has today published a new report calling on the UK Government to renegotiate a number of EU directives and regulations to toughen up the EU’s rules on migrants’ access to benefits. The MPs suggest that certain benefits should only be paid to those who have “contributed a significant amount to that state’s system” and that the Government should be allowed to claim back any benefits from a recipient’s home country if they had not paid into the British social security system. The Fresh Start Project report is drawn from a public evidence session of the APPG for European Reform and the subsequent report prepared by Open Europe, which acts as the Secretariat to the APPG. Open Europe: Work in Parliament Open Europe research: EU free movement Times
Requiring people to have “contributed a significant amount to that state’s system” is a worthy, short term goal, but let’s continue the thought process. Why offer state-sponsored welfare at all? Let each man contribute to his own, personal welfare program. We old timers used to call this “saving for a rainy day”, “becoming self-reliant”, “accepting personal responsibility”, etc. Until we return to these time-honored and time-tested personal virtues, state-sponsored welfare will be a cancer on the body politic…enticing the young to believe that they have a right to become a permanent burden upon their fellow man and have no need to prepare themselves for a world of scarcity and uncertainty.
Patrick Barron
