Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

none as far as I am aware of

I tried a quick google of Scotland free education for non Brit EU citizens

Maybe start with this below

http://www.theguardian.com/education...-soar-scotland

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

This goes back to my point about the government dodging its responsibilities. Any new EU member state wishing to join has been approved by all of the existing member states. Becoming a member entitles your citizens to freedom of labour throughout the EU. This means the UK government, when approving the membership of Poland and the other new countries, knew that this would give their citizens the right to live and work in the UK.

The sheer numbers of those came from those new Eastern European EU countries was due to the previous government failing to impose transitional controls - the UK being the only EU country to do so except Ireland and Sweden. Combine this with a booming economy using the world's current lingua franca and it's easy to see why so many came.

The other major governmental failure was that the UK still has no effective way of counting people in and out of the country. Exit controls were abolished in the Nineties to save money and the e-Borders system which was announced in 2007 to replace them still hasn't been fully implemented. The statistics about numbers in and out of the country are still collected by the International Passenger Survey - a tourist destination survey programme from the 1960s - so any numbers are a guesstimate at best. That's why the results of the 2011 Census were headline news because no-one really knew how many people were in the country until that point.

Now that the economy is doing poorly people's attitudes are hardening. A decade long anti-immigration campaign led by the Daily Mail et al isn't helping. HMG is happy to play along rather than take the blame for their failings on both controlling the initial influx of migrants to the UK and then also failing to deal with its wider implications in terms of pressure on housing, the NHS, social services, etc..

So how many is too many? Providing HMG is willing to use the extra revenue generated by the additional tax and NI contributions to fund additional services to cope with those who will arrive from Bulgaria and Romania then in theory we could take as many as who are willing to come. That's the agreement we entered into when the UK approved their accession to the EU.

In practice, as I've mentioned previously in this thread, those from Bulgaria and Romania who have wanted to live and work in the UK have been here since 2007. There will be a small increase but nothing like on the scale that happened previously.

I think it's important to differentiate between reality and perception of reality. Just because you hold a belief or an opinion doesn't make that opinion correct. It needs to be drawn from verifiable information. How many of those that answered yes in that survey can back up their assertion with anything quantifiable? They may be able to repeat what they've read but I suspect few could give hard facts to support their opinion or give you a personal example of a problem they encountered in their own lives due to the levels of immigration. How many people on this board, being migrants to other countries themselves, have personally encountered a problem in their own lives due to, say, the level of Polish immigration into the UK in the last ten years?

Irish citizens in the UK hold a separate status from other EU citizens. A couple of examples off the top of my head:

- As an Irish citizen you are considered 'settled' for immigration purposes from the moment you arrive. This means that any children born in the UK will be British from birth. Other EU nationals have to be resident for five years before their children acquire citizenship at birth.

- Irish citizens can register and vote in local, national and European elections. Other EU citizens are only eligible to vote in local and European elections. Irish citizens share this right with Commonwealth citizens despite Ireland no longer being part of the Commonwealth.

- As an Irish citizen you can join and serve in the British Armed Forces. Again this is a right shared by Commonwealth citizens but not EU citizens.

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

ONS has all kinds of data. In the following, page 6 figure 2A spanning 60 years

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_346219.pdf

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

An observation of double standards.

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

Thanks for the information!

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

I have always found the British to be extremely welcoming and they have a reputation for just that. A very small minority probably fit your description but no more than that. Being an armchair critic is a universal thing, certainly not the British way :confused:

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

But....isn't that bigotry?:(

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

I don't know - is it?

Do you reckon immigrants to the UK get treated differently if they do not have a command of the English language, by appearance, the way they walk or the fact that they arrive from certain areas of the EU?

'Labeling' is probably how many immigrants are treated or referred to no matter where they are from or where they emigrate to. Whinging poms or limeys is a term that has been used on me many times during my working life in various countries.

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

:(

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

then again with your Brit passport in hand I believe that you returned from OZ & not from an Eastern EU country or from one of the South Asian countries.

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

People born in different spots on the earth are just going to talk differently or look differently from each other. (If they walk differently they've probably got a disability so I hope we aren't going there). Singling a person out because they talk or look different is generally not a good thing..........

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

was that a 'I agree' or a 'disagree'?

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

I'm pretty sure not2old meant no offense to me, just stating his experiences (I've always found myself very welcome in England, personally)

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

agree with you

Do you reckon folks in the UK are more acceptable to immigrants from the 'old' commonwealth than those from the Eastern EU countries?

And that it is perfectly alright for a Brit passport holder (by descent) that had never lived in the UK ever arrives to take jobs from Brits or ends up as a benefit scrounger over someone from Romania or Bulgaria [the theme of this thread]?

Re: The Bulgarian & Romanians
 

My husband is from the North. He has always told me that this is how the English feel about the Irish.