Romania and Bulgarians restrictions lifted

[cwathen]

Really? There are millions of Brits who gallivant around Europe and beyond without language or a means of income arranged in advance.

Do you think perhaps that would be considered hypocritical?

It would only be hypocrisy if I had some kind of British supremacy thing going on, which I don't. It's not just a 'them coming here' thing - I don't think it should happen at all, in any country. Were I to emigrate, I wouldn't at all think it unreasonable if the country I planned to go to required me to be able to speak their language and needed to know how I was going to support myself without relying on their social security system. Those 2 basic things would seem to me to be perfectly reasonably prerequisites that any permanent immigrant needs to have.

Genuine asylum seekers fine, tourists fine, students fine, people 'going travelling' fine. Anyone who is going to a country for a short period of time I can accept. But permanent immigrants who have planned to go to a country being permitted to settle there when they can't speak the language and it isn't clear how they are going to support themselves, absolutely not. It's an insane thing to allow.

[rdobbie]

But permanent immigrants who have planned to go to a country being permitted to settle there when they can't speak the language and it isn't clear how they are going to support themselves, absolutely not.

Then I think you're getting concerned over nothing. The number of EU citizens planning to come to the UK, despite being unable to speak English and being skint with no work prospects, is negligible. It's hard enough for a reasonably intelligent British citizen to navigate their way through the baffling world of the benefits maze. Someone who doesn't speak the lingo isn't going to stand a chance. If anyone really comes to Britain thinking they're going to get a free ride, then I wish them the best of luck because they're certainly going to need it.

Returning to the wider, original question: why have Bulgarian and Romanian citizens become a legitimate target for hostility in recent months? Why not the citizens of any other EU country, who have been entitled to live and work here since the 1992 Maastricht treaty? What about the Commonwealth "migration chains" of the 1950s-60s (Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, etc)?

Racism was certainly prevalent in those days - there was even a primetime ITV sitcom about the perils of living next door to a "Nig Nog" - but it wasn't as poisonous and insidious as it is right now towards Bulgarians and Romanians.