Joe Duggan (Reporter)
DAVID Cameron has left all-night talks with Europe’s leaders as Downing Street warns ‘hard work’ lies ahead.
A tight-lipped Cameron left the Brussels talks over Britain’s place in the EU at around 05.30.
He is due to hold a series one-to-one meetings with European leaders and European Council head Donald Tusk ahead of an ‘English lunch’ later today.
The summit could have profound consequences for British expats in Spain, as the British prime minister seeks an improved deal ahead of a possible June referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
On Thursday evening, a Downing Street spokesman said: “There is some real hard work to do overnight and we have got to see real progress.”
The Tory leader wants to restrict in-work benefits to EU migrants for four years and restrict child benefit to workers from the EU whose children live in other countries.
I don´t think that a Brexit, will bring any trouble for British expats in Spain . the British people is welcome in Spain.
A different question is the situation of the inhabitants of Gibraltar, who in the most adverse case will lost the possibility of to cross the fence.
I do no think Spain will close the border with Gib in the case of a UK withdrawal from the EU. The only reprisal the UK would need to make would be a 500% tax on all holiday makers heading to Spain from the UK.
Little Spain and it’s economy should know which side it’s bread is buttered on. Or else we will have to give you a quick smack like a small petulant child would deserve for being naughty.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Well that’s hands across the border. I have been made very welcome in Spain, my Spanish neighbours treat me like one of the family and were very supportive and helpful when my wife died. I think your rhetoric is uncalled for.
Does anyone know if there is a schedule listing details of in-work and unemployment benefits for all the EU member states? For example, what kind of in-work benefits would I get if I moved to Poland, working tax credits, child benefit (if I had children in the UK), housing benefit? I would like to see a breakdown of what each member state offers.
I stand to be corrected but there are no in-work benefits in Spain so that is an easy one.
I would also like to see a breakdown of how the different EU healthcare systems work i.e. are they like Spain whereby you have to contribute specifically to the social security system if under 60 or the UK system which is based on residency?
Let’s see how level the playing field really is.
It’s far from level Jane. Britain is receiving next to no immigrants/refugees, whereas poor old Greece is inundated. Germany has a couple of million and counting. In fact most of the EU is groaning under the weight of this crisis and it will get worse when the weather improves, while Blighty sits tight behind it’s drawbridge, quaking with fear of Johnny Foreigner. The EU would happily grant Dave his cuts in credits if only he would shoulder some of the real burden. The “U” in EU stands for union, it doesn’t feel like a union to those listening to Dave bitching on about a few bob going one way but not another, while it’s costing them untold amounts in money and social unrest, by supporting their unwanted guests.
the UK is swamped with immigrants…..this is not not new to the UK we have been taking asylum seekers for over 30 years…its about time the UK closed its borders and let some other EU countries have some of them
So much for the European Union. Truth is, all there is freedom of movement and the single currency. The freedom of movement part is being eroded as Schengen falls apart, and so all that really leaves is the currency. There is parity in nothing else inside the EU, it has been a total farce for anything else like equal pay, equal benefits and equal taxes.
Stefanjo, the UK has given far more in foreign aid than any of the other EU countries. How much does Spain give in foreign aid? If the UK is such a nasty uncaring place, why does the Calais jungle exist with thousands of blokes trying to get to the UK? They could just as easily stay in France who are presumably much more migrant friendly than the UK.
What about a table of EU benefits? We need to know who offers what to whom before we vote and this is key to the negotiations at this summit. How will you be voting in the referendum Stefanjo?
Fred, the single currency? For how much longer, it is only a matter of time before the next Euro crisis.
stefanjo,
sad to say once again but your type gives the left a very bad name.
Your whole post is a pack of lies – there are in the UK right now 8.2 million people who were not born in the UK, another 350,000 came last year alone. maternity units are overrun with Moslems and Catholics. Schools can’t teach because so many classes have children from all over who have no English. Refugees and economic migrants get housed but not the indigenous people, the Brits.
Germany has by it’s own mouth – the fat frau, taken in 1 million last year not 2 million, why lie about something when everyone knows the real numbers.
The UK is the second biggest contributor after Germany and the Netherlands, a small country with a small population is the third biggest contributor – how stupid to use the expression – a few bob.
Why don’t you have a word with your friend Merkel about her lack of any sense of ‘union’ when she opened her big mouth and unilaterally invited the world in, without any consultation with her partners in the ‘union’
Now why did she do that stefanjo – because German industry and German big business wants cheap labour. Now if you had friends in Germany as I do who I keep in touch with every week, then you would know that the German people as a whole are outraged at this invasion of their country. If it was’nt for WW11 and all that happened it would have been blood on the streets of Germany long before now.
Why if there was/is a real ‘union’ was Germany allowed to set the % rate with introduction of the Euro – great for German industry and a disaster for southern Europe. Why were Germany and France consistently allowed to breach the 3% rule – it goes on and on does’nt it stefanjo.
Stop trying to make out that the existing EU is anything other than an organisation run by and for big business. Has it done anything to address the fraud rampant throughout Spain, Italy, Portugal,Greece. Has it done anything to stop and address the gravy train for big farmers and agribusinesses, of course not, that’s why small farmers are committing suicide in Britain and France.
The ‘U’ in union should be just that but it is’nt is it stefanjo. Why would honest politicians and EU officials vote virtually unanimously to elect a shyster like Junker who set up all the tax avoidance schemes in Luxembourg. Why was Ireland allowed to set a ridiculoussly low rate of corporation tax. Why was the Netherlands allowed to let foreigners use the Netherlands as a conduit to avoid paying tax in their own countries, the scumbags in U2 come to mind immediately.
Fred has it just right, where is the union in taxation, benefits or especially democracy, I am of course referring to the scandal of FPTP – why is not pure P/R the universal law for all EU countries, just think of the UK since the mid 1970s never again controlled by either the Nasties or the Pink Tories -coalition government has worked very well in the Netherlands and Germany.
With P/R the North Sea oil could’nt have been squandered by Thatcher in her hatred of the working man and woman. All the looting of our assets could never have happened in the sell-off of gas,electricity,water, telephone etc. etc.
None of this could have happened if the EU was really about union and protection of 99% of Europe’s citizens – it was’nt and it never will be in it’s present form and don’t try the speil about staying inside to change it, that will never happen and anyone who says it will, is lying.
The horrendous enlargement of bringing in Eastern Europe was only ever about cheap labour and bigger markets. With this action again the truth about the EU and it’s real purpose was exposed fully. Eastern Europe needed another 50 years to learn about democracy, anti-semitism and move away from the past, think Jugoslavia. Just how much of a ‘union’ was operating when the killing was going on – it was’nt and you know that full well.
Spouting theoretical b/s does’nt work stefanjo, it’s reality you need to use to support an argument you can’t, so give it up – it’s not working. Why not try the Nasties tactic of project fear, it works for them.
Stuart, you and I often disagree on here but you are dead right about the amount of non-UK born people currently living in the UK who are having lots and lots of children. It would be a very hard sell to persuade the British public to take in yet more refugees and migrants when the whole place is already heaving and public services are being pushed to breaking point. It is complete madness to cram millions of people into one small corner of the world and leave great swathes of it half empty.
You are also right about Merkel and Germany. Attitudes in Germany have hardened towards migrants and women in particular do not want people (muslims in particular) to come to their country and treat them like second class citizens. Why should they (or we) want to welcome people who don’t respect their values and want to change the way they live?
You are right about Juncker and U2 as well.
The EU is all going horribly wrong.
Feel better now Stuart? Unfortunately, During the recent disrupt to this OP thread, my reply to Jane was “lost” somehow. It just may have reduced your apoplexy. However, I’ll repeat part of it. Her question was “how will you vote?.” To which I answered, “it depends on what Dave brings back from Brussels”. Which has now been proved a damp squib. (of course) . I also intimated it would decide my choice. However, this morning produced pictures of the swivel-eyed loons who are fighting for a Brexit. We now have that clown Boris Johnson leading the pack. That decided me. There is no way I could throw my lot in with Farage, Galloway, Grayling, Ian Duncan Smith, Micheal Gove, Priti Patel, Theresa Villiers and now the beany-hatted buffoon. So despite any avalanche of so-called facts and figures, I’ll go with Jeremy Corbyn and his gang, agreeing with him that the wrong deal was sought and failed to be achieved, but that the UK should remain in the EU and fight for the real population of Britain. The middle and lower classes. Oh, and anyone who will be marooned abroad when the gates clang shut.
It’s “austerity” and vicious cuts that is responsible for services being brought to the brink. It’s too easy to blame “foreigners”. The whole tenor of the language being used smacks of the “Rivers of blood” crap spouted by Enoch Powell back in the day. Short of setting up machine-gun nests on Lesbos, southern Italy etc. How would this human tide be halted? It is with us. It has to be coped with somehow.
So, how? Answers on a postcard please.
The “great swathes” of land that is empty is because it’s been bombed to rubble and no-one can live there. All been done in pursuit of black gold and now, once begun, the slaughter has taken on a momentum of it’s own, spreading and sucking in more people and land, thus spawning yet more refugees. Who, by the way Jane, are men women and children. Not just “blokes”.
There is one good thing to come from this EU kerfuffle though and that’s watching the Tories tear themselves apart over it. It’s great to watch them form a circle, each with a knife in his neighbours back. To repeat once more. There is no expat who can profit in any way from a withdrawal from Europe and would be most likely to lose from it.
stefanjo,
you use emotion, not reasoned argument because you have none. Life in the UK is as it is because sadly most Brits are frightened serfs that hav’nt got he balls to make real change. They are terrified by authority, it has nothing to do with the EU.
Syria is’nt about oil, it’s about the Americans wanting total world domination and spending billions to create a monster image of Putin. The ‘Great Game’ is still being played but the Americans have taken over from the public schoolboys. It was the CIA who encouraged none Alawites to demonstrate which started the problem, they did the same in the Ukraine pumping $billions into the hands of the extreme right there – mentioning oil and Syria shows you know nothing of the real situation there.
You moan and moan about the status quo, well what have you personally ever done to stop what has been happening since the 70s’. That’s all I ever hear moaning Brits.
Something that was deliberately kept out of the press, understandably by the right but also by the left – the Provos – the Provisional Government of the Netherlands in the 1960s.
The Netherlands a profoundly conservative country dominated by rigid Catholic and Protestant fanatics. These brave young people stood up to the State and basically offered the elite a choice – change or revolution.
I was lucky enough to experience some of those changes when I lived in the Netherlands. Immigrants of each community were given an ons haus/our house. So that a Turk or Moroccan on entering the country could in his/her own language could be told what the craic was, unsurprisingly the disorganised Brits never ever had one.
The provos fought for art and sport subsidies. Concerts to suit all tastes were paid for by the local council. Because a lot of houses in the poorer burts/districts did’nt have bathrooms there was always a meeting house where beer was sold at cost and where there were plenty of showers, cost 1guilder/20P. A great place to have a shower and meet local people, most of whom were immigrants.
Excellent sporting facilities were created – the Ahoy Halles in Rotterdam being one example but myriads of sports halls to cater for all sports – nothing like this anywhere in the UK.
A good State pension backed up by a private pension which return 3 x times a UK private pension because they are not loaded with rip-off charges like UK ones, so that a Dutch person retires on 90% of their average earnings.
Where Social Security offices are not like in the UK with one purpose only to humiliate and intimidate any claimant. I went with a French person when he had to visit the French equivalent. When I lived in Guadix there was a s/security office down the avenida. All 3 of these places treated people like human beings.
I could go on and on but after 40 years plus in the EU has this meant any positive change to ‘quality of life’ between the island and the mainland – no, it has got steadily worse on the island.
So after 40 years, membership of the EU has not had a positive effect on the UK – so where is this change going to come from stefanjo.
The truth is that quality of life has degenerated in the UK because Brits are too cowardly to stand up. Maybe if the Nasties keep pushing down on the serfs, the serfs might just find some courage to say enough but I don’t think so. One thing’s for sure – mouth is useless, action is required and that’s where the moaning Brits go terribly silent.
You are of course quite wrong to say that no expat will profit, the rich expats are doing and will continue to do very nicely thank you, that’s why the Nasties did’nt disallow the WFA for their own living in Tuscany and Lombardy – that none of them need the WFA is irrelevant, they are greedy and will take everything they can get.
I can see a nightmare for the poor expats who have only the lowest State pension in Europe to rely on. Most have never really looked after their health with lots of exercise and sensible eating habits and it is private healthcare that will destroy them.
I know for a fact that the French, the Germans, the Dutch would never have stood for a fraction of the looting that has gone on in the UK.
I personally having lived over a period of time in different European countries can say that the UK is as it is because ordinary Brits have allowed it to happen, don’t blame the EU for that.
I can also say that the EU is not fit for purpose and that those who control it and it’s civil servants will not tolerate anyone or anything interfering with their profits or control. Any change will not be for the better of the majority.
I would vote for a Brexit because I understand completely the mentality of the Nasties, they cannot help themselves or what they do. The question is when, if ever the ordinary Brits are going to stand up from the swill bins of consumerism and say enough. A Brexit might just be the trigger.
It will also a be a trigger for all the decent Europeans who have had enough as well. The scum in Brussels know this and it is what they are frightened of – bring on a Brexit not just for the UK but for Europe as well.
Follow Corbyn, that is funny, no more needed to be said stef.
Moving on, what worries me is we are full in the UK, 300k to 400k more people a year is not sustainable, add the potential of Turkey and others coming in one day, phew, that is probably enough to make most people at least think about the future of the UK. All those in Germany and elsewhere will be given EU passports one day, their kids etc. I should be thinking of staying in really what with property in Spain and even if the UK is financially better off with more people here I wonder if that is the sort of life we want. If you look at the savages in Germany at the moment I think many would agree the two cultures do not mix. If we are out I wonder if lefty Cameron will carry on doling out all this money. Any illegals need to be the sent back and a deterrent needs to be in place, one that makes us look worse than France so the jungle bunch will not want to come here.
“Oh, and anyone who will be marooned abroad when the gates clang shut.”
This is not true Stef. You cannot lose your nationality without voluntarily giving it away. A British passport holder can return to the UK after a long period living in Spain, and after a certain period of residency (6 months I am told) entitlement is restored.
I didn’t claim that nationality would be forfeited Fred. “Marooned” might be florid language, but as you have pointed out many times, lots of people who desperately want to leave Spain cannot do so because they are financially “marooned”. Can’t sell up, nowhere to go, on a small pension, the Spanish home their only asset, proving impossible to sell. Would their situation improve in light of a UK withdrawal?
How would a Brit bar-owner fare when he/she is then from outside the European Community and even more fair game for the Establishment? Holiday-home owners, already about to be hammered, what security of tenure and income would they enjoy?
There are more questions than answers, no matter what the “Outers” say. My money is on the Devil I know.
No one knows what a Brexit will mean for expats. In the House of Commons yesterday David Cameron was asked what would happen to the expatriates in the event of a Brexit. He said he could not say what would happen to them. Thanks for that detailed answer Dave lol. Financially marooned is something different, but that’ll still be the case if Brexit happens or not of course. Uncertain times ahead, that’s for sure.
I didn’t claim that nationality would be forfeited Fred. “Marooned” might be florid language, but as you have pointed out many times, many people who desperately want to leave Spain, simply cannot do so because they are financially “marooned”. Nowhere to go. On a small pension. The Spanish home their only asset, proving impossible to sell. Would their situation be improved in light of a UK withdrawal?
How would a Brit bar-owner fare when he/she is then from outside the European Community and even more fair game for the Establishment? Holiday home owners, already about to be hammered, what security of tenure and income would they enjoy?
There are more questions than answers no matter what the “outers” say. My money remains on the Devil I know.
stefanjo,
I had you down on the left but you are so tied into Project Fear that you must be a member of the Monday Club – who would have thought.
Out of the big business club/EU Brits will be able to choose what and who they buy from. We can give companies like Google/Yahoo/Starbucks a choice – pay up all the back taxes with penalties or you stop doing business in the UK. Ireland raise your corporation tax to our level or look for somewhere else to sell your products.
If the Brussels mafia start using the same tactics against the UK as they used on Greece – the following – Dutch and Danish bacon artificially loaded with water – dry cured or look elsewhere. Danish cheese has too much salt, so either let us start selling Marmite again or your cheese is banned. We can and should build glasshouses in the UK and produce our own, no more produce from Spain or Holland. No more wine from France,Spain or Italy or olive oil – we can buy elsewhere.
Of course all the East Europeans will be sent home bringing economic ruin to their corrupt countries. This will have immediate benefits for the ordinary Brit – house prices and rents crashing, stress levels for ordinary people dropping leading to better competition and quality of life.
And something really revolutionary – investment in electric and hydrogen car developement, leading to the closing down of all foreign owned car plants, which anyway send their profits home to foreign countries.
I’m certain that Brussels will try to play the bully – they will lose big time, they know that but still continue with the PR b/s – play away, reality is coming soon.
I state again, it is’nt only Brits that have had enough of Brussels and it’s no good relentlessly calling people Fascists because they want their countries to maintain their individual identities and culture. I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating – let the multi-culturists pick up the tab today and tomorrow when these immigrants demand their pensions.
Multi-culturists strong on b/s, p/poor on economic reality and quality of life.
Yes Stuart, multiculturalism has failed big time but few actually have the guts to admit it. The bleeding heart brigade are still trying to work out how they are going to champion gender equality, gay rights and muslims all at the same time and failing miserably. It’s all going to kick off.
I was brought up in a town that had a small Jewish population, most had settled there as the climate was good, compared with the terrible London smog and if the Austrian and German untermenschen landed, it was better to be rounded up there. I went to school with Jewish boys and after asking I was welcomed in to experience Jewish worship – much more real than the depressing Protestant one. We had Polish people who would never go back to Red Fascist Poland. Italians and Germans who preferred life in the UK and who had never been Fascists.
All in all a small but friendly integrated crowd. The last time I went back to Brighton, I simply did’nt recognise the place or the people, it was just another London suburb full of foreigners. The rapes, murders seem to happen every day as my old local paper shows me. Hard drug gangs rule on the seafront and the a prevailing attitude is – if you hav’nt got lots of money, what are you doing here.
It is now reckoned that you need to earn at least £48K to afford the rent on a one bedroom flat, that is horrendous and that is simply down to the massive increase in population.
So stefanjo thinks this is marvellous, I’m sure he will come up with more Project Fear and more multi-cultural b/s.
BTW stefanjo let’s have your opinion on the 3 decades of sexual abuse suffered by so many poor British girls in Rotherham, covered up by the PC crowd, police, social workers and all committed by Muslim men with the help of two subhuman white women.
I feel really honoured that Stuart sees me as the Devil incarnate, responsible for the problems in Rotherham and Brighton. Sorry to hear you no longer like the gay capital of England Stuart, perhaps the pink pound is more responsible for the price hikes? Rather than the influx of rapists, druggies, murderers and Johnny Foreigners. All of whom can afford to stay there, plundering the benefits system? None of that is part of “Project Fear” is it Stuart?
Incidentally, how in essence is the Rotherham thing any different from the BBC bowing down to famous Brits, allowing them to perpetrate equally nasty crimes? Those guys didn’t even have the “excuse” of being from an alien culture. Dirty pigs are dirty pigs, no matter where they come from.