{"id":20478,"date":"2013-05-30T08:13:15","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T13:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=20478"},"modified":"2013-05-30T08:13:15","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T13:13:15","slug":"latest-eu-legal-move-may-drive-support-to-ukip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/05\/30\/latest-eu-legal-move-may-drive-support-to-ukip\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest EU legal move may drive support to UKIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mats Persson<\/a> explains why Nigel Farage and UKIP may see a spike of support when the latest legal challenge gets going:<\/p>\n

The European Commission will today take the UK to the European Court of Justice — the body meant to police the EU treaties — over its rules on EU migrants\u2019 access to benefits. The Commission says the UK\u2019s so-called \u201cright to reside\u201d test — a filter used to make sure that EU migrants are eligible to claim benefits — is illegal under EU law as British citizens pass it automatically. The UK Government is disputing this claim saying it is clear that the UK rules \u201care in line with EU law.\u201d In other words, the folks in Brussels are about to throw a hand grenade into the already red-hot domestic EU debate.<\/p>\n

The legal details around this case are hugely complex as are the rules governing EU migrants\u2019 access to benefits […] But essentially, this is about the EU\u2019s one-size-fits-all model sitting poorly with the UK\u2019s \u2018universalist\u2019 welfare system, which is largely made up of means tested benefits rather than contribution-based benefits — unlike many other systems in Europe. The UK government feels it needs a filter — practically and politically — to make sure migrants come here to work rather than to claim benefits. Legally this is a grey area but it\u2019s clear that the Commission is taking the strictest interpretation.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve argued before, claims that EU migrants come here in droves to claim benefits are widely exaggerated — and free movement of workers has been largely beneficial for the UK and Europe. However, it\u2019s clear that the combination of immigration, Europe and benefits is one of the potentially most toxic ones in modern day politics, so needs to be treated with kid gloves. Even if all the evidence suggests EU migrants are less likely to claim benefits than British citizens, the perception of \u201cbenefit tourism\u201d is still absolutely explosive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mats Persson explains why Nigel Farage and UKIP may see a spike of support when the latest legal challenge gets going: The European Commission will today take the UK to the European Court of Justice — the body meant to police the EU treaties — over its rules on EU migrants\u2019 access to benefits. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,9],"tags":[316,337,554,95,545],"class_list":["post-20478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-law","tag-borders","tag-eu","tag-immigration","tag-jobs","tag-socialsecurity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5ki","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20479,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20478\/revisions\/20479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}