That would be because it's not wrong. It doesn't matter where the children live, it's a benefit based on living and working here. Would you exempt the parents from paying the proportion of their taxes that relate to schools and children's health programmes? Should pensions only be paid to people living here?
A world without borders is the natural conclusion to this earth eventually living in harmony. How many disputes are there world wide over borders and the resources within which they contain? Of course there are also religious disputes. But aren't they all just fundamentally ways to distance oneself from ones neighbours? There is no god. Just like there is no dotted line to be found on the earth denoting territories. Apparently I am Scottish, British, European. In reality I am just a human. No doubt someone will just say Ive read too much Asimov or I am an idealist. I'm just a human being with no more or less right to sustenance than any other human being on this world. Is it wrong to care about other people? Despite their so-called nationalities or race. Ive digressed. Sorry. Please return to the no benefits for wogs and pakkies debate. This thread has run its course for me.
I think that basic primate nature is to live in smallish manageable groups. These groups see other groups as just that - other. Your friends and relations, or work colleagues represent more to you than faceless people in the street, and infinitely more than extremely faceless people living in a completely different manner on the other side of the globe. To think we will all be nicey-nicey to several billions of other humans is just utopian. Human beings aren't like that. I suspect it is one reason why African countries don't work: geographical spaces too big and don't reflect ethnicities. The more borderless you make things, the more you come up against people's deepest sensibilities. That's what the EU debate is about. Rumanians "aren't us". People have an idea about what a Brit is, and want to privilege Brits at the expense of other Europeans. Most people aren't racist, but I bet most are "culturalist".
No one mentioned "wogs or Pakkis" That was never in the program. The program had only europeans in it. Wonder what your vote will be in september? with or without borders?
So it is OK by you for a member of the european community to travel here, claim benefits, housing, medical, and claim for their children back home without adding anything to the community or the country by the way of skills or taxes! And you say that is not wrong! As for pensions that are paid by the insurance company or the government of the country where they earned the living in. A totally different subject but yes I think it is right to pay them no matter where the person due decides to live. They have been hard earned.
And this happens how often? The overwhelming majority of EU migrants to the UK are working and paying taxes apart from in the fevered imaginations of the editors of the Mail and Express. No, I say benefits are not dependent on the residence of the children of the person in receipt of those benefits. State Pensions are exactly the same. They are a benefit paid by the British government to eligible people. Are you in favour of not paying UK pensions to ex pat pensioners living Spain?
Spot on. We compete for resources at individual, tribal, national and now global scales; always have and always will.
