The racists are still here...

This has appeared again on Facebook. I say 'again' because it's been turning up on FB in one form or another at least once a year for as long as I've been a member. It was racist nonsense when it first appeared and it's still racist nonsense.

I don't know what's more annoying: the fact that the lies keep on appearing or the fact that the people in the UK who share it are too daft to realise this is an American racist post and has nothing at all to do with the UK. The language gives it away: there are no 'food stamps' here, nor do we talk about 'drivers licences'. And we certainly don't worry too much about Americans crossing other people's borders in the Middle East.

So let's just establish something: there are two categories of immigrants in the UK.

If you're an EU citizen, you have the right to move anywhere in the 28 countries of the EU and seek work. Note that: seek work. You don't get to move around the EU and take hand-outs as you go. You also don't get given a job but have to look for one. Nor do you get a driving licence handed to you (that's the funniest part for me, knowing what people go through to get a licence) or accommodation. And what's this about a tax free business?

I've talked to quite a few EU citizens who have come here, taken any job - sometimes 2 or 3 jobs - so they could send money back home to their families and also save up to sit the HGV test that will allow them to take driving jobs that may not pay over much but are 'steady.' I think that's called paying your own way, isn't it?

If you don't earn your way, the UK, like all other EU countries, has the right to deport you back where you came from. The UK doesn't seem to do it very much. Could that be because we don't employ enough people in the Borders Force to enforce this? Or because UK money goes into pursuing, imprisoning and deporting asylum seekers?

If you come from outside the EU, you can only come to the UK as an asylum seeker. In that case, you get a fiver a day to live on until your appeal for asylum is heard. No house, no driving licence, no education, no job, no 'food stamps'. You have to depend on refugee charities for help. When your appeal is heard, you either get the right to remain in the UK (subject to restrictions) or you're imprisoned and deported back to where you came from.

If you're an illegal immigrant, you get nothing. Put your head up above the parapet and you get arrested and deported. Immediately.

None of this is that hard to understand, is it?

Nor is the fact that parts of the UK - most of England, in fact - are already suffering a shortage of EU nurses, doctors, teachers, physios, lab technicians, etc. Why would these people bother coming to the UK? They can't earn enough to meet the UK government's laughable demand of a salary of £36k and will be kicked out. Anyway, their skills are in demand in many other parts of the world. And at least they'll be spared the awfulness of working in the UK (paying taxes, buying a house, marrying and having kids) and then being told they still haven't done enough to gain 'settled' status. Or being told by some moron in the street to 'go home.'

As for 'No wonder we are a country in debt', the UK is in debt because it's being run by the most financially illiterate group of politicians and financiers we've ever seen. We, the tax-payers, are so highly taxed that the Tory government can't slap any more taxes on us. Instead, they look for ways to get at us indirectly - for example, raising the retirement age so a lot of folk won't get the state pension they've paid for or making people over 75 pay for their TV licences. And all this to pay for vanity projects like HS2 and Crossrail which will bring no benefit at all to most of the UK. But the millionaires and billionaires running the UK government are doing okay. The people responsible for the bank crash of 2008 (and austerity) have got their bonuses back; the hedge-fund managers are coining it in; politicians are still walking into nice directorships.

Only poor old Boris Johnson is left complaining that £140K is not enough to live on. Brings tears to a glass eye.