Those that come, create their own communities, refuse to speak English, demand changes to suit themselves and freeload off our sometimes too generous benefits and health systems are, in my opinion, not at all welcome.
For sure they not welcome, but I must say I don't know which percent of EU immigrants do so. To me it seems that's more common for our friends from other parts of the world (I recently drove thru certain part of Birmingham, you know what I mean...). Of course, this is based only on my personal experience, I simply don't know anybody from EU on benefits.
I have had a customer, a big logistic company, 3000+ staff, and majority of their staff are Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians etc... They work for minimal wage, and only reason they are here is because Britons refuse to work for such money. I think it is quite naively to think that if those will be evicted the business will raise wages. They simply can't afford to pay more to manual workers, regardless who those workers are Britons or immigrants. The margin in business which require a lot of manual workforce usually very low. The low wages not because the owners and management are greedy, but because of nature of the business. Being financial\IT consultant I did had access to this business (and dozens of other businesses!) books and I can clearly see this one had turnover of 120M and profit about 1.5% only. There is simply no room to increase wages. I also want to outline that office staff in this business is 99.9% British, and if this company will go burst - they will lost their jobs too!
Of course, I am ashamed by actions of some people from my country, who come here, demand benefits, not working, not speaking English, not integrate, not involved in community life etc... But again, is it issue with EU? I think this could be the issue with benefits system itself. For instance, in Austria (which is part of EU too) to get any benefits (including free access to their NHS) one (even EU citizen) must get a permanent resident status, which can be granted only to working person who passed German language exam. Yes, EU citizens can come to live to Austria, but they have to live on their own, not milking Austrian welfare system. I am actually have no answer why Austria allowed to do so and Britain not, and I get no idea why politicians not outlining this example in their talks with EU. I am clearly not a great expert on benefit system as I am not entitled to any, but I have a feeling that those who came here to milking welfare system exploiting a holes not in EU but in British legislation. I clearly don't see why something allowed by Brussels to Austria isn't allowed to UK. Another example, in Latvia (my home country) to get ANY job one who don't have Latvian school diploma must pass a very strict Latvian language exam. Some native Latvian speakers suggest that exam level is so tight so not all native speakers will pass it. Again - this is permitted by EU in such minor EU country as Latvia is. Why not to introduce same English exam here in UK? That certainly would bring the immigration level of unskilled workers to absolute minimum. This ppl just dumb enough to fail any exam
For some reason government not acting this way, and there must be a reason why!
Even more, following Brexit referendum EU is revoked the resent deal (limits for benefits for foreigners) - and we still in EU, for next 2 years at least, if not longer. Clearly in this 2 years even more dishonest people attracted by British welfare system will come, and there is no legal way to evict them. Perhaps after UK will quit EU there will be a way to get rid of those, and I'll be more then happy if this will be done. But this will come with price. UK is so integrated to common market so decision to quit already crashed London stock exchange, already brought pound to history low level, and years of uncertainty ahead will cost economy a fortune. Business does not like uncertainty. And we all will pay consequences, such as pound value drop, such as stock market crash, such as raising price of living, more expensive mortgages and so on.
There is another aspect - the departure from EU may cause that high-skilled EU migrants will depart, as people like me can actually find a job/create a business in virtually any country, and if there will be issues with british economy following brexit - Britain will be less attractive. In turn, those who on benefits, they aren't that flexible, and they won't leave at their will, they would need to be evicted, which not that easy even being outside EU.
