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I happen to see us as a global family, so I don't really have a problem with anyone working in the UK and supporting themselves. One experience I have however that could sour me if I chose.........my husband has a huge work ethic (jokes on a postcard please c/o PaulB) and so do I: we want to work, and more than that we need to work, and have never ever ever shirked. We moved to Ireland for a very short while as an experiment mainly to please me (he really is very English and it didn't work out for lots of reasons, among them the culture difference....don't get me started. ) So, we moved back to the UK after a few months. We were avidly work-seeking, wanted desperately to work and both of us were confident that we would soon have work again in the UK - even after the kids arrived we worked, making efforts to share the childcare between us, me working nights him days, asking for nothing - we really are very laudable!!!!!! We had never taken a penny in sickness or unemployment benefits. Despite being clear that we were genuine work-seekers, had never taken anything, were not planning to take anything long term, we were unable to access any support at all pro tem, despite being fully paid up (and some) UK citizens. We struggled along for a while supporting ourselves pitifully until the work arrived, as you do, but it left a bit of a bitter taste I have to say. We are not about to decry the system, but it seemed to us a bit unfair at the time.........we have only ever been registerably unemployed for about 2 months between us including this time.