Several hundred thousand at the borders; several millions on the move; 200 million plus potential migrants watching and waiting. Meanwhile a Welsh socialist on Radio 4 this morning demands that Cameron lets more in and urges the Welsh government to offer homes to 40 families!!! Doomed and it's gonna all be the fault of the do-gooder enemies within.
People will always naturally move to places where they perceive a better life can exist, especially where globalisation had made movement & travel a tool at a cost many people including the poorest can afford. As we all know, how it is managed is wrong. The best thing for everyone would be to close the doors and have a universal system with the same rules and annual negotiated quotas, governed by said countries shortage in skills gap, the quotas for refugees is a simple equation of population versus housing availability and land per capita. But everyone needs to stop, block up their borders and work from the same page.
I really hope the people of this country vote No and see sense, migration under the EU laws is a joke and voted for by Euro MP's who don't fully read the 800 page proposals, scratch backs to vote and have not a care nor the intellect for their implications. Lets get the EU out now, lets close the doors and start working for the benefit of this country and its citizens again.
A country where politicians are at each other's throat, there is religious hatred and bombings, the government take what little earnings you have in the form of taxes and you can barely afford to feed your kids and cannot guarantee their safety.
It's starting as I feared. The press and BBC are not leading with chanting mobs of young men storming railway stations in Hungary but drowned toddlers.
The number of potential migrants is virtually infinite. The BBC this morning interviewed a very nice (and clearly upset) Syrian lady newly arrived in Europe. She said she wanted a better life for herself, her husband and her children in Germany. Fine if you can get it. She then started sobbing and said she then hoped to be able to bring her mother, dad, brothers and sisters out of Syria to join her. Do the frigging arithmetic please.
I was interested in a post on this topic on another site. Predictably perhaps the OP took a contrary view to mine and basically equated people who believe in immediate unlimited acceptance of all asylum seekers with angels and those of us with reservations about the wisdom or feasibility of this as devils. Interestingly, parallels were drawn with Britain's "historic generosity" and the nasty right-wing attitudes on display today. I think, however, you can overstate this past generosity especially in the case referred to of Jewish migrants before WW2.
In fact the Evian Conference in 1938 put a complete stop to Jewish immigration into the UK. An exception was eventually made for 10,000 children (the Kindertransport) but importantly none of their parents were given visas. Equally important a White Paper of 1939 prohibited European Jews from entering Palestine.
So we have to be careful by demonising the present generation by contrast to a fabled and imaginary past generosity.
Evian was a shameful episode in history. It is a great example of internal national politics preventing effective international action. The right thing for the world to do in 1938 was tackle the root cause of the problem (the Nazis). It failed to do so and millions died as a result. Now a new breed of maniacs are causing misery for millions and are allowed to do so, and again we see the world in the shape of the moribund UN and EU fiddling and squabbling about how to deal with the consequences. The way to solve the refugee crisis is to avoid the creation of refugees. One of the saddest lessons from history is that we fail to learn from it at all.
-- Edited by smiler on Friday 4th of September 2015 09:34:29 PM
yes, but didn't the West support the Arab spring and decimate Iraq as well as destabilise Syria and Libya to name just a few. When are we going to learn to leave be? We have been partly responsible for this truly awful tragedy.
Completely agree Sickly but we always think in terms of direct military intervention as the answer when it very rarely is. We also have a tendency to think parochially. Question: how does the world deal with a rogue nation determined to run riot? Answers on a postcard to Strasbourg, New York, Berlin, Downing Street etc.
Fact is who would you rather be under Assad or IS? Assad is a very bad man but I know which I would choose, we continue to interfere and create a climate where monsters like IS or Bin Laden can flourish.
I understand that point of view. Your answer to my poser is that you tolerate rogue nations and presumably that you contain them. Palmerston pragmatism. That will get you so far. But what when they won't or can't be contained? What then?
Then we think again, in what way was Assad and Hussain not contained? Why have we not invaded Zimbabwe? that's right oil. Lets not pretend that the west gives a fig for democracy and peoples rights,
Again a fair point Sickly. I don't disagree with you but don't think those points invalidate mine. The world in the form of the League of Nations, UN, EU, Arab League, NATO etc has not yet found a way to police itself effectively. The people in those clubs have their own domestic politics to consider and so effective collective international responses are stymied. We are seeing that again now in response to the refugee crisis.
Indeed, we couldn't contain Hitler so did something about it, though rather late in the piece. Basically I do not know what the answer to your valid points are. All I know is that we have made a bad situation a hell of a lot worse and NOW we have to do something with the poor sods arriving on our door step. I have to leave soon as I am playing in a masters footy tourney , but happy to continue later, maybe we can come up with some solutions.
The answer to the refugee problem is to not be too afraid.
One shouldn't exaggerate.
On the one hand many seekers are not in mortal danger. On the other hand, however many seekers are welcomed to this country it won't make much difference to out culture, lifestyle, health system, economy and wellbeing.
The only way it can hurt is through fear.
It will all be ok with merry old England-thank goodness -and plenty of new people will have a happier life.
-- Edited by ian on Friday 4th of September 2015 11:51:56 PM
Evian was a shameful episode in history. It is a great example of internal national politics preventing effective international action. The right thing for the world to do in 1938 was tackle the root cause of the problem (the Nazis). It failed to do so and millions died as a result. Now a new breed of maniacs are causing misery for millions and are allowed to do so, and again we see the world in the shape of the moribund UN and EU fiddling and squabbling about how to deal with the consequences. The way to solve the refugee crisis is to avoid the creation of refugees. One of the saddest lessons from history is that we fail to learn from it at all.
-- Edited by smiler on Friday 4th of September 2015 09:34:29 PM
yes, but didn't the West support the Arab spring and decimate Iraq as well as destabilise Syria and Libya to name just a few. When are we going to learn to leave be? We have been partly responsible for this truly awful tragedy.
The answer to the refugee problem is to not be too afraid.
One shouldn't exaggerate.
On the one hand many seekers are not in mortal danger. On the other hand, however many seekers are welcomed to this country it won't make much difference to out culture, lifestyle, health system, economy and wellbeing.
The only way it can hurt is through fear.
It will all be ok with merry old England-thank goodness -and plenty of new people will have a happier life.
-- Edited by ian on Friday 4th of September 2015 11:51:56 PM
Surely, it's a question of numbers combined with the willingness/ability to integrate, Ian? I was at a lecture given by a liberal acdemic and he reckoned migration posed the biggest threat to Europe since WW2. He also said if global warming impacted on climate and agriculture in Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe as some predict you could be looking at half a billion people moving north. Even Bob Geldof might struggle to house that lot.