Asylum seekers/Refugees Calais

[BetterTogether]

Just curious as to what country you'd of been living in when you found yourself with nothing but the clothes on your back and had to start all over again.

Would of of been

A/ Great Britain with a full suite of social policies that ensure that a mother with children do not spend a night out in the cold facing the elements and have money to feed and clothe themselves.

Or

B/ A third world country where you really do have nothing or no one to rely on and your next mouthful of food isn't guaranteed.

It very much sounds to me like you've experienced nothing more than a wee bump in life's journey and want to for shame compare yourself to some of the worlds most impoverished people living in third world countries.

I get it I truly do you think you've had it hard but do tell if I'm wrong because I challenge you to give me an example where your life even remotely compared to those people who know what starvation really means, where simple illness can mean death and nothing in life is guaranteed.

You claim I despise you but to be truly honest that would require some kind of emotional investment in you which I truly do not have.
Having seen you I can honestly say starvation is not something you suffer with or may be even remotely familiar with.

I doubt you understand real grinding poverty in its truest sense.

You speak of all immigrants as though they are all asylum seekers not a mixture of those genuinely seeking repression and those seeking fulfilling a better life in a westernised society or economic migrants, this weakens your argument as you fail to see the wood for the trees.

Yes we should fulfil our international obligations but not if they are being abused which currently is frequently the case. Quoting the figures for this country is easy how about dealing with the 800,000 dealt with by Germany and the rest of the EU the numbers are more than just a few asylum seekers and your constantly trying to demonise anyone with a differing view is insulting at best.

Please do regale us all with your life experiences of war zones or third world countries so we can sit back and more fully understand your life journey through the torturous big wide world but if it's just a little bit of hard ship in this country you should feel nothing but shame for even trying to compare yourself to those poor people.

You always claim to speak for only yourself but so frequently use " we " I become unsure who you do speak for is it yourself or maybe a whole host of people inhabiting the same cranial space.

Meanwhile carry on looking at your pictures and wringing your hands wanting to give everything to everyone without a single pragmatic thought for those whose areas you'd inflict these masses of people upon or can we safely pass your address on to a suitable organisation so you can rehome some of these people you wish to help so much.


They always say charity begins at home so why not make it your home and lead by example

[EyeCarntSpell]

I'm with Squidge on this one. Dear god people think of the children !!

I mean these people have left a country seeking help, many have paid thousands of pounds to people traffickers that they could have used at home to make a better life, to get to the land of free money, sorry I mean Britian. After all the wars in Libya and Syria are all our fault. We started them. No doubt the parks at Calais are full of qualified workers here to make Britian a better place and enrich us with their rich culture that we can add to our multicultural melting pot. Only the other night I said to my colleague "See that guy there breaking into that truck ??, yeah him with the scabby jeans and addidas track suit top, thats the latest cardo thorasic surgeon for Harley Street that". It warms my heart it really does to see that many qualified locksmiths taking the time to check the padlocks on those trucks before making their way to Britian to ply their trade, wave flags at the Last Night of the Proms, and mix with the native citizens of their adopted country. I am sure they are just dying to rock up and start paying tax and sending money back home to the missus and kids they left behind in their war torn unsafe hellhole countries that are in the state they are in because of us.

Squidge is right. I mean what type of country would we be if we just didnt let them all in, put them up in free hotels with three squares a day and £35 a week to live on. In this land of Ambrosia and Honey our streets are paved with gold. money is no option, and its not like there are no pensioners, veterans or homeless poor that could use that from a caring Government. No, we must honour our "internatiional obligations" to these cultural goldmines and not fingerprint them because they are all gay men being persecuted at home who have no paperwork at all. These dedicated individuals must be admitted at once, its not like you could draw a line between Syria and Britian and every country along that line is free of conflict and therefore safe for them. No, we Brits must welcome them in with open arms. I am sure Squidge and her mates would be happy to put a few up on the sofa, I did read today that a British female student has been gang raped at Calais but I am sure its nothing to worry about. After all we must be respectful of their different cultural beliefs where women are just objects to be sexually abused by you and your mates. In fairness to their beliefs we cant really call it rape either, maybe surprise sex would be a better term ??, anyway I am sure its all been made up. Everyone knows those dusky chaps of a certain religion that are packing Calais out are nothing but respectful to the fairer sex. Its not like the abuse of 1400 children in Britian by afore mentioned types goes on and has been largely ignored, after all the media are more concerned with pursuing one senile old white guy and every 70's Radio DJ in existence for being kiddy fiddlers first.

I thank the lord that we have people like Squidge in this world. People who can watch a news report fed to them by a biased media of a dead child on a foreign beach and conclude its all our fault and that we must do something. The people responsible for putting them in unsafe boats are blameless, as are the Libyan Coast Guard who have one job. Guarding their coast. Which apparently they cant. Apparently its all our fault though that they cannot seem to stop the flow of people taking Mediterranean cruises that are clearly sub par. Reminds me .. must write to ABTA about that. As Squidge pointed out we must honour our obligations and to that end we must send the Royal Navy to give them a lift and do the people traffickers jobs for them. Then we can arrange for Squidge and her Facebook mates to go to Calais and bask in the warmth and joy of these grateful and happy faced arrivals to Britian's cultural melting pot. No doubt soon we will be overrun with surgeons, architects and financial gurus. Just see how they react to finally being safe, fed and warm when the Germans took them in, see the warmth and friendly disposition of these additions to the greatness of Britian .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FPUtamjVXA .. Bless, thank god for people like Squidge desperate to help these grateful warm hearted friendly people.

Squidge has changed my mind. I spent two years flying with the UN in Africa and Afghanistan. The things I saw in that time had convinced me these places were backward third world dumps populated by the detrius of humanity who have the morals of a dung beetle. Actually thats a bit harsh, the beetles dont deserve that as they are designed to live in their own filth. And the same UN lecturing us now is the same one that is utterly ineffective at everything it does. Except waste money and employ pompous gits with the most teneous of grips on reality.

So I say thank god for Squidge. By the way have you thought of a career with the UN ??

[davth]

Stop housing and paying benefits to these migrants, they rush will soon subside to some other soft touch of a nation.

[Fulmar]

I agree with you Squidge, absolutely. I also believe in helping people and spend my life trying to do just that and unlike you, I will hold up my hand and say that I come from the kind of background that ‘Better Together’ evidently despises. But you know what, I grew up with parents who also believed in helping people, who regularly took people into our home and gave them house room for periods of time- and needless to say, we were never robbed or murdered in our beds. For the record, I am a regular contributor to Medicins Sans Frontiere and other overseas aid charities such as UNICEF. I have signed up to the campaign to grant asylum to the Afghan interpreters and I am directly supporting those who are aiding the Calais migrants and I support causes at home. So yes, within my tiny and limited means, I do what I can.
I live my life according to my Christian beliefs (which have also been rubbished on here) and the essence of that is to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ and in case you have forgotten who your neighbour is, then read the parable of the Good Samaritan. It may be a pattern of living that you despise and think weak but for me, it is the only way and the whole point is that you try to put the needs of others ahead of your own or, more likely, at least have those needs constantly in your mind so that you can make some little bit of difference for the good. As you say, there are many ways that you can do this and how dare you despise the fund-raising efforts that go on and that cost a great deal of effort to do. Have you ever tried knitting socks? Shame on you. As Squidge says, don’t go to bed leaving undone some way in which you know you could have helped someone. It is not the worst way that you can lead your life.
In all countries, (including our own), it is the poor and disadvantaged who bear the brunt of what is inflicted upon them by those in power who are always immensely more powerful and more ruthless than they are. So this is where I cannot agree with you because it is those people who are fleeing and dying- the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the children, the old- people who, like you and I are just asking for a chance to live, to work , to send their kids to school and not to be terrorised or killed for doing so. It is not these people who are responsible for the civil wars and the tribal strife and the chaos but they are the ones who are suffering- and suffering horrendously.
Further, if you go back into history (and actually, you don’t have to go back very far) then what you discover is wave upon wave of immigration to these shores. We were all immigrants once and many of us might be surprised to discover from whom we are descended. Also, the best scientific analysis (of mitochondrial DNA) finds that we are all descended from an ancestral Eve and guess where she came from- Africa! (And for the record, there are not a whole heap of ancestral Adams either- and those that there are were certainly was not ‘European’). You may say that this is irrelevant but I do not think so. For me, it is a humbling thought and shows, (if we actually needed the evidence) how interconnected we all are.
No one is saying that we can take everyone in but we can take some- and regulations could be attached, such as attaching an initial time limit. Way back, someone wrote that some could come up to the far north- well, why not? They do not all have to be settled in overcrowded cities in the south do they? Meantime, as I think that we may all be able to agree, we have to work hard to try and improve the situation in the countries of origin- it is in our own self interest to do so.
There are no easy solutions, there are no cheap solutions and there are no perfect solutions. But there remains ‘trying’ and whether we like it or not, the refugee/migrant crisis is not going to go away so really, there is no other way.

[davth]

Political asylum is one thing.
Migrant workers is another.

Hiding yourself and 78 of your countrymen in the back of an HGV and sneaking in the country is quite different altogether.
There are proper methods to gaining asylum, the above method is not one of them.

[BetterTogether]

Here's a quick link to a video that shows what happens when some of these impoverished starving refugees are offered Red Cross aid to help them survive.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BM68nGs8PEo

I also watched a report tonight showing how they are using Facebook to direct each other on best routes to use and people to avoid to get into Europe funny how so many of them have very nice Samsung mobiles.

[EyeCarntSpell]

Here's a quick link to a video that shows what happens when some of these impoverished starving refugees are offered Red Cross aid to help them survive.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BM68nGs8PEo

I also watched a report tonight showing how they are using Facebook to direct each other on best routes to use and people to avoid to get into Europe funny how so many of them have very nice Samsung mobiles.

Not even the half of it that, look at how they react to a french woman who tries to feed them with halal food .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbTSdUdQeLY .. from French TV with subtitles.

No good deed goes unpunished by these lovely people.

[davth]

Not even the half of it that, look at how they react to a french woman who tries to feed them with halal food .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbTSdUdQeLY .. from French TV with subtitles.

No good deed goes unpunished by these lovely people.

I seen that one last night, disgusting behaviour.
And not just the odd one or 2 either.
A navy ship back to point of departure is what we should be doing.

[squidge]

Our response to the current refugee crisis suggests we feel fearful and threatened by the mass movement of desperate people; fearful not just of sharing what we have but also of the sense of disorganisation and chaos. Does the fact that these refugees are from Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, and so not part of our continent, provide an excuse to allow them to be bombed at home or drowned during their desperate journey to safety?http://www.newstatesman.com/politics...ampaign=buffer

[davth]

squidge

How do you suggest we pay for all these people to claim benefits, healthcare, schooling and housing etc?

[squidge]

And so lets summarise for folk lol

One view - the UK should be taking its international role responsibly and working with the rest of the EU to take action to humanely deal with these refugees. We should take a share of those people arriving in Europe who are fleeing violence persecution and war. We should do what we can to prevent these things happening and to deal effectively and compassionately with those arriving in Europe because to do nothing is inhuman.

The other view - everyone arriving in Europe is a criminal, dangerous and a threat to our security and should be left to die, in their boats or in trucks - even if They are 6 month old babies. No one who hasn't fought in a war zone or lived in Africa should have any sort of opinion on this issue or dare to express compassion or empathy and should absolutely NOT suggest that we are wrong. Your stupid internet pictures and videos are Just lies and nothing, but here look at this you tube video which proves I'm right. ( and let's not forget my personal favourite folks) in any case You should have no opinion because you are a FAT woman.

The use of language in this debate is important, immigration rather than refugee crisis, economic migrants rather than people means that we can disassociate ourselves from respnsibility and ignore that these are people. Well these people are refugees - they are mothers, children, father, brothers, sisters and babies and many of them are dying in an attempt to run away from whatever intolerable situation they live in. It's not really much more difficult than that. if you think that's ok then I will disagree with you because for me it's not.

Davth you miss my point so I will say it again.

At no point in this conversation have I said Britain should open her borders and let everyone in. I have said ( repeatedly) that What I want is for Britain to step up to her international responsibilities to work,with the rest of Europe to deal with this refugee crisis. Perhaps in some of the ways that the Germans have suggested In a previous post where I shared their plan. As a European response then support would be properly funded on a European level - not just in this country or the EU but supporting those countries like Turkey and Greece to cope with the MILLIONS of refugees they are experiencing. We would have to take our share of people of course but that would be a coordinated and measured response - planned for and delivered in an organised manner which helps to prevent the dreadful tradgedies we have seen this week.

[squidge]

Political asylum is one thing.Migrant workers is another.Hiding yourself and 78 of your countrymen in the back of an HGV and sneaking in the country is quite different altogether.There are proper methods to gaining asylum, the above method is not one of them.

There are no safe and legal routes for refugees to gain entry to Europe, Davth, and certainly not to Britain. Refugees are not political asylum seekers nor are they migrant workers. They are people running away. Visa restrictions are still in place for countries like Syria pretty much everywhere except Germany and the lack of family reunion programmes, where refugees who already have family living in a country are given leave to stay, and other methods where people fleeing war zones can gain lawful entry don't exist. If they don't take an inflatable across the Med or jump in the back of a lorry then they can't get in.

[cptdodger]

There are no safe and legal routes for refugees to gain entry to Europe, Davth, and certainly not to Britain. Refugees are not political asylum seekers nor are they migrant workers. They are people running away. Visa restrictions are still in place for countries like Syria pretty much everywhere except Germany and the lack of family reunion programmes, where refugees who already have family living in a country are given leave to stay, and other methods where people fleeing war zones can gain lawful entry don't exist. If they don't take an inflatable across the Med or jump in the back of a lorry then they can't get in.

All we have heard from you Squidge, is how are we going to help these people, how are we going to help these people what are we going to do about these people. Well, if you had bothered to watch the two links posted, you would see what happens when people go out their way to help these people. What is the first thing you learn as a parent? It is (hopefully) you protect your children no matter what, you do not take them on suicide missions.

"At no point in this conversation have I said Britain should open her borders and let everyone in."

So what to do then is nip over to Calais and choose the ones you want, you know a bit like when you go to the dog pound to choose a pet. According to you all these people are fleeing war zones, so which ones are more deserving than others to gain entry to Britain?

"And so lets summarise for folk lol"

Do'nt speak to people like they are five years old, just because we do not agree with your opinion does not make us wrong.

[davth]

There are no safe and legal routes for refugees to gain entry to Europe, Davth, and certainly not to Britain. Refugees are not political asylum seekers nor are they migrant workers. They are people running away. Visa restrictions are still in place for countries like Syria pretty much everywhere except Germany and the lack of family reunion programmes, where refugees who already have family living in a country are given leave to stay, and other methods where people fleeing war zones can gain lawful entry don't exist. If they don't take an inflatable across the Med or jump in the back of a lorry then they can't get in.

As you may have gathered I am no expert on this matter.
Can you please spell out to me in laymans terns what the UK's legal responsibility is with regard to these people who are crossing the med?
It was my understanding that a refugee should claim asylum in the first safe country he / she find themselves in, so in crossing the Med this will not be the UK.
Also, if they are so poor then how can they afford to pay the human traffickers, I understood it that many paid thousands to get passage to Europe.

[squidge]

All we have heard from you Squidge, is how are we going to help these people, how are we going to help these people what are we going to do about these people. Well, if you had bothered to watch the two links posted, you would see what happens when people go out their way to help these people. What is the first thing you learn as a parent? It is (hopefully) you protect your children no matter what, you do not take them on suicide missions."At no point in this conversation have I said Britain should open her borders and let everyone in."So what to do then is nip over to Calais and choose the ones you want, you know a bit like when you go to the dog pound to choose a pet. According to you all these people are fleeing war zones, so which ones are more deserving than others to gain entry to Britain? "And so lets summarise for folk lol"Do'nt speak to people like they are five years old, just because we do not agree with your opinion does not make us wrong.

That's ok cpt. You can do nothing if you like - that's your choice. There are other videos by the way of refugees demonstrating how grateful they are, crying with relief, thanking people for their help but that wouldn't suit I guess.
I'm certainly not getting pulled into a pointless YouTube battle.

You are absolutely right - you don't take your children on suicide missions - unless you face the threat of death at home when the chance might be worth taking and it's the only route out of your situation open to you. Oh and no.... You don't"nip across to Calais" you work with other governments to have a sensible managed approach to dealing with a refugee crisis throughout Europe taking a share of people from internationally agreed criteria - she says again!!!!!

[BetterTogether]

It's all very well saying we should take in refugees from war zones but let's be quite honest here.

Afghanistan has been having major issues with the Taliban for decades this isn't a new issue.

Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria are in the midst of civil/religious wars.

Eritrea is not a new situation either.

What is relatively new is the mass migration of millions of people leaving these areas and heading for Europe.

No one is denying that people are dying en-route to Europe and yes some of those are children just as much as the vast majority are adults.
But the difference here is the videos posted on these links show the behaviour of some of these people.

Rioting within the safe areas provided for them not because they are being ill treated poorly fed and not provided sanctuary but because they dislike each other and are bringing some of the issues they are claiming to want to escape.

Throwing food away because it's past a best before date no other reason but these are the same people some on these threads claim are starving, I for one have never seen a person who is genuinely starving turn down food of any type.

We've also had people trying to throw a wee bit of hardship in a westenised society and compare that to the hardships endured in third world countries laughable in its deluded mendacity also showing a total lack of first hand knowledge of these situations.

Or foist some religious view that it's our duty to help everyone.

The best way we can help all of these people is to help them return their countries to normality.

It wasn't so long ago that Europe went through to major wars which killed tens of millions and displaced countless amounts of people.
We have successfully managed to regain some balance within our societies but it should always be remembered that peace is hard fought for and easily thrown away.
We have some who say we should help these people and let them in feed them but no mention is made of what happens once stability returns to their countries, is it not fair that they should be returned home or are we expected to just say well that's it you're here now stay here forever.
No mention is made of the cultural turmoil which is bought to these shores by mass immigration.
The wars being fought in the Middle East are based on religious factions fighting each other and tribes for want of a better word fighting each other.
In this country we are already seeing unease at certain religious groups which decades ago where minorities now demanding that this country changes to accommodate their desires on law and cultural issues, they are not integrating they are now trying to mandate.
These changes have happened within my life a mere few decades how much longer before these groups become large enough to force change and this country is no longer the tolerant liberal society we currently enjoy.

Immigration has never been an issue and the whole nation to some extent has been founded and immigration but never before has such mass immigration changed the country so quickly.
This problem isn't just affecting GB but the whole of Europe with all European countries now waking up to realise the scale of the problem.
Germany for one has 800,000 in one year. The UK has over 8 million people not born within these shores and that doesn't count those who are illegal and not on the official radar but the numbers are well into the hundreds of thousands if not more. Consider the population of this nation is 65 million in real terms that means that we already have over 10% of the population as immigrants.
Where do we draw the line as this is already the most densely populated country in Europe and not the largest of Islands.

When do we accept that our services are having a strain put on them which is sucking more and more resources.

It's easy for those like Squidge to berate genuine concerns and say keep letting them in don't be wicked don't be callous don't be hard but those who show concerns for their country their pensioners their children, their sick,impoverished have valid concerns.

On one hand we have the constant litany of posts about food banks, people's benefits being sanctioned, austerity, not enough money to do anything with then in one swift gasp of breath let's open the doors to more and more.

These are the politics of complete fantasy where we ignore basic facts like costs and cultural issues created. On one hand nothing is affordable on the other everything is affordable.

The dichotomy of logical thinking is almost laughable if the issues weren't so serious.
The same people over and over berate us to be everything to everyone and cry hysterically when any light is shone on the eloquently written by decidedly illogical premises behind their arguments.
Any criticism is swiftly denigrated into some personal slight when the realities are if you want to debate then you'll find others vehemently and fundamentally disagree with you.

If you wish to cast aspersions around then it's no good sniffling when a harsh light is shone on your own deluded hypocrisy.

We see lots of warbling on about how we should aid all the refugees but not one of what I'd call our vociferous liberals are prepared to deal with the real thorny issue. How do we bring peace to their counties so there doesn't have to be mass immigration.

It's all about cause and effect.

Those one here waffle on about dealing with the effects but are quite happy to leave to causes because then life gets uncomfortable and liberal sensibilities are unable or unwilling to deal with those very uncomfortable decisions.

Let's keep dealing with millions of immigrants and allow those countries to keep slaughtering people, raping, torturing and doing all manner of unmentionable things but let's just not talk about that because it's not an easy conversation.

[davth]

what exactly are our legal obligations then?

[cptdodger]

That's ok cpt. You can do nothing if you like - that's your choice. There are other videos by the way of refugees demonstrating how grateful they are, crying with relief, thanking people for their help but that wouldn't suit I guess.
I'm certainly not getting pulled into a pointless YouTube battle.

You are absolutely right - you don't take your children on suicide missions - unless you face the threat of death at home when the chance might be worth taking and it's the only route out of your situation open to you. Oh and no.... You don't"nip across to Calais" you work with other governments to have a sensible managed approach to dealing with a refugee crisis throughout Europe taking a share of people from internationally agreed criteria - she says again!!!!!

Again, I am not five years old.


"That's ok cpt. You can do nothing if you like - that's your choice"

My choice is to look after the children I brought into this world, they are my priority, I also prioritize a safe country for them to live in.You are so quick to judge and belittle other people for doing nothing, exactly what have you done ?

[squidge]

How am I belittling you or judging you personally? I respond to your posts on here and know nothing about you just like you know nothing about me. I keep simply stating my point of view and you seem not to get it so I Say it again and again and again. If you think that is me treating you like a five year old you are wrong, it is me treating you like an adult who either hasn't read what I have posted, misunderstands it or wilfully misinterprets it. I say it, again so that you have another chance to either read it, you have the opportunity to ask again if you don't understand it or you look petty and childish. As I have no way of knowing why you still try to make out I am saying something that I am not, then I don't really have any other option.


As I have already said It's your choice to do nothing about this, not to care and not to see it as a priority. But I am entitled to think you are wrong to think that BRITAIN should do nothing and I am entitled to disagree with you. To tell you what I am doing would mean telling you who I am and I'm not particularly comfortable with doing that just now.

[davth]

Squidge, can you answer my query please?