Calais. What to do?

Let them in, give them a cuddle, and give them a new start in life.

These people are the lowest of the low. they have fled their countries, scared of murder by government, or warring factions, and escaping starvation.

And we put them in prison, and cage them in barbed wire camps? I despair of what we are becoming.

Anyone who thinks they’re just easily popping over to scrounge off our welfare state is wide of the mark. They take on a journey, that takes months, with a insanely high chance of death, at every stage. They need help and support, and we can give them that help.

it’s not helped by the rest of Europe herding them further west – Spain, Italy and France don’t give them a moments bother as long as they keep moving – it’s only when they reach Calais there’s a problem.

Except they’re not “herding them further west”, the three countries you mentioned all had more non-EU immigrants than the UK.

And you need to check a map of Europe if you think France and Spain are east of the UK…

Let them in, give them a cuddle, and give them a new start in life…………They need help and support, and we can give them that help.

How many will you give a cuddle and a home to then?

Except they’re not “herding them further west”, the three countries you mentioned all had more non-EU immigrants than the UK.

Every EU country takes more migrants than the UK!

These people are the lowest of the low. they have fled their countries, scared of murder by government, or warring factions, and escaping starvation.

Surely the lowest of the low are the ones in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, who can’t afford to give $1000 plus to people traffickers to bring them to the EU?

The ones that the UNHCR process for asylum on a basis of need, rather than the ones young/fit/wealthy enough to try and jump the queue?

Yeah, but they’re not stopping people from getting to their holiday homes in the South of France, so we really don’t give a **** about them

We’ve got enough problems in thus country without financing training and education centres for illegal immigrants.

Charity begins at home. If home is sorted then consider elsewhere.

Every EU country takes more migrants than the UK!

Really? Sure about that?

Asylum:
The highest number of positive asylum decisions (first instance and final decisions) in 2014 was recorded in Germany (48 thousand), followed by Sweden (33 thousand), France and Italy (both 21 thousand), the United Kingdom (14 thousand) and the Netherlands (13 thousand). Altogether, these six Member States accounted for 81 % of the total number of positive decisions issued in the EU-28.

Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Number_of_(non-EU)_asylum_applicants_in_the_EU_and_EFTA_Member_States,_by_age_distribution,_2014_(%C2%B9)_YB15_III.png

Migration:

Germany reported the largest number of immigrants (692.7 thousand) in 2013, followed by the United Kingdom (526.0 thousand), France (332.6 thousand), Italy (307.5 thousand) and Spain (280.8 thousand).

Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Immigration_by_citizenship,_2013_YB15.png

If a country like Sweden can take 19,000 more asylum seekers than the UK, what does it say about us?

Dunno, what does sweden taking more than them say about Italy, France and the Netherlands? (Or any other EU nation)

The report on Radio 4 PM program from the migrant camp at Calais was pretty sobering – father carrying 11 year old son – he has 2 broken legs – fell off lorry- camp has a lot more women and children in it too.
My daughter has an Iraqi friend at school , he is 10 years old , he has been here 5 years , he remembers crossing the desert , shooting and getting on a lorry to get here, his family here is safe – all his other relatives are dead.

All I can propose is that the migrants are “processed” in France and a quota system includes all EU member states including this one and they deal with it.
ie – take some and send some home according to asylum/economic migration etc.
The government does not have “control” over immigration nor does the rest of the EU states, they need to come up with some solutions soon – as this problem is not going away ever.

Huge areas of scotland are empty of housing, perhaps they could be trained up there to build homes for themselves, just like the wild west of america, where many british went to set up homes, The isle of man is quite empty as well.
and lets not forget Mrs windsors home is nearly empty, plenty of empty rooms for the new workers to stay in, she could easily downsize to a 2 bed flat in sheltered acomadation.

Then theres the church and the pope seem very quiet all of a suden

We seem to forget that a lot of people already living in this country (both migrants and people who were born here) are living in poverty, jobless and in poor health as a direct result of poverty, and should perhaps be prioritised – not over genuine asylum seekers, but over economic migrants?

Parenthetically, there was a news item about Somaliland, which is apparently the northern bit of Somalia, that has declared independence and where they aren’t driving round in pick-up trucks and blowing each other to bits. It did look bloody nice, and they spoke to one bloke who had moved back home having been living in Wembley for the last 10 years or so.

I’m sure many of the world’s trouble spots would be perfectly delightful if they were not being ripped apart by civil war or feudalism. It’s far too easy to get hold of sophisticated weaponry and create havoc.

far too easy to get hold of sophisticated weaponry and create havoc.

especially if the US have decided your country is strategically important.

Dunno, what does sweden taking more than them say about Italy, France and the Netherlands? (Or any other EU nation)

Sorry Labrat, I forgot, you post facts and figures, but lack the capacity to expand beyond them.

We seem to forget that a lot of people already living in this country (both migrants and people who were born here) are living in poverty, jobless and in poor health as a direct result of poverty, and should perhaps be prioritised – not over genuine asylum seekers, but over economic migrants?

If we are to continue down this path of “everlasting economic growth” we need migrants, be it in the form of asylum seekers or otherwise.

I don’t know what neck of the woods you are from, but in my neck of the woods, immigrants form communities, make their own local economies, and create jobs. The only comparison I can make for the British is what the middle classes do with “networking.”

We are not going to help those in poverty because there is a failure to identify with those people, typified by the middle classes, which now has the added bonus of them being demonized by the right wing press.

And the ‘you really couldn’t make it up’ award for extreme bell-endery goes to the leader of Kent council who, when interviewed on channel 4 news tonight, without a hint of irony, requested not just the army, but specifically the Ghurka’s to stem the tide of immigrants

Priceless! 😆

El-bent, in “my neck of the woods”, I’ve worked with plenty of migrants over the past 25 years, including people from
Romania, Algeria, India, Iran, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Turkey, and Germany. So I am well aware of the contribution of migrants to our economy.
I am not clear what your last paragraph meant, however. Please could you clarify?

We seem to forget that a lot of people already living in this country (both migrants and people who were born here) are living in poverty, jobless and in poor health as a direct result of poverty, and should perhaps be prioritised – not over genuine asylum seekers, but over economic migrants?

A lot of that is through choice (via the ballot box) as we seem to collectively choose governments which encourage inequality. We could quite easily afford to take more migrants and address existing inequality, we just choose not to.

the problem with a lot of the suggested solutions about letting them in is that it’s not the handful of thousand currently in Calais – it’s the handful of thousand that will turn up every single year as soon as they know we’ll let them in. As kind hearted as we might be we simply cannot take them in – it’s not practical or possible. Forget this nonsense about France taking their fair share – they don’t want to be in France – that’s why they’ve trekked across three or four perfectly nice and pleasant European countries, countries us brits love to go to for holidays and retire to, to get to Calais to try to get into England. If they wanted to go to France, Germany, Spain they wouldn’t be trying to clamber onto lorries bound for England.

It’s very convenient for the French and our other European neighbours. They just want to whisk them along to the next boarder and wave them on. they’ve hardly had a difficult trek through Europe – they’ve been ushered along to get them to Calais as quickly as possible.

This is actually a lot more to do with people just wanting a better life (can’t blame anyone for that) – this is a proper and brutal people trafficking issue and by just letting them in will just support that and continue the harsh brutality metered our in their home countries – the traffickers want to create an environment that drives as many people to want to leave for Europe as possible. They take their money, cram them onto a dodgy boat and wave them off and look for the next boat load.

The real solution to this is to somehow sort out their countries of origin and promote some form of regime change. But we don’t seem to be very good at that sort of thing.

Charity begins at home. If home is sorted then consider elsewhere.

I have never understood this phrase. Why should the country of someone’s birth make them more or less deserving of charity?

Through absolutely no fault of their own, these people have had a much tougher time of it than most people born in the UK. Why shouldn’t we help them?

I have never understood this phrase. Why should the country of someone’s birth make them more or less deserving of charity?
Through absolutely no fault of their own, these people have had a much tougher time of it than most people born in the UK. Why shouldn’t we help them?

+1

Still not sure how though.

Going off-topic here, but I have to reply to foot flaps – it’s not right to say that people have chosen poverty. As for voting, I always vote but thanks to the idiotic voting system my vote never counts because our MP has a massive majority.

“Charity begins at home”

I have never understood this phrase.

It’s said by people who don’t give a toss.

In the case of derek_starship he has a long record of not giving a toss :

derek_starship – Member

They should stop shagging.

I NEVER support red arse day.

Africa is an open sore that will never heal.

I wouldn’t get loads of cats and dogs if there was no food / water / money / shelter for them.

I’m 42 and we had this shit going on when I was six years old. Let’s raise some money for those poor hungry African people.

Bollocks – there’s plent of British people who need help before we start throwing money at them.

Posted 4 years ago #

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/red-nose-day#post-2342166

The interesting thing is that despite claiming “charity begins at home” derek_starship is too daft to realise that comic relief funds projects all over the UK. You can find out about local projects here :

https://www.rednoseday.com/what-we-do

But then he probably doesn’t care about that anyway.

I always assume that people who say charity begins at home don’t support charities fullstop.

Why shouldn’t we help them?

Go on then, how many migrants are YOU willing to help?
Invite a few into your home, give them shelter, food, clothing etc, and you pay for all that out of YOUR pocket.

Not willing to do that? Then why do you think that anyone else should?

Invite a few into your home, give them shelter, food, clothing etc, and you pay for all that out of YOUR pocket.

Not willing to do that? Then why do you think that anyone else should?

Then why do you think that anyone else should?

What led you to the bizarre conclusion that by helping them Fueled meant that someone should let them into their home and pay for all their expenses out of their own pocket ?

Most bizarre.

Because it indicates how far someone is prepared to go, how committed they are rather than just typing about it or claiming absolution because they (we) pay tax.

where’s that ‘not sure if trolling or…’ jpeg?

Go on then, how many migrants are YOU willing to help?
Invite a few into your home, give them shelter, food, clothing etc, and you pay for all that out of YOUR pocket.

Well personally quite a few, I give several £1000 to charities every year which helps them.

Invite a few into your home, give them shelter, food, clothing etc, and you pay for all that out of YOUR pocket.

You could apply that logic to anything that is publicly funded though.

Just because I don’t invite strangers in to my house to take a book off the shelf and sit on my sofa reading it, doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to argue against closing down the local library, for example.

That’s true Jon but waffling on from behind a keyboard isn’t quite as effective as, you know, actually doing something constructive and tangible. It’s an easy out for the hand wringers; bleat on about it and hide behind the ‘general taxation/I don’t need to do it to say it’ malarkey.

Good on you Ben, I trust you’ve selected your charities carefully. I.e the ones that don’t piss all your contributions up the wall on ‘overhead’.

South of England may be crowded but parts of Scotland are under-populated.

Why do you suppose that is?

Why do you suppose that is?

The locals were kicked off their land by absentee English landlords.

Next!

If a country like Sweden can take 19,000 more asylum seekers than the UK, what does it say about us?

It says we don’t have a land border like Sweden does.

The locals were kicked off their land by absentee English landlords.

Not in the last 50 years or so, not to my knowledge.

Try the collapse of heavy industry and the migration of labour. Oh, and absentee English second home owners pricing the nice bits out of the local market (if you want a reason to blame them, even if it is equally as wrong, most landlords in the clearances were Scottish).

Simple fact – there are no jobs in many areas of Scotland. So why send people somewhere with no jobs? Classic chicken and egg situation.

Send in the Army – to set up a welfare camp with food and medical facilities while this mess gets sorted. Not ‘police’ or threaten them.

Shame we can’t export criminals somewhere in exchange for people who want to escape from harm and poverty.

It says we don’t have a land border like Sweden does.

Syrians flooding in from Norway and Finland 🙂

binners – Member

A few weeks a go Radio 4 were inerviewing the would-be migrants in Calais, all of them had been told, by the people smugglers tabloids no doubt, that once you arrive in the UK they immediately give you a house, and free money

This is a weird irony… The british press likes to perpetuate the myth that we give bags of money to immigrants, and that we take more immigrants than everyone else. And lots of people are keen to believe it. But then everyone complains that immigrants want to come here. Crazy idea, maybe if we were more honest about this stuff to ourselves it’d be harder to sell the lie to migrants. Certainly it’s absurd to complain that someone else promotes the same lie we do

It really is a problem that needs sorting out at source, the EU should start to address the reasons people want to leave their home countries.
Whether more foreign aid or sanctions could make a difference I don’t know but what I do know is the UK and the EU cannot take half of Africa in. As it stands a soft approach isn’t the answer.