8bit

Also his comments on 'immigrants passing through affluent countries' was also false and replied to with factual evidence.

I would agree with all those statements Politics is very strange atm, where both sides believe completely different things. depends on your definition of 'mass immigration' but since the late 90's there's been a huge increase... freedom of movement = no control within the EU. And migrants walking through borders to get to Germany, or Sweden, or camping in Calais to get to UK... France is an affluent country.

Offtopic but does anybody know why no american institutions have payed our country compensation for the financial crisis, yet our banks have paid them?

8bit

"France is an affluent country."

Who take on more refugees than the UK, same as Germany, Italy, Sweden & Holland.

Should refugees settle in the first safe country they arrive in, i.e. Italy and Greece more often than not? Puts a lot of strain on both countries doesn't it?

8bit

Whilst it’s true migration has increased since the implementation of the common travel area, it has been unfairly ‘weaponised’ It’s no coincidence (2008 economic crisis aside) migration has assisted economic growth.

Migration is essential for business. For example if a company needs to bring in staff from Europe, at present they can do this seamlessly. In many industries (both private and public) there simply isn’t the expertise in the UK to fulfil skill gaps.

The government face an impossible task of trying to appease those who want to see migration curbed, and meeting business/economy requirements.

In regard to actual figures, I’ll repost a post from another thread, (apologies for length of post):

The Dec 2016 ONS migration figures are below:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/dec2016

The latest total UK immigration figure (up to 2016) = 650,000.

However net migration was around 335,000. Of which, 189,000 were EU nationals. As the government include all demographics in their figures, the 189,000 include refugees, asylum seekers etc too.

But more significantly, students.

Which account for a significant volume of migration stats. Something which UK Universities have been campaigning against for some time:

http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/Pages/immigration.aspx

There are also seasonal workers. EU nationals who come to the UK to work in the Agri industry, and return home when harvesting etc has been completed.

In that a UK farm isn’t going to need crop pickers in the winter months.

The same applies to many other industries, (fishing, oil rigs, construction, manufacturing etc etc). Eg if say Nissan required an extra 1,000 specialised technicians from Spain to work on a particular project in Sunderland, they can bring them over (at present) seamlessly. Which historically has made the UK an attractive place for foreign businesses to operate.

When you take the overall 189,000 figure, take away tens of thousands of students, (and don’t even factor in seasonal workers) you’re looking like a much smaller figure than many would lead you to believe.

Whilst figures fluctuate year on year, (and all figures are approximate) if you take the entire UK population of 65m, and take off 5% (approximate total percentage) of EU nationals living in the UK already, the amount of EU immigrants entering the UK is nominal.

Whilst I appreciate I have not factored non-EU migration, these figures will increase in the years to come.

Basically as the government looks to forge new trading relationships outside of the EU, (Free Trade Agreements typically necessitate the relaxation of work and travel visas, to aid the exchange of goods and services). Which has already been raised by a number of countries May has visited since last June.

comment by Coutinho's Happy Feet (U18971)
posted 22 minutes ago
8bit

"France is an affluent country."

Who take on more refugees than the UK, same as Germany, Italy, Sweden & Holland.

Should refugees settle in the first safe country they arrive in, i.e. Italy and Greece more often than not? Puts a lot of strain on both countries doesn't it?
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That's a seperate issue though, we should take more refugees as we've barely taken any and if our immigration system wasn't such a shambles then public mood would probably be more accepting to it. But when there's people who can apply for asylum in France but willing to sleep in nasty conditions and risk their lives to get to UK then something's wrong. And when we say we're taking child refugees and people point out their blatantly not children and get called inhumane. Why say they're children in the first place. And there should be more spotlight on some Middle Eastern countries who are not doing enough to help refugees instead of always blaming Europe.

I understand an unaccompanied refugee under the age of 18 has to be defined (legally) as a child.

However as many are undocumented (fleeing warzones etc) young adults have also attempted to claim asylum in the UK too.

8bit

It's not a seperate issue. I was addressing TBAB's comment about refugees passing through 'affluent countries' to get to the UK.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

WWSPD, I understand we need immigration to sustain our economy. We should have a system like Canada where there is different categories of migrants and different criteria for each category. The current system of free movement means it's open to too much abuse. Student and high skilled high paid people nobody has an issue with. But the majority is low skilled labour, who boost GDP and profits of businesses but pay no tax into the public purse. and still entitled to in work benefits, healthcare, schools so will probably be costing us money if anything. From some Eastern European countries even if they don't find a job they'll make more money from unemployment benefits or working for £3 an hour than they would back home, so it's a no brainer to come. But as a result the labour market is flooded and the whole thing is out of balance.

Calais has been used as the UK’s ‘first line of defence’ for many years.

The French will undoubtedly exploit Calais’ assistance against the UK during Brexit negotiations. In that post Brexit, if the UK government wish to implement the severe immigration controls which have been suggested, they are going to have to (at the very least) double Home Office spending, (currently circa £9 billion a year).

The UK Border Force also have around 8,000 staff. Which is a fraction of the staff required to implement the immigration controls which many seem to want, and if the French decide (which looks a real possibility) to end the Calais arrangement.

comment by Coutinho's Happy Feet (U18971)
posted 14 minutes ago
8bit

It's not a seperate issue. I was addressing TBAB's comment about refugees passing through 'affluent countries' to get to the UK.
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They are though or at least attempting to. The only reason other countries have taken more is because they're part of the Schengen Area so they can't stop anyone at the border. probably the only decent thing Cameron did was not signing us up to that.

Was given you the opportunity the chance to leave the EU (that's made us richer and more peaceful than at any time in our history) not another decent thing Cameron did?

comment by 8bit (U2653)
posted 5 minutes ago
comment by Coutinho's Happy Feet (U18971)
posted 14 minutes ago
8bit

It's not a seperate issue. I was addressing TBAB's comment about refugees passing through 'affluent countries' to get to the UK.
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They are though or at least attempting to. The only reason other countries have taken more is because they're part of the Schengen Area so they can't stop anyone at the border. probably the only decent thing Cameron did was not signing us up to that.
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The point is there are more refugees passing the UK to go to Germany, Sweden and Holland than there are coming into the U.K. TBAB makes it sound like the majority of refugees are passing through various countries from Italy, Greece, or wherever they enter Europe from, just to get to the UK. It's not true.

"The only reason other countries have taken more is because they're part of the Schengen Area so they can't stop anyone at the border".

Is this a fact? Have EU countries, such as France, Germany, Holland et al, complained about Schengen being used by refugees?

What solution do you propose? Park them all in Italy and Greece?

Personally I believe the UK should be accepting, and doing far more to help refugees.

We are involved, (directly via our forces or indirectly via financing/weaponising) in conflicts all over the world.

Refugees are a direct consequence of these actions. I believe politicising them will, in years to come, be remembered as a low point in the UK’s history.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by What would Stuart Pearce do? (U3126)
posted 4 minutes ago
Personally I believe the UK should be accepting, and doing far more to help refugees.

We are involved, (directly via our forces or indirectly via financing/weaponising) in conflicts all over the world.

Refugees are a direct consequence of these actions. I believe politicising them will, in years to come, be remembered as a low point in the UK’s history.
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Exactly. We should follow the example of other nations who were not involved in conflict, but are taking on more refugees than us.

comment by Coutinho's Happy Feet (U18971)
posted 5 minutes ago
comment by 8bit (U2653)
posted 5 minutes ago
comment by Coutinho's Happy Feet (U18971)
posted 14 minutes ago
8bit

It's not a seperate issue. I was addressing TBAB's comment about refugees passing through 'affluent countries' to get to the UK.
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They are though or at least attempting to. The only reason other countries have taken more is because they're part of the Schengen Area so they can't stop anyone at the border. probably the only decent thing Cameron did was not signing us up to that.
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The point is there are more refugees passing the UK to go to Germany, Sweden and Holland than there are coming into the U.K. TBAB makes it sound like the majority of refugees are passing through various countries from Italy, Greece, or wherever they enter Europe from, just to get to the UK. It's not true.

"The only reason other countries have taken more is because they're part of the Schengen Area so they can't stop anyone at the border".

Is this a fact? Have EU countries, such as France, Germany, Holland et al, complained about Schengen being used by refugees?

What solution do you propose? Park them all in Italy and Greece?
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They can't freely come to UK though because we're not part of Schengen. The point tbab was making was why are so many people desperate to go from France to UK? The fact is there are many economic migrants pretending to be refugees and they know the UK system is the most generous or easiest to abuse. The way the situation was handled was a mess, Merkel saying everyone was welcome just encouraged people to get on boats. people from various countries not warzones are travelling to Libya to get on boats, throw away all paperwork and pretend to be refugees.

We should be following policies now that stop being from sailing to Italy, Greece, set up safe zones and camps for refugees, get Middle Eastern countries to do more to take in refugees and treat them properly, and then European countries can agree to take in an equal share of genuine refugees. Stop trying to remove dictators in other countries and focus on stopping the conflicts. Cooperate with Russia instead of fighting against them and making it worse. Stop getting involved in pointless wars and supplying weapons to dodgy countries getting involved in dodgy wars.

interesting enough Donald Trump has said most of what I've said above The globalist media are politicising this by playing with people's emotions, anyone who doesn't want to accept unlimited number of refugees is an inhumane racist.

8bit

The media very rarely report (as it’s not salacious) that the Home Office deport ‘economic migrants’ in massive numbers.

But due to the sheer volume of refugees, (across Europe) and years of Home Office cut backs by consecutive UK governments, front line staff/ports etc, have struggled to cope. Thus resulting in mistakes being made. At a time when Europe is facing the worst refugee crisis since WW2.

In regard to countries doing their fair share:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population

As far as Trump is concerned, rather than reduce refugees, he cut (without notice) the entire US refugee programme.

Whether you agree with that or not, homeland security, and front line staff were completely under prepared. Not to mention the refugees themselves.

Which resulted in chaos. Refugees were arriving in the US, (in many cases to be re-joined with family members) only to be turned away back into areas of conflict.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

The vast majority of refugees want to go home, no sane person or their families want to flee, they are FORCED to, they want to go back as soon as it is safe to.
Look at the Vietnamese 'boat people', https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/30/thatcher-snub-vietnamese-boat-people are we still 'flooded' with Vietnamese?

What does it say about us and the other top 10 economies in the world that we will not provide temporary succour to them but we will spend £100 Billions on rescuing the banks, spend £Billions on invading other countries, spend billions on removing ourselves from a political club, the priorities are fkd up.

Slightly off topic (given current thread direction) the DUP (NI’s largest party) have today finally released 425,000 reasons why they were the only major political party in NI to back Brexit.

What is also infuriating is that it’s current leader, Arlene Foster was (for years) NI’s minister for enterprise, trade, and investment minister. As such she would have been extremely aware of NI’s reliance on the EU, and the pulling power the relationship provided in securing overseas investment.

Her department coining the phrase, “Invest in Northern Ireland – the gateway to Europe.”

To compound matters she also served as finance minister. As such her department oversaw hundreds millions of pounds received in EU bloc grants which will (after 2020) disappear – with no commitment, (nor apparent desire) from the UK Government to underwrite this shortfall

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-39075502

comment by Hector (U3606)
posted 24 minutes ago
The vast majority of refugees want to go home, no sane person or their families want to flee, they are FORCED to, they want to go back as soon as it is safe to.
Look at the Vietnamese 'boat people', https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/30/thatcher-snub-vietnamese-boat-people are we still 'flooded' with Vietnamese?

What does it say about us and the other top 10 economies in the world that we will not provide temporary succour to them but we will spend £100 Billions on rescuing the banks, spend £Billions on invading other countries, spend billions on removing ourselves from a political club, the priorities are fkd up.
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So why is there people in Calais saying it's their dream to come to UK, or migrants having their country of choice saying they want to go to Germany or Sweden? because many are economic migrants and not refugees, young males from Pakistan, Eritrea, Afghanistan etc. The people traffickers must be so grateful to all the bleeding hearts for keeping them in business. Hector I'd have more sympathy with your point of view if you were just as critical of the super rich Arab nations not taking refugees or treating them like rats.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/six-out-of-10-migrants-to-europe-come-for-economic-reasons-and-are-not-refugees-eu-vice-president-a6836306.html

8bit

I think you are mixing up asylum seekers and refugees. Whilst both wish to enter the UK, there are separate processing mechanisms.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/asylum-decision-making-guidance-asylum-instructions

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-the-immigration-rules

https://www.gov.uk/settlement-refugee-or-humanitarian-protection

As both parties are more often than not undocumented, it takes the Home Office time to sift through the refugees, asylum seekers, and illegals. The former being exploited by human traffickers which no amount of legislation can account for.