grannypiper
*JESSM I have no problem with any child coming here but i do have a problem with liars.^

The majority of those claiming to be children are liars as is slowly coming to light, and as pictures of these alleged children showed.Some even had receding hair!!!

The relatively small numbers of actual children who were in Calais are with relatives, mostly at least one parent.

Of course the open borders brigade who want to wave them in couldnt care less if they are thirteen or thirty five, they just want to admit as many as possible, not surprisingly they are heavily over represented on this thread.

The migrants at Calais are a FRENCH problem and you should ask yourself why those bleating for them to be admitted here weren't instead petitioning the French for their appalling neglect of them. Perhaps the French realise they are not the 'children' they claim to be?

If there were any unaccompanied genuine children in the camp they should have been immediately taken into care by French social services and any application to come to Britain dealt with later.

You should also be asking yourself why, if they had close family in Britain, those relatives werent going over to Calais to rescue them.

I know if it was my teenage nephew or neice stuck alone in the jungle I would be on the ferry to get him or at least to help him deal with the authorities tout de suite! Wouldnt you?

The point is any of these men can bribe a former aquaintance from Afghanistan or Somalia who lives in Britain to say that he is their 'uncle'! Some of these so called 'children' were even saying they had lost contact with their alleged cousin/uncle. There should be no family reunion without a DNA test too, paid for by the relative in Britain.

How long before these "childrens" parents are mysteriously "found" and are applying to join them under "family reunion"? And no most are not Syrians either.




Those liars have taken places from those children and put other children here at risk, have a go at them Not m

How sad, grannypiper. Yoou obviously did not read the link. If you had you might have expressed your anger and disgust at the way this boy has been treated by the home office.

'According to the children’s lawyers, the Home Office has failed to allow the relocation of many of the most vulnerable children to the UK, failed to give proper written decisions in refusing these applications and failed to use its discretion in response to extreme cases.

The judicial review focuses on the specific circumstances of one 14-year-old boy from Afghanistan as well as on the broader issues affecting all of the children.

The boy’s father helped Nato troops and was targeted by the Taliban as a result. The boy was shot in the neck by the Taliban when they came to the family home searching for his father. He was lucky to survive and fled his home country and travelled through eight countries to reach France.

Along the way he was buried alive while travelling in a car attacked by Iranian military, almost starved to death when he spent four days and nights in a Bulgarian forest, was physically and sexually exploited by people traffickers and was shot with rubber bullets and teargas while in the Calais camp.

His wrist was broken there when he was beaten by a French police officer wielding a baton. He tried to kill himself on four occasions while in Calais.
Lord Dubs: refugees face greater hostility than ever in 2017
Read more

His legal team at Duncan Lewis Solicitors wrote to the Home Office on 2 November and 5 December to raise concerns about the boy’s condition but neither letter received a response.

While social workers have assessed him to be suffering from suicidal ideation and depression, and an independent psychiatrist assessed him to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and to be a “traumatised and vulnerable boy” who needs treatment, a Home Office social worker who assessed him said there was no evidence that he had any particular emotional or psychological needs.'

Please read the full link and then tell me what you object to in letting these children come to the UK.

Grannypiper you presumably have no truck either with politicians who say they want to help refugees and then don't?
The story in the press about lots of the young people being over 18 was exaggerated and manufactured. I'm afraid the press have been going this way for some years now - making up stories to suit the political agenda of their billionaire (often foreign-resident) owners. If you look at the papers that ran the story then the correlation is very strong. Same papers who have been running story after story about refugees/migrants/asylum seekers etc for years - with a surge this year for obvious reasons.
The young people coming in from Calais were a sub-set of those entitled to come here and had had some screening already by UK officials. This process was being done in a rush because the government had been dragging their feet and refusing to let any kids in for months. Then there was a mad dash to appear to be helping. When the publicity died down about the "jungle" being bulldozed they pulled up the drawbridge again. So much for British values.
And as anyone who has ever been to one of the camps in France will tell you - the individual stories are heartbreaking.

JESSM I have no problem with any child coming here but i do have a problem with liars. Those liars have taken places from those children and put other children here at risk, have a go at them Not me

The teenagers in France are awaiting authenticated accreditation that they are allowed to be here in Britain.If they really do have family here, then they will be allowed to come here.Meanwhile, they are in France, in a place of safety.

OMG Grannypiper that is a sad, sad post.
The kids in France have a right to come here under a range of legislation, including a recent vote by the UK parliament.
It is not a zero sum game. And many asylum seekers (adults and children) are thrown out of the UK every year if their applications are turned down. The UK government does not need to "take them to court" at all. As you are presumably aware.

If child refugees can take the British Government to court for reneging on a promise can we take the refugees that swore they were under 18 then were found to be way over 18 to court for lying ? Britain said they would take x amount of children so any adult refugees who conned their way in have to take the blame for taking childrens places.

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/28/calais-child-asylum-seekers-legal-action-against-uk-government

I have read somewhere, Tricia, that some of the child refugees are going to take the British government to court for reneging on their promises.

I'm glad dj has revived this thread, because I found some worrying reports in our french local paper (Friday).
There are about 2000 young people ( or 'children') moved from the 'Jungle ' when it was demolished, to various reception centres all over France. Awaiting assessment from UK authorities to go to the UK. Claiming they have relatives there.
There has been very little action from the UK - a few have left legitimately, but the rest are very frustrated . Many have run away, hoping to make it to the UK on their own.
Bad feeling is building up in France- why aren't the UK doing their bit, as they promised?

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/12/2016-year-world-stopped-caring-refugees-161227090243522.html

Our Government imo has had something to do with the Russian ships that came down the English channel. Not a shot was fired thank heavens, but the Russians must have had permission or they would have been challenged by our Armed Forces. Also these cluster bombs that have been found in Syria have been proven to be British ones. Makes you wonder which side we were on doesn't it.

A retired British Ambassador has criticised the UK government for its role in the development of the Syrian war.
It is thought that another 100 people died in the mediterranean yesterday.
And still the Uk government drags its feet in admitting Syrian refugees. Glacially slow. And they have in this season of goodwill pulled up the drawbridge again for kids in France who have a right to come here under UK and international law.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/07/former-ambassador-attacks-camerons-arrogant-syria-policy

grannyactivist your GS sounds like a lovely caring person. Lucky you. Good parenting imo.

Jalima yes it did. The British just got on with whatever had to be done to get back to normal. So did Germany and France. War solves NOTHING. It just results in ill feeling all round. Better to use diplomatic routes imo.

Now we are holding our breaths to see what Putin does next. I met some Russians once. They gave me a lovely present of one of their Russian dolls and a hand painted plate which I treasure. They were very friendly and I just feel we missed an opportunity, because of USA paranoia, of making friends after WWII. After all they were on our side weren't they. Imo there are good and bad in every race on earth.

Slight deviation here. The Tunisian terrorist who killed all those people in the German market has been shot dead by a policeman after he shot another policeman who challenged him in Italy . He had crossed in to Poland from Germany, he had travelled to Germany via France, this is an example of why we need controlled borders not open doors to all and sundry. If we had no control on UK borders he would no doubt have come here too.

There was an article in the guardian earlier this year written by Jo Cox

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/23/brendan-cox-urges-people-to-fight-rise-of-hatred-in-alternative-christmas-speech

The same as happened when the British had to re-build their cities after WW2.
Believe in hope after despair.

There is a lot we can learn from children Yorkshiregel.

My grandson, who is not yet seven, has a clear understanding that most people, of any race, religion, creed or colour are good, but some can do bad things. He also knows his daddy was killed by an IED triggered by an Afghan muslim, but he's more than happy to play football with my Afghan muslim foster sons who came to live with me shortly after my son in law's death. They came as refugees/immigrants and now the eldest drives a taxi, the middle one is at college taking business studies and works part-time and the youngest is an apprentice plumber who also has a part-time job. They are very hard-working, tax paying citizens who plan on remaining in this country, but would ideally love to go 'home'. If they go home they will most likely be killed or forced to join the Taliban. They have experienced horrors such as I cannot describe, not least the capture and torture of their father who has survived, but is a broken man.

My grandson also understands the value of sharing; those who have more should share with those who have less. As adults I do believe we ourselves sometimes forget to apply the lessons that we try to teach our youngsters. Through various avenues I meet with refugees/immigrants and I can only pray that no-one in my family would ever have to endure the least of the dreadful things that I have heard.

rosesarered I meant a backlash from all those people who resent the fact that we did nothing to help those desperate people who needed our help. Those who lost family members, those who feel we should have done more instead of sitting round a table until all the trouble was over. What now? Will the Syrians want to go home? What will happen when they see what has happened to their once beautiful cities.

durhamjen I agree. My GS was worried about Muslims and terrorism, and I said 'Look, not all Muslims are terrorists, most of them are law abiding' to which he said 'Well thank goodness for that because there are a lot of them at my school'. In fact his best friend is Muslim. He is a very clever and well behaved boy, no different to the rest. I think we are scaring our own children with all this talk about immigrants. Actually most people can trace their ancestry to some kind of immigration to this country.

a backlash from whom?
A lot of people will be pleased here, that Cameron only accepted Syrians from the actual refugee camps who were verified.

As far as NI was concerned, we civil servants were not allowed to travel there in the troubles. However near to where I live some Southern Irish people came as students to a college and promptly started to blow people up with their bombs. Thank God for the women of Ireland who brought the troubles to an end. The men would have been killing each other even now if it had not been for the women.

Why do people keep on spreading the myth that Mr Farage is a racist? For what he has done for getting this country out from under the EU boot he should be given a medal imo. He is not shy of stating the truth and that is what some people cannot stand. Immigration in Europe is out of control. Mr Farage has been fighting tooth and nail to stop that happening in this country. It is not racist, it is not about religion or colour, it is about uncontrolled immigration which allows all and sundry to travel wherever they want without being challenged and now we see the error of allowing that to happen.

There is no such thing as 'the wrong kind of refugee' imo. If you are a 'refugee' you are fleeing from some terror or war or even an epidemic. If you are an 'immigrant' it is a different kettle of fish altogether. A lot of the people coming to Europe in boats have been immigrants, not refugees. That is why people objected. They should have gone through the official channels and they didn't/wouldn't/couldn't. Either way they came to Europe for 'a better life' they were not running away from some horror.

To our shame Britain did not welcomed helpless children to our country, but when we did the 'children' turned out to be adults who could have been fighting for their own country. No wonder people were angry at the government who must have known and were complicit in this deceit.

We could of course have said that any 'refugees' coming here could have stayed until the war was over and then they would be safe. After the war they could be sent home. We didn't do that and now we should prepare for a backlash for not showing compassion.

Lots of other things you can do. Only shop with companies that pay the real living wage.

www.ethicalconsumer.org

This website shows you the good and the bad of buying.
Just found out from there that Centrica, who own British Gas, funds a climate denying campaign. Pleased I'm not with British Gas.