What would you do if you were Italy?

It's the truth.

mag I am not a Christian, but those Grans who are, will no doubt recall the good Samaritan. However I am a humanist, and every fibre in my being recoils at the sort of attitude being displayed by GO.
Nothing worth doing will be easy - we all know that - the Italians know that, but I would be proud to be an Italian or Greek knowing that my government is doing everything in it's power to help these people. Of course there will be problems in Italy and especially Greece if the help is not sufficient, and I would expect other community members to hold out their hands and offer help. In fact they have a duty to.

These sort of problems will not lessen in the future. The world has to face up to global warming and the severe problems that is going to bring to populations. There will undoubtedly be huge migration due to this phenomenon. What should we do about that? Send them back to starve, and to suffer the result of what we in the developed countries have done - totally trashing the atmosphere?

Whitewave. But where does it stop. If the EU says it will accept 2 million people, and that is very possible, what do we say to the next million. The situation will be exactly the same as where we are now.

I know that Petra but the point is the migrants are not going to stop so we need to make a concerted effort to have a world wide humane answer. It is not right to turn a blind eye. We are lucky to live where we do - and us who are so blessed with enough food, water and peace cannot sit back and watch as others of our species, die from starvation, drowning and gas to name just a bit of what they suffer. Nothing will convince me that allowing this to happen to the most innocent - the children - is right. Whatever the reason for the turning up on our shores - there must have been a huge push factor as to my mind no-one takes such an arduous and perilous journey for little reason.

How do you know you speak for most people, Magpie?

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEQQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgreenmediabox.eu%2Fsyrianrefugees%2F&ei=ZgWDVeutM-SH7Qb6jYLQBw&usg=AFQjCNFDxBF-hVSXxG_SmZQQoT-9gmZa8Q&bvm=bv.96041959,d.ZGU&cad=rja

A very interesting infographic.
When it says "tap for more" I suggest you do so. Otherwise you will be scrolling for ages.

Today's news.

www.unhcr.org.uk/news-and-views/news-list/news-detail/article/world-faces-major-crisis-as-number-of-displaced-hits-record-high.html

That's nearly as many displaced as the population of the UK.

Oh well - as Gideon says - "We must break the link" then we can prove what b------s we really are.

See Turkey has 1.8m of displaced and Jordan - only 1/3 of its population is Jordanian.

How many do we have does anyone know?

Armenia is Asian so not on that list, but it has taken over 10,000 Syrian refugees, even though it only has a population of 3 million.
Do we really, the sixth richest country in the world, want to be thought of as worse than Armenia?

I agree with dj. 'Most people'? Not in my name.

If I were an asylum seeker and came to Britain, I would soon want to move to somewhere more civilised.

opendemocracy.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=9c663f765f28cdb71116aa9ac&id=e85772b9a1&e=3e0fb9998a

This is how we treat asylum seekers here. It's absolutely disgusting.

Heard on QT that we have 140 refugees from Syria in the UK. How embarrassing.

I find this article very thought provoking.

www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/joseph-h-carens/case-for-open-borders

There are many more like it on the website.

Another interesting article about refugees.

theconversation.com/forget-the-sympathy-asylum-is-a-refugees-right-43370

The only real answer is for all of the Western world, the countries with well trained and well funded troops, to send those troops to every country in the world where the fighting and violence is making the lives of the local people unliveable. And keep fighting the jihadists, the El habab, and all the other evil organisations, until peace reigns everywhere and countries can progress economically and justly.

And we all want that, don't we?

In other words, there is no realistic answer.

Al. Not El. If it matters to anyone.

Maybe the only sensible answer is to try to keep it all away from our shores for as long as possible. Look after our own.

But we didn't, did we?
We sent all our troops centuries ago to conquer other countries, and plunder all their wealth.
Can't pull up the drawbridge now, not when we need them to work in our hospitals, on our trains, sweep the streets, do all the menial things that we do not want to do.
Have you any idea how much of the British infrastructure is owned by foreign companies? You cannot say we want the money but not the people.

I just mean, if we want to stop all these desperate people taking to boats and suchlike, seeking a safe existence, we would need to fix the troubles in their countries to allow them to stay at home. And we can't do that. It would cost another huge world war. So there is no answer.

And you can stuff your clever replies about London being owned by Arabs etc etc. That's not what I'm talking about.

Your comment about needing the labour input is ridiculous.

And stop going back over bloody history. It's now I'm talking about.

No it isn't, jingl. We encouraged people to come here and work. We cannot tell them not to come now when they need to escape.

www.hrw.org/news/2015/06/18/eu-rights-abuses-home-drive-mediterranean-crisis

London is owned by foreigners. So is most of our water supply.

Well we can actually it seems. As can all the other countries. As someone else said on here or eslewhere, when push comes to shove, countries draw up the drawbridge. I dont know why anyone is surprised by that.

Governments' ultimate aim is to get reelected. Has anyone ever seen a political party anywhere, not go for reelection?
They can only push their ideals so far, before they become unelectable. So, at some point, if the country is a democracy, they have to listen to their electorate.

The majority of the electorate is the same. They have ideals, but again, when push comes to shove, they will not accept potentially millions of people from elsewhere filling the hospital beds, schools, mental health facilities etc.

Look! I'm not saying we should take no more immigrants. Of course we have to do our share. I'm just saying there IS NO FINAL ANSWER.

Try to understand what I mean. We can't go to all these countries and turn them into peaceful havens of industry. So the refugeeswill continue to come, and come.....

I am preaching despair. That's all there is now.