On refugees

I'm surprised Bags that you infer I'm suggesting that being gay, white & from SA is to be held against him - my argument is that with this background he has chosen to live in the UK but would deny others the same.

I agree that you can't hold it against someone the country that they were born in, and they can't choose their parents - the same applies to a young boy from Somalia who gets on a boat in Libya and takes his chances.

I just thought Oh bloody hell, here we go ?

OK, river, so his background of having British parents was somehow relevant, I take it. His father worked in various countries, not just SA.

That aside, do you think national identities should be abolished? Why else would someone, anyone, be allowed to choose to live/settle/become a citizen of in whichever country they chose, even if their forebears had no previous connection with the country they chose?

I can't just choose to up sticks and go and live in, say, New Zealand. It took years for absent's emigration visa to be granted to do just that.

Could you expand your argument a bit, please? I'm slightly at a loss to understand it at the moment.

Of course national identities can't be abolished and we generally have to live within national boundaries and rules e.g. visas and work permits.

I'm well aware of travel restrictions and immigration requirements to settle in a country. No doubt Matthew Parris qualified on the grounds of his British parents, rather than the country in which he was born.

My gripe with Parris is his simplistic and hypocritical view - not everyone can qualify under the rules and as I said, some will take their chances, and if they make it and are not drowned or shot then they should be given a chance to make their case.

Many people seek a better life abroad, my own son lives in Switzerland and I have two brothers in Australia - fortunately for them they were not fleeing from war, poverty or persecution but they obviously think the grass is greener.

Parris has chosen not to live in the country of his birth but he's not so keen for others to do likewise.

TBH I don't like Parris so tend to be averse to his views - irrational I know.

In case anyone has forgotten he is the aide to Mrs Thatcher who told a council tenant he was lucky to have public housing and shouldn't be making complaints; outed Peter Mandelson as gay on TV, when he himself was in the closet as an MP; and was one of those idiots who said he could live on benefits for a week, but didn't succeed.

I thought people were being given a chance to make their case but that the process is even slower than it would be ordinarily because of the high numbers of migrants.

I get why you don't like Parris. He has presented an argument that you also don't like. So argue with it, the argument, rather than getting personal about him. His being a toerag is no excuse for us to be as well.

The issue is how to deal, practically, with the hugest migration in human history. The current system isn't working too well by the looks of things. What would? What needs to change to make things work?

It s almost certainly set to get worse as not only are we not dealing with the Middle East crises we aren't dealing with climate change either.

Matthew Parris has every right to be here, he did not 'take refuge' his British parents worked abroad for a while.I think Riverwalk that you are damning him for being a Conservative ( that much is obvious.) Hopefully, it is not also because he is gay.

It seems that this thread is going to turn into yet another 'what this government has done/not done' rather than anyone actually making suggestions as to what might help the situation.

Yep! So am out of here.

When I say "we" ana I mean the world. What would you suggest can be done?

Empty of ideas then ana and rose?

I admit I don't have any ideas, but I was hoping that others would have some suggestions as it's a problem which certainy needs addressing.

My opinion is that all the countries who are currently being slow to offer refuge to despearate people fleeing war & persecution could at least be doing a vast amount more to provide resources to Lebanon,Turkey,Jordan etc. who are poorer countries but have huge numbers of refugees
Countries where there are high numbers of men leaving seeking work (economic migrants) the Western nations that do not want them could look to improve opprtunities , conditions etc. in those places.
We are all better off for improving the lot of those in poverty.

The Lebanon does not have enough room for refugees any more. We have.
When you say Matthew Parris had every right to live here, so do lots of refugees living in Calais. However, Theresa May is trying to deny them that right.

It's okay saying you don't necessarily agree with the link you gave in the OP, but that's not enough. What do you agree with?
What do you think we should do?
His mention of Labour and Tory grandees who think the Geneva Convention should be revisited is to deny refugees the right to come here.
Do you agree with that?
You must have realised by now that some of us want more refugees here, particularly those who already have the right to come here.
You cannot change the law now because there are too many of them.

Penstemmon - I believe we are already one of the countries that give most in terms of aid abroad to improve the lot of refugees and the like. Didn't Dave Cameron give that as one of his reasons for not allowing more refugees to come to the UK?

dj - do not shoot!

Unfortunately only half the aid promised actually gets there, and we don't even want to send that.We are second to the US, with France one per cent behind us.

But that's not the point, is it. The point is that we signed up to agreements that said we should take in people who already had family here. And we aren't. Theresa May wants to change the rules that allow this, as, obviously, does Matthew Parris.
While we, as a nation, are talking and prevaricating, more people get killed. I am not happy at that.

Me neither, dj. I'm ashamed to say I no longer watch Ch4 news at 7pm as I cannot bear to see the dead and dying children whom they show all the time.

The idea he presents is ridiculous
"A reasonable fear of death, death alone, and death at the hands of the state or its servants, should be the sole qualifier for political asylum. There should be no automatic right to bring family members."
So wrongful imprisonment, torture, rape, being forced to fight and all sorts of human rights abuse could be practiced as long as the state didn't threaten to kill anyone. Of course other organisations can kill or threaten to kill.
Threats made to family members has always been a way of exercising control over dissidents. This reads to me like a charter for tyrants and dictators.

I can't accept his suggestion. It's inhumane. In fact, if there's one thing that the EU referendum and the war in Syria have brought home to me, it's the consequences of borders. The borders created first by nature and then by history. The human race is supposed to be the most advanced species on the planet, so how is it possible that we find it ethical to treat human beings differently simply because they were born on the wrong side of a border? This is a relatively recent development from the 20th century, particularly after the 1st World War. Borders existed, but people could move relatively freely between most countries.

I saw a baby boy pulled alive from the rubble in Allepo on Friday. An infant wrapped in a blanket, only the top of his head showing. How can the world stand by and allow this to happen? Is this the kind of thing that happened in the years before the Second World War?

Matthew Parris should be ashamed. Putting up more barriers is not the answer. It just protects those with power. I'm not religious, but the phrase 'God help us all' comes to mind because I don't see anyone else who will.

I know it sounds impossible at the moment, but I think the only way longterm is to help these uprooted people to stay in their own countries, or return.
For the Syrians, obviously the fighting would have to stop first. And the Africans, do more to solve the poverty, hunger and birth control problems.
Then there's the spread of Isis, but it does seem they're being weakened now. People will probably find holes in this suggestion. But it was the only way the immigrant problem after WW2 was sorted.

Why is it always the West that migrants make for? Other very wealthy middle eastern countries or even further eastern countries do a lot more. I know the religious problems between Muslims but surely Islam itself has more in common within its various septs than it does with Christianity. Time for them to step up?

Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon currently have the largest number of refugees, so this idea that they are making for the West alone is just not true.

Saudi? Kuwait? Oman?

Most Muslim country's haven't got money or a welfare system.

Where's me tin hat time to duck.