On refugees

www.arabstates.undp.org/content/rbas/en/home/ourwork/SyriaCrisis/in_depth.html

This is what is happening in neighbouring countries.
We are European, so we only hear about the effect on European countries. We don't hear that countries like Lebanon have a big population of Syrian refugees, many being allowed to work there.

All the Gulf states, except Oman, have more Syrians than they did before the war started. Technically, they're not 'refugees' under international law, because they're not signatories to the 1951 UNCHR convention.

Syrians in the Gulf are classified as foreign workers or they are related to Syrians who have lived in the Gulf for decades.

europe.newsweek.com/gulf-states-are-taking-syrian-refugees-401131?rm=eu

Refugees are largely refugees because they are fleeing violence and war. Who on earth would choose to go from be war zone to another?

Afghanistan is at war. We don't send failed asylum seekers back there, so why expect Syrians to go there.

They could go North East into the 'Stans, which are mostly Muslim.

fullfact.org/europe/asylum-seekers-uk-and-europe/

Not quite sure where you expect refugees from North Africa and the Middle East TO go other than the EU. They are based all round the Mediterranean.

data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php

These country's are rich in (oil Dollars), most of that is used as back handers, bribes. Saudi Arabia is named after a family who brought it from us (I'm British).

I know people who work in their health sevice, its private and treats people who can pay.

People beg for food in Muslim country's, they always have, to be a beggar is a career choice.

I remember what the British army calls Arabs.

Er Saudi Arabia must be one of the richest countries on earth! If they don't have a welfare system its time they did!

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

Where's me tin hat time to duck.

Saudi? Kuwait? Oman?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Empty of ideas then ana and rose?

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

Yep! So am out of here.

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.