Does Briton have a moral duty to take in as many Afghan refugees as possible?

Sparklefizz

westendgirl

Someone said earlier this is not a competition. We must not let these people down any more than we have already done and we should not let the tarnished reputation of this country worsen any more. Surely there is only one answer and that is yes , with no ifs and buts.
By the way well said GillT57

No, it's not a competition which you will see I actually said at the start of this thread, but we also have to be practical in what we can manage to do. How would we be helping refugees if we can't house them or medically treat them or educate them? We need to be able to follow through, surely, with what we have readily available at the moment.

Am I the only person who can see that?

The fault may lie with the Government, as GillT says, but the UK has to work with what is available now, not what should have been available as and when.

Alegrias There's no need to be sarcastic. We can take refugees in the UK as Scotland has plenty of room.

My post wasn't directed at you westendgirl, the timing meant you posted while I was typing.

The idea that there's plenty room, though Sparklefizz. Now who's being sarcastic? Its got nothing to do with actual physical space. Canada has only 3 people per square km because so much of it is uninhabitable. Big chunks of Scotland are uninhabitable, that contributes to the low number of people per square km. The number of people North of the Great Glen is comparatively tiny because there are massive mountains in the way. Same in the borders where the agricultural land can't be repurposed to house larger numbers of people. Glasgow, though, has about the same population density as Birmingham. I've been stuck in many a rush hour traffic jam in Glasgow, and in Edinburgh. But we still have "room" for refugees.

Its not about physical space, its about the appropriate use of resources.

From a compassionate point of view we want to bring them all to safety.
Having 'plenty of room' isn't the issue. We need to have the resources to look after the people we take in properly. I don't think at present that we do, however much we may want to.

I think that will be accommodated fine even now when there are problems - U.K. has done it before and they may well bring extra doctors and engineers with them which will benefit the U.K. as a whole. We should look at it positively.
I see up thread someone posted about the population per square Km - in Europe there are a lot of very rural areas and just like U.K. there are heavily populated urban areas. Average numbers are of little help here.

Not necessary Alegrias1, even if you didnt mean it .

westendgirl

Someone said earlier this is not a competition. We must not let these people down any more than we have already done and we should not let the tarnished reputation of this country worsen any more. Surely there is only one answer and that is yes , with no ifs and buts.
By the way well said GillT57

No, it's not a competition which you will see I actually said at the start of this thread, but we also have to be practical in what we can manage to do. How would we be helping refugees if we can't house them or medically treat them or educate them? We need to be able to follow through, surely, with what we have readily available at the moment.

Am I the only person who can see that?

The fault may lie with the Government, as GillT says, but the UK has to work with what is available now, not what should have been available as and when.

Alegrias There's no need to be sarcastic. We can take refugees in the UK as Scotland has plenty of room.

Yes especially those who worked with us and woman and children. Girls have now had some education so it will be much harder to give up what they have and revert to being third class citizens.

Lets send them to Canada then. They can live north of the line with the wolves and the bears.

Someone said earlier this is not a competition. We must not let these people down any more than we have already done and we should not let the tarnished reputation of this country worsen any more. Surely there is only one answer and that is yes , with no ifs and buts.
By the way well said GillT57

Population Densities:

UK as a whole: 279 people per square km.

England : 434 people per square km.

Scotland : 70 people per square km.

France: 119 " " " "

Germany: 234 " " "

Canada: 3 " " "

USA: 33 " " "

I think this puts it all in perspective. At these figures, no wonder Alegrias says there is "plenty of room" but to quote a well-known phrase "opinions may vary" for those of us in England.

Can I just point out the bleedin obvious? It isn't the fault of Afghan refugees that this country has a shortage of decent affordable housing, a shortage of hospital beds, a shortage of school places. THE FAULT LIES WITH THE GOVERNMENT.

5000 is a needle in a hay stack, isn’t it?

Britain does have a problem in that we’re unable to house and care for the people who are already here but why not use this as an opportunity to help others and help ourselves, by building more homes and providing more services. I’m sure some of the refugees would have skills they’d love to use, too. I suspect many of the refugees will be young, it could infuse new blood into our ageing society.

Whether I like it or not, we are all still one happy (?) family in the UK so the average is across the whole country, and if one part is busy and another isn't, then we're not "full".

Alegrias You were the one who said there was plenty of room. I just pointed out that this isn't the case in some other areas.

Its easy is it? We're all running around our Highland Estates using walkie talkies to communicate with each other because we're so spread out.

I've posted about this before, but I heard Rory Stewart talk once, he was good but tried to tell the people of Glasgow that they didn't understand the implications of immigration and didn't understand how difficult it was to welcome immigrants to a busy city. He got tellt.

Tweet in the last 5 minutes from the UK Ambassador to Afghanistan, he's still in Kabul and processing "British Nationals and Afghanistan's who have worked with us in the past". Says they got 700 out yesterday and are working to speed up the process. Photos of his team working with laptops at the Evacuation Handling Centre. If you want to check the twitter feed, @laurie_bristow Doing his job!

Ok Sparklefizz, as I live in a similar area what do you feel the problem is with attracting keyworkers to your area?

I think it is the high cost of housing in my area versus local wages. I honestly think it is that simple. For example, so many of my daughter's social workers, specialist teachers and Drs mover further North permanently because they can afford to buy a house on their wages and have a better lifestyle. Finding carers is a nightmare

I'm not sure what this has to do with refugees though

Alegrias It's easy to do that, though, if you've got the space.

Sparklefizz

Alegrias It may not be "full" where you live in Scotland, but some parts of England are indeed "full". It's not just homes that have to be built but all the necessary infrastructure. Hospitals, schools and doctors are all overloaded in my area and roads are gridlocked. Proportionately maybe more should be relocated in Scotland?

I agree that the UK should take as many Afghan refugees as we can manage, but the key word is "manage". Much larger countries need to take more refugees.

There are 650 parliamentary constituencies in the UK. If the UK were to commit to taking 20,000 over the next few months/weeks, are you seriously claiming that each constituency couldn't cope with, on average, 30 extra people?

Fine. Send them up here. Where I live in Scotland.

As Blackford pointed out in the Commons this morning Scotland already understands our responsibility to refugees, and acts on it.

Alegrias It may not be "full" where you live in Scotland, but some parts of England are indeed "full". It's not just homes that have to be built but all the necessary infrastructure. Hospitals, schools and doctors are all overloaded in my area and roads are gridlocked. Proportionately maybe more should be relocated in Scotland?

I agree that the UK should take as many Afghan refugees as we can manage, but the key word is "manage". Much larger countries need to take more refugees.

JaneJudge

I was thinking the same. Tobias basically said the decisions being made were not what the majority of the house wanted.

I cannot stand all the heckling and joking

Nor I jane where is the dignity and self respect?

I seem to remember supporting petitions about interpreters months ago . Why the delay? Dreadful time wasting by the government, but delay seems to be a speciality of Johnson.

What motivates posters to try to defend any of this? I think we should take as many Afghan refugees that we can hold. Which is quite a lot actually if you ignore the ridiculous idea that we are "full".

Listening to those Tory MPs who actually have some knowledge and are talking with authority about what its like to be a soldier and what the Afghan crisis means to them just shows Johnson for what he is. A complete incompetent who just wants the glory and none of the responsibility.

Whitewavemark2

Tom Hugendhat speech extraordinarily powerful

Tobias Elwood - speech devastating

Not sure how Johnson will survive this long term.

Won’t you be happy then. Our combat troops left in 20014, since then only training and surveillance. You do realise we were only a small part of this, yet you seem to think we should take the lions share of refugees.

Yes we should help by accepting refugees. Do I know how it could best be done, beating in mind the number of existing UK citizens below the poverty line? No.
Andy Burnham had a good point about making all areas in the UK take some responsibility for accepting numbers.
I’m still reeling from the shock of being told on FB that ‘they should be sent where there are already lots of immigrants, not to places where tourists like to visit!’