What is the answer here?

MaizieD

^Please show me where I said otherwise, or am I not allowed to think there may be some economic migrants on board.^

Of course you can think whatever you like, Linclass. I just think that it feels like prejudging, and hostility.

Think what you like. It makes no difference to me.

My OH's dad did, in 1947- and when he got a job and a place to live, his wife came over, and when she got a job, and they found a bigger place, the children, who had been left with relatives in South Africa, joined them in 1948. Yes, they needed some support at first- but all of them contributed hugely to the UK in so many ways. OH and sibblings all did so well, next generation too, and the current generation knows so little of what their great-grand parents had to do to secure their safety, education, health, and so much more. HUGE contributors, all of them.

Most of us will remember this clearly

''I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.''

Norman Tebbit.

Wouldn't you?

Please show me where I said otherwise, or am I not allowed to think there may be some economic migrants on board.

Of course you can think whatever you like, Linclass. I just think that it feels like prejudging, and hostility.

Most migrants are both - fleeing conditions in their country, for fear of their life, but also wanting to get an education, for themselves or their children, be able to find a hold, somehow, so they can help family back home (it is no wonder young fit men go first... because they have the best chance).

100s and 1000s of our forebears were both, economic migrants too- who moved all over the world to find a better, safer life- and jobs too. First just across the water from Ireland, or from North to South, or across the water into Europe and on to USA and Australia.

I know one thing, if I lived in a country with no hope, with war, famine, constant hunger and fear of being blown up, and no chance of an education - I'd go and try, and try again- and then try to help my family back home, one way or another.

I mean it was not long ago that people in this country were told 'to get on their bike'.

MaizieD

Lincslass

Hetty58

Redhead56, I saw that programme too. It was so upsetting.
They were certainly in real peril on that little overcrowded boat. We are talking, overwhelmingly, about refugees - fellow human beings, those desperate enough to risk their lives, even those of their small children, to get away from appalling conditions at home.

Economic migrants are a different matter, far more likely to have a choice (and to choose) a safer, more comfortable way, such as overstaying a visa, going off radar and disappearing into the shadow economy. (We should never pay cash to support that.)

Where is the indignant outcry about these people? They live and work here simply to have a better, more prosperous life, pay no taxes, send funds back to families and arrange for others to follow them.

We don't know how many there are, they stay hidden, not on the news, out of the public eye - so let's just pick on the poor desperate ones instead - disgraceful!

We really don’t know how many of these channel crossers are economic migrants though, they “lose their papers, and are very clever at hiding amongst genuine refugees. They are handed taxpayer mobile phones, calls paid by us too, and are interviewed over the phone. How can we possibly know who has the right to be here and claim asylum, who has not. Ever since Gordon Brown implemented his open borders policy, in 2004, every chancer has had his opportunity to illegally enter the UK. This can often harden peoples minds against genuine refugees. Just another point of view.

How about innocent until proved guilty?

Please show me where I said otherwise, or am I not allowed to think there may be some economic migrants on board.

Don't know what the answer is- but Brexit has (yes, truly) made this much much worse as we have lost the cooperation of the EU. As migrants want to come to UK (language, contacts, etc)- the EU is quite happy to let them through and on their way. Not their problem anymore. We did warn about this, again and again some more- you called it Project Fear.

Lincslass

Hetty58

Redhead56, I saw that programme too. It was so upsetting.
They were certainly in real peril on that little overcrowded boat. We are talking, overwhelmingly, about refugees - fellow human beings, those desperate enough to risk their lives, even those of their small children, to get away from appalling conditions at home.

Economic migrants are a different matter, far more likely to have a choice (and to choose) a safer, more comfortable way, such as overstaying a visa, going off radar and disappearing into the shadow economy. (We should never pay cash to support that.)

Where is the indignant outcry about these people? They live and work here simply to have a better, more prosperous life, pay no taxes, send funds back to families and arrange for others to follow them.

We don't know how many there are, they stay hidden, not on the news, out of the public eye - so let's just pick on the poor desperate ones instead - disgraceful!

We really don’t know how many of these channel crossers are economic migrants though, they “lose their papers, and are very clever at hiding amongst genuine refugees. They are handed taxpayer mobile phones, calls paid by us too, and are interviewed over the phone. How can we possibly know who has the right to be here and claim asylum, who has not. Ever since Gordon Brown implemented his open borders policy, in 2004, every chancer has had his opportunity to illegally enter the UK. This can often harden peoples minds against genuine refugees. Just another point of view.

How about innocent until proved guilty?

Hetty58

Redhead56, I saw that programme too. It was so upsetting.
They were certainly in real peril on that little overcrowded boat. We are talking, overwhelmingly, about refugees - fellow human beings, those desperate enough to risk their lives, even those of their small children, to get away from appalling conditions at home.

Economic migrants are a different matter, far more likely to have a choice (and to choose) a safer, more comfortable way, such as overstaying a visa, going off radar and disappearing into the shadow economy. (We should never pay cash to support that.)

Where is the indignant outcry about these people? They live and work here simply to have a better, more prosperous life, pay no taxes, send funds back to families and arrange for others to follow them.

We don't know how many there are, they stay hidden, not on the news, out of the public eye - so let's just pick on the poor desperate ones instead - disgraceful!

We really don’t know how many of these channel crossers are economic migrants though, they “lose their papers, and are very clever at hiding amongst genuine refugees. They are handed taxpayer mobile phones, calls paid by us too, and are interviewed over the phone. How can we possibly know who has the right to be here and claim asylum, who has not. Ever since Gordon Brown implemented his open borders policy, in 2004, every chancer has had his opportunity to illegally enter the UK. This can often harden peoples minds against genuine refugees. Just another point of view.

If the aim is to stop the profiteering by those who cram little boats full of desperate people, charging them enormous amounts of money that the refugees could actually use when they get here, then surely that’s a valid aim.
However it doesn’t solve the problem for those same desperate refugees.

Migration has had peaks after warfare, after WW2, Gulf Wars, Balkan War and currently the Afghan and Syrian wars, it can be expected to reduce if we stop interfering in other countries affairs.
Presently the population is increasing by .5% each year around 1000 per day, that’s net migration, too, no doubt we will still get economic migrants but war displaced should reduce.

Redhead56, I saw that programme too. It was so upsetting.
They were certainly in real peril on that little overcrowded boat. We are talking, overwhelmingly, about refugees - fellow human beings, those desperate enough to risk their lives, even those of their small children, to get away from appalling conditions at home.

Economic migrants are a different matter, far more likely to have a choice (and to choose) a safer, more comfortable way, such as overstaying a visa, going off radar and disappearing into the shadow economy. (We should never pay cash to support that.)

Where is the indignant outcry about these people? They live and work here simply to have a better, more prosperous life, pay no taxes, send funds back to families and arrange for others to follow them.

We don't know how many there are, they stay hidden, not on the news, out of the public eye - so let's just pick on the poor desperate ones instead - disgraceful!

Aye, whatever.

A bit like, oh I don't know... questioning why posters are posting on particular threads that you don't think they are interested in?

I didn't say I agreed with the policy and you can shout all you like that you disagree, Alegrias, but saying:

Can we just stop trying to say that Australia's immigration policy is in any way something we should be trying to copy?

is trying to control what other posters say and police the threads.

As a matter of interest, why do people think we should be entitled to own second homes while we have a major housing shortage? (Ducks!)

Read the thread. Its all explained in simple words.

Its a free country, anyone can post what they like (is that an echo...?) but if anyone misrepresents the success or even the humanity of the Australian model, I'll be shouting. Loud.

Anyway it was a question. People can keep showing how little understanding they have of international politics all they like.

Can we just stop trying to say that Australia's immigration policy is in any way something we should be trying to copy?

Why, Alegrias?

All you need to do is say you disagree, not try to stop other Gransnetters posting their opinions and queries.

No one person owns the threads.

I don’t think some people realise how many people are on the move right now because of climate change.
Have you seen Bangladesh? The Western Sahara?
Have you seen what the Chinese factory trawlers have done to the fishing villages down the western coast of Africa: they are decimated.
I’m not saying, come one, come all because immigration has to be managed so we can plan our resources.

Sorry here is the link.
uk.news.yahoo.com/build-partnerships-migration-crisis-rather-100544273.html

Read about Tom Tugenhat today, and his remarks, perhaps this would be a better solution. We blame the French, they blame us for having lax work and ID regulations. Working together would seem a better option.

Most people do not want to leave the place they were born and grew up. People will only do it if they are forced to because of danger to their lives or starvation. Maybe we should put our efforts into making where they live better so they don't want to come here rather making our borders stronger so they just try harder. There needs to be some sort of carrot and stick approach to persuade governments to behave in a reasonable civilized way to their people.

As this is a problem which seems to be ongoing and never ending, will people still be saying the same thing when the numbers are in the millions instead of the thousands? There is not enough of anything for these numbers of people. They can't even be processed on arrival any more, the whole system has broken down. We do not have enough homes, our NHS is literally on its knees, the schools are unable to cope, how can we keep accepting more people without completely breaking our infrastructure? And just remember, the UK is a very small country compared to others. We cannot keep building on what we have left of agricultural land. We have a whopping 67.2 million people here while New Zealand at roughly the same size has only 5 million, about half the population of London. Those figures alone should be ringing alarm bells.

Sarnia

Redhead56

I watched a documentary about the lifeboats last week. The staff were getting grief from the public because they rescued migrants from a dinghy.
It was upsetting for the lifeboat staff they just want to save lives. These wonderful volunteers do a brave and daring job unpaid. With no support from the government who are burying their heads in the sand. If the life boat staff are getting abuse for saving migrants it's not surprising they are taking time off. It was sad to see the immigrants there were little children amongst them. It was an upsetting programme to watch and its a situation that is not going away.

I watched this and really felt for the lifeboat crew pulled in two directions. It's a situation that has been going on for too long with no effective procedure and as you say is not going away.

I too watched it, and felt ashamed that these brave people of the Lifeboat crews had been abused. Whatever you feel about the situation, no one wants to see anyone drowning, do they.

Scones

Your mentioning building and poor housing Lincslass has made me think about the shortage of housing for immigrants and for the population in general. We all know housing is short and one of the reasons for this is second home ownership.

The last English Housing Survey estimated that 772,000 households had a second home in 2018/19. Of those, 495,000 were in the UK, an increase of 77% in the past 10 years. That's over 380,000 UK homes taken out of the market between 2008 and 2018.

Now obviously people have an absolute right to have a second home if they wish, but if those homes could be owned or even rented long term by another family perhaps an immigrant family then at least the homes wouldn't be standing empty hollowing out rural and coastal communities.

My remote coastal town has many second homes. Young people can't afford to buy or rent here and so move away. The population ages, schools close, bus services are scrapped and there are no young people to provide essential services e.g. builders, plumbers, chefs, carers. Young immigrant families would fill an ever increasing gap here and their children would breathe life into the place.

www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/we-need-to-address-the-problem-of-second-homes-72386

I too live in a coastal town, we have had a small immigrant population for many many years, lucky because we all seem to get along together, and we’ve had some new arrivals, seem to be more transient though. Second homes, well if you can’t live in a house and it stands empty, that is something that needs looking at. A landlord I know does rent his house out to immigrant families, usually those on an accreditation scheme we have for medical personnel. Most of our jobs are filled by locals and immigrants so a good mix as it should be, and we have a thriving younger generation working in the area. Some immigrants may be able to fill posts, as I’ve said previously. Some will take a lot of integration and training before they can do so.

The problem is we really don’t know who is coming into the country. Many of the migrants destroy any documents that can identify them so returning anyone to their own country is impossible. Once they are here they are here. This is whether they are genuine migrants or not. As we have seen earlier this week even migrants who have been tried by the Courts and convicted of very serious crimes cannot be deported as a result of human rights lawyers using every loop hole possible to ensure they stay here. Very lucrative for these lawyers who are paid by the tax payer.