Refugees

I thank my lucky stars that, by accident of birth, I was born on this safe and fairly prosperous island.
That doesn’t make it my right to own it. Those, by accident of birth, born in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola or anywhere else should have has much right as I should to live in any corner of the planet.
Human beings should be able to choose to live freely anywhere and be treated equally and with compassion, understanding and civility.
Where did this idea come from that any of us own a country and have a right to say who lives in it.

Exactly Glorianny
The traffikers are the profiteers in this situation, not the people who want a better life and have been sold a 'dream'.

As 'luluaugust' said I wonder how long it takes before reality sets in.

Provide someone with a roof and the opportunity and means to work and they become net contributors to society. We need more workers. If they can’t be found from the existing population (and it seems that we can't) then we need to encourage people to move here.

The ONS have estimated population growth between now and mid 2030s which includes factoring in net migration of 2.2 million. It’s the government’s job to plan for housing, education, healthcare and jobs to meet the needs of a growing population including putting the necessary structures in place to process applications to live here quickly and fairly and decently.

Despite having had twelve years in power they still haven’t got it right, in fact they have got it catastrophically wrong. If they were to stop their manufactured class war, setting person against person as a distraction from their ineptitude, aided and abetted by the right wing media, and just get on with what they are paid to do, there would be enough for everybody and we might actually achieve some economic growth instead being at the bottom of the G20.

LauraNorderr

I thank my lucky stars that, by accident of birth, I was born on this safe and fairly prosperous island.
That doesn’t make it my right to own it. Those, by accident of birth, born in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola or anywhere else should have has much right as I should to live in any corner of the planet.
Human beings should be able to choose to live freely anywhere and be treated equally and with compassion, understanding and civility.
Where did this idea come from that any of us own a country and have a right to say who lives in it.

What nonsense. if you don't protect your own country there would be a free for all and total anarchy. People going wherever they wish all over the world? They will obviously choose more prosperous western democracies resulting in a complete imbalance, the poorer countries losing their workforce and becoming poorer and the richer countries becoming overloaded and bloated with too many people.
I would rather we helped these countries become more stable and prosperous so they can support their own people.

It’s the government’s job to plan for housing, education, healthcare and jobs to meet the needs of a growing population including putting the necessary structures in place to process applications to live here quickly and fairly and decently.

Well said, CaravanSerai.

I often wonder what people think that the government's job actually is. I've thought several times that it might be worth starting a thread on it because there doesn't seem to be agreement on this forum about what a governments should do for the country.

The Government's plan for 'tackling the traffickers' seems ridiculous to me. I'm only a simple soul but I see a simpler method. ie recruit some of the newly arrived in the UK refugees. transport them back to France with some money to contact the traffickers and pass all the information back to the UK. Then the traffickers could at best be arrested, tried, convicted or at least forced out of business.

Perhaps this already happens and obviously would be kept secret. As has been said on here with respect to Putin - Where is James Bond when you need him?

^ People going wherever they wish all over the world?^

That's what people have done for centuries.

I find this statement strangely ironic from a member of the country that, over those centuries, walked into other countries all over the globe and claimed them for its own

MaizieD The world was a very different place back then and most countries were sparsely populated. I think you know that. Today we have borders and passports. Countries need to keep control of their population in order to provide for them. We now have huge numbers of people moving around between countries so it's not possible for people to go wherever they wish.

It does seem to be a widespread thought that if we don't transport these people to Rwanda than we are just being soft and the whole world will come here.

Those who have actually followed the truth of this will know that we have a tiny proportion of the world's refugees. We're not overrun. And nobody at all is advocating a free for all. Most people are advocating a fair and humane system for assessing refugees. Why do people think we just want to throw open the borders and not have any checks?

Personally, I think it's fear, and a stirring up of hatred by the government and the right wing press.

Lucca

This obsession with “mobile phones”…how else could anybody manage to travel, apply for visas, find work, maintain contact with family. Seriously, how ?

A few years ago, there was a massive fire in an industrial building close to our homes.
We were woken up by Police banging on doors at 1.00 am telling us we had to be 'evacuated' while the emergency services dealt with the situation.
I quickly dressed and grabbed medication, my dogs and my mobile phone before leaving....I've spoken to others who have sadly been in similar situations due to floods, power issues / storms etc and as I did, mobiles are usually amongst the first items taken so totally in agreement with you.

Johnson keeps saying we need to grow the economy and provide more jobs. How will that work if we don't invest in the future and have enough people to work?

I posted elsewhere that only 8% of the UK is developed which includes all the infrastructure and greens space within that 8%.

There are currently 28 millions homes i.e. 3.5 million homes for every 1% of developed land. So we could build another 3.5 million homes together with all the necessary infrastructure and still only use another 1%.

In 2019, the government promised 300,000 new homes a year but is failing to deliver. Why do people think that might be?

If it had kept its promise, by 2030 we would have had 3.5 million new homes.

It was Tory MP Laura Trott, speaking in the HoC just a few weeks ago, who said we need new towns. I think she's right but to get that we need a government which has a long-term social vision and I don't see this in Johnson's rudderless administration.

volver Those who have actually followed the truth of this will know that we have a tiny proportion of the world's refugees. We're not overrun.
But we are a tiny country! And heavily populated. And as there are thousands arriving on boats all the time it won't be long before we are overrun. We cannot provide homes for the people living here already. And British taxpayers cannot afford to provide healthcare and education for the whole world.

CaravanSerai Building more homes is already eating up our green spaces and our farming land. My question is: where will it end? Build another 3 million homes and you will find by then another 3 million are required. I'm afraid people are just not thinking ahead.

But we're not over-run. That's just a fallacy. What does "overrun" mean, anyway?

We are spending money on failed flights to Rwanda that could have been spent on building new houses. Or training new health workers, or improving the transport infrastructure. And so much else is being wasted; all the money spent on a failed Track and Trace, etc.

All that we spend is a choice, and recent governments have decided to blame the "other" instead of spending money on worthwhile projects. We're not paying for things for the whole world, of course there has to be limits on the people we accept but raging against some poor tortured Iraqi doesn't make more homes for the people already living here.

Why anyone thinks the whole world is desperate to come to the U.K. defeats me. Why can’t we cooperate with our neighbours to combat the traffickers , which is the only real solution ? And why this pretence that the government is trying to save lives? Plus if life in Rwanda is going to be so good for these folks why would it be a deterrent?

I'm afraid people are just not thinking ahead.

Its just so unfair and so wrong to say that.

It's the people who are thinking ahead that are trying to solve the problem. The politicians who think sending people to Rwanda is the answer are the ones with no vision and no capacity for strategic thinking.

Close inspection of what Patel maintains will happen to the asylum seekers in Rwanda simply doesn’t stand up to what she says will happen.

Once again the government is lying.

What they hope is that once the cargo of misery is dumped on Rwanda, the U.K. population will forget the immoral and appalling action and move on.

Well they haven’t learned have they.

We haven’t moved on from

Prorogation,
Brexit,
Lying
Corruption
Cronyism
Fraud,
Partygate
Incompetence
NI protocol
And now Rwanda.

The list is enormous

One of the things I find puzzling about some of these attitudes to refugees is how many of the people who complain and who insist they aren't racist were willing to welcome Ukranians. Do they not realise that most of the refugees are fleeing from countries just like Ukraine, war torn, totalist regimes where their life is threatened? Why one lot but not the others?

I remember about 20 yrs ago, in the Hospital I work in, having to do some Cardiac Ultra sound on a Male "Refugee" aged about 40 yrs who had been detained at a Local Detention Centre. He arrived with wardens as security.
This guy had no English, but he had a serious heart condition.
On speaking to the Consultant Cardiologist about this chap, he told me that at that time, a lot of these people are only here for our NHS, we fix them for free then they got deported home. They knew this was the deal and was one of the reasons they came here.
He told me he was there nearly every week assessing the detainees , they all know we will sort their problem out.

I have no idea how he got into the UK but it wasn't legal.

Everyone has views on migrants. What I would suggest is everyone who deplores the schemes thought up by others, everyone being Prince Charles ,activists, Do Goode’s. Let’s hear your solutions for the problem? Apart from building houses on every scrap of green land? With no Doctors, Shops, Schools, What are we to do about homeless British people begging in the streets, the six million people waiting for operations on the NHS. Unable to see a doctor? Or...... is there another reason all of this is happening, other than too many people living in the UK. I invite your comments

If every application for refugee status had been granted last year, it would have amounted to 1 person for every 6th town. Many of those applicants have families already and working in the U.K. so housing will not be such an issue.

The U.K. is short of employees in various areas like hospitality, health, agriculture since they all went back to Europe before Brexit.

But the point is not every applicant will be successful whichever government is in power, and applications are dealt with by the courts.

These arguments were all flogged during the Brexit debate. Same argument different people that is all.

kgnw28225

Everyone has views on migrants. What I would suggest is everyone who deplores the schemes thought up by others, everyone being Prince Charles ,activists, Do Goode’s. Let’s hear your solutions for the problem? Apart from building houses on every scrap of green land? With no Doctors, Shops, Schools, What are we to do about homeless British people begging in the streets, the six million people waiting for operations on the NHS. Unable to see a doctor? Or...... is there another reason all of this is happening, other than too many people living in the UK. I invite your comments

You are muddling immigrants with asylum seekers.

The two are different in law.

Visgir1

I remember about 20 yrs ago, in the Hospital I work in, having to do some Cardiac Ultra sound on a Male "Refugee" aged about 40 yrs who had been detained at a Local Detention Centre. He arrived with wardens as security.
This guy had no English, but he had a serious heart condition.
On speaking to the Consultant Cardiologist about this chap, he told me that at that time, a lot of these people are only here for our NHS, we fix them for free then they got deported home. They knew this was the deal and was one of the reasons they came here.
He told me he was there nearly every week assessing the detainees , they all know we will sort their problem out.

I have no idea how he got into the UK but it wasn't legal.

Well sorry, but I'm not sure your Consultant Cardiologist is an expert in immigration law or knew any better than the rest of us what brought people here.

You know, I'm not sure that people with serious heart conditions are just lining up to risk their lives by getting into dinghies and sailing across the Channel so that they can have their serious heart conditions looked at.

Life in Britain in 2022.

Nobody has any other solution to offer.

Here's a solution!

No, not that one.

kgnw28225 It has been said numerous times- the only realistic way of tackling this is to cooperate with our European neighbours and tackle the criminal gangs - this can only be done through international cooperation. also the Home Office needs to speed up the asylum process - it can take years and in that time asylum seekers are not allowed to contribute to the economy. We should also introduce ID cards as they do in Italy and France, would tackle the problem of truly illegal immigrants working under the radar. There should be legal routes open to potential migrants to apply so they can be screened before they get here. Of course those who voted Brexit to “control our borders” must be seriously disappointed in the fact that there are more migrants now than before, the Home Office is a joke, and our government have shown our country to be untrustworthy and inhumane so cooperation with others becomes less likely.