Excellent article on economic migrants from genuine refugee

Grantanow

The Holocaust is irrelevant. Austria was safe for Jews in 1956. Yes, I did read the article. There was no need to venture further.

Yes there was! They could not accommodate them all.

growstuff

I'm puzzled too foxie. Furedi and his family were fleeing Hungary, not Austria.

See my post further down. Austria could not cope with so many Hungarians. Canada offered to take them as they had far more room and paid for transport and support.

Grantanow

Why didn't Furedi's parents and their kids stay in Austria - a safe country? If they arrived on UK shores today they would have been assessed for Rwanda as having travelled through safe countries. Of course, they're white which might have affected the result. Where are the safe and legal routes for refugees? The article fails to explore that.

Austria was a safe country but over 200,000 Hungarians arrived there mainly on foot and the country was soon overwhelmed.

They appealed for other countries to help and Canada offered free transport and support for the first year to Hungarians and Frank Furedi’s family emigrated there. I believe as time went on they took in 300,000 Hungarians but they wanted them and it was all legal.

Frank did not come to The UK until much later by which time he had completed his University education in Canada.

They were genuine refugees as he explains, not economic migrants who destroy their identities and pay people smugglers to get them to the UK, passing through countless safe countries to get here.

Good article thanks Primrose53
Also really good interesting comments Terribull👏🏻👏🏻

Germany is now wishing it hadn’t let so many migrants in as there are problems there.
It’s true that all European countries need migrant workers but not uncontrolled migration or thousands arriving every other day illegally on small boats.

Luckygirl3

The suggestion that only refugees from violence and terror are acceptable and economic migrants are somehow not makes no sense. Large chunks of our NHS are staffed with people who chose to emigrate here for financial and life opportunity reasons.

We need to "process" both through our immigration system in a decent and humane way.

Large numbers of staff, 24.2%, in the NHS, of minority staff, come here legally , with proof of training etc, and quite rightly undergo orientation and exams, to make sure they are fully qualified to work . My neighbour is one such. No country should be expected to take someone with no documentation , or proof of qualifications just so they can fill a gap in our NHS. If they want to do this there are opportunities , same as when my friend went to Australia, after giving 10 years to NHS.

Foxie48
Would you say that John Humphrys is a strange bedfellow for anyone on the right
He is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail.
Would you say the same for Michael Crick ( founder member of the channel 4 news team) who now is a regular contributor on GBNews.

Thank you Foxie.

some "Expert".
His LinkedIn page shows his current areas of interest.
It takes me back to the ever splitting furious ultra left discussions of the 70's at Uni. Little contact with reality or real people.

No he wouldn't be welcome in the LP.

I had to smile when I read his entry in wiki, he's a strange bedfellow for anyone on the right and I doubt he'd be welcomed into the LP either. Clearly the DM doesn't mind who they feature as long as they peddle the "right" stuff for their readers. tbh I think he's rather "lost the plot".
A former student radical, he became involved in left-wing politics in Britain in the 1970s; in particular, as a member of the International Socialists (IS), under the pseudonym Frank Richards. With his followers, he was expelled from the IS in 1973 and formed the Revolutionary Communist Group, and then broke from that in 1976 to form the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, refounded as the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1978.[7]

The RCP was distinguished by its contrarianism, commitment to theoretical elaboration and hostility to state intervention in social life. Among its positions were support for the IRA and Saddam Hussein.[7]

In December 1990, the RCP's magazine Living Marxism ran an article by Furedi, entitled "Midnight in the Century", which argued that the corrosive effect of the collapse of both Stalinism and reformism on the working class meant that "for the time being at least, the working class has no political existence".[8] This signalled a re-orientation of the party towards more libertarian positions, and its formal dissolution by the end of the decade.

The suggestion that only refugees from violence and terror are acceptable and economic migrants are somehow not makes no sense. Large chunks of our NHS are staffed with people who chose to emigrate here for financial and life opportunity reasons.

We need to "process" both through our immigration system in a decent and humane way.

Germany have a huge immigrant workforce they can call on but it appears they aren’t the migrants they need. They have a huge problem recruiting skilled workers.

foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/22/skilled-migrants-arent-interested-in-germany/

The Holocaust is irrelevant. Austria was safe for Jews in 1956. Yes, I did read the article. There was no need to venture further.

I'm puzzled too foxie. Furedi and his family were fleeing Hungary, not Austria.

M0nica

^Why didn't Furedi's parents and their kids stay in Austria - a safe country?^

Grantanow. Did you read the article. Frank Furedi and his parents were Jewish and living in Austria in the 1930s. Many in his family who stayed in Austria died in concentration camps. It was called the Holocaust.

This was in 1956 and in the article, Furedi, himself, says in fact, the truck was an Austrian ambulance. We were over the border, safe in the free West.

Furedi originally emigrated to Canada, thus leapfrogging many safe countries. By 1956, Austria was a safe country for Jews.

Why didn't Furedi's parents and their kids stay in Austria - a safe country?

Grantanow. Did you read the article. Frank Furedi and his parents were Jewish and living in Austria in the 1930s. Many in his family who stayed in Austria died in concentration camps. It was called the Holocaust.

foxie48

Having read the article my first thought is, had the Hungarian uprising happened now instead of in 1956, the 9 year old Frank Furedi would have found himself crossing the channel in a boat to reach the UK with the possibility of being sent to Rwanda. His family would have been travelling without the necessary permission to enter the UK legally and he would have already passed through a number of "safe" countries. Many of the refugees arriving on our shores by boat come from Afghanistan, Iran and other countries where there are highly repressive states. tbh I am struggling to see the difference except we no longer have a properly functioning way of processing refugees and separating them from economic migrants without permission to stay, who should be sent home. I think he is ranting against the House of Lords in an extremely odd way!

This is an extremely good point.

I find it strange that this opinion piece is being held up as an article as though it was an actual journalistic piece.

foxie48

Having read the article my first thought is, had the Hungarian uprising happened now instead of in 1956, the 9 year old Frank Furedi would have found himself crossing the channel in a boat to reach the UK with the possibility of being sent to Rwanda. His family would have been travelling without the necessary permission to enter the UK legally and he would have already passed through a number of "safe" countries. Many of the refugees arriving on our shores by boat come from Afghanistan, Iran and other countries where there are highly repressive states. tbh I am struggling to see the difference except we no longer have a properly functioning way of processing refugees and separating them from economic migrants without permission to stay, who should be sent home. I think he is ranting against the House of Lords in an extremely odd way!

I stand with, you foxie48, as well as with WWM2, Grantanow, westendgirl, Luckygirl13, MaisieD and much of what TerriBull has to say. Although I voted remain during the Brexit referendum, I have always maintained that the most shocking and inexplicable omission of the EU parliament has been the failure to work with other global entities to make a just and fair plan to assess the needs, skills and bona fides of asylum seekers, including any family connections in another country, and deploy them accordingly with appropriate support. The failure to draw up and implement and affective plan to deal with Climate Change is a close second. Expecting Greece and Italy - and other of the first countries in the vicinity asylums seekers may reach - is unrealistic, not least because many of those have economies that are even more dysfunctional than our own.

There are no safe and legal routes ar present and Furedi would have had to get here by whatever means they could.
Primrose don't you realise that often families club together to send their young to a new life in the hope that they will then be able to send for them when they are settled and working.
Interesting to hear that Germany , who have taken in many more immigrants,welcome them to fill the gaps where there are shortages in employment. Here of course they are not allowed to work and thus contribute to this country. This is , of course deliberate .The Tory party desperately looking for votes .

I think I'm always surprised when other people are surprised that amongst the large raft of different ethnically diverse and multi religious people that make up our population, that they wouldn't assume that those newcomers won't have just as many pluses and minuses as the indigenous population. It's often been mooted by high profile black people, that there is an expectation amongst Labour and the left that is where their natural allegiances should lie with an expectation that the left largely owns the black vote. Why? are these people a homogenised mass anymore than other sectors of the population, and even to think that is, imo somewhat insulting. I also wonder if you were of the opinion that people from different ethnic origins all have liberal views on a range of subjects, do you actually know any people from a different racial background? . When I briefly lived in South London there was a thriving black pentecostal community, they hold deeply conservative views on a whole gamut of issues, including gay marriage, as indeed would their Muslim counterparts. I know my black British friend, just like me, would admit to voting for both the two major political parties at different times and from our last meet up we both said we felt right now we wouldn't vote for either. Occasionally I have been really shocked by the views of some I have known from a different ethnic background, for example my Malaysian girlfriend who I met at ante natal, is ethnically Chinese and told me quite categorically that she couldn't be friends with a Muslim. her words "we don't get on with them where I come from, Penang, we the Chinese in Malaysia are being out bred and marginalised by them" she also went on to add that her mother till her dying day hated the Japanese, based on what they went through during the war. However, I don't think anything left me more gob smacked than this, from my Iranian neighbour, we often talked about Iran when she lived here. They were of Zoroastrian faith which I learned was the ancient religion of Persia and a persecuted minority, they fled during the Iranian Revolution after The Ayatollahs took over. I remember this conversation in particular when she told me how much she missed Iran and hoped to go back in her words "It's getting so much better over there now you can get designer labels such as Dolce and Gabbana" me "well surely it takes more than D&G to make somewhere an acceptable place to live, after all they still publicly execute people in all manner of horrible ways" her "yes but that only the lower classes" Good grief! Eventually, she went back to Iran, she'd separated from her Iranian husband who lived in Switzerland. Their daughter remained in the house, she had a live in boyfriend at the time, who was absolutely a top bloke, lovely person, really good job, South African mixed race, Iranian parents weren't happy about that at all, Haleh the daughter would say, "they're a bit old school" about him, not much! her mother even rang us up from Iran from time to time, she had our number, asking our opinion as to his character because he was mixed race , and he had to be spirited out of the house if they came over, because they didn't want to meet him. One of my sons brought a black girlfriend home when they were at uni together, didn't bother us, to me it's all about the person not the colour of their skin, that relationship fizzled out but she was as welcome as any other girlfriends that passed through my children's lives.

Why didn't Furedi's parents and their kids stay in Austria - a safe country? If they arrived on UK shores today they would have been assessed for Rwanda as having travelled through safe countries. Of course, they're white which might have affected the result. Where are the safe and legal routes for refugees? The article fails to explore that.

BlueBelle

Some people are so short sighted you have no idea how many future doctors, dentists solicitors, surgeons are amongst the so called illegals you have to have money to pay the boat rates
If you were desperate wouldn’t you try anything to get your family to safety Have you looked at the places that are being lived in in Sudan while people are fleeing war and destruction
And meanwhile waiting list for operations are getting longer and people pull out their own teeth and fruit rots in fields
🙄

But they don’t! These fit young men leave their wives and kids behind to get on with things. It is very rare you see a child or a woman on a boat.

Well said Foxie. I felt that his diatribe against the Lords was over the top, but perhaps he has a reason.

Having read the article my first thought is, had the Hungarian uprising happened now instead of in 1956, the 9 year old Frank Furedi would have found himself crossing the channel in a boat to reach the UK with the possibility of being sent to Rwanda. His family would have been travelling without the necessary permission to enter the UK legally and he would have already passed through a number of "safe" countries. Many of the refugees arriving on our shores by boat come from Afghanistan, Iran and other countries where there are highly repressive states. tbh I am struggling to see the difference except we no longer have a properly functioning way of processing refugees and separating them from economic migrants without permission to stay, who should be sent home. I think he is ranting against the House of Lords in an extremely odd way!

Thank you to whoever moved this for me.👏👏

I don't for one minute believe migration is an either or situation, in a good or bad sense, like anything else there are massive nuanced variables and a multitude of outcomes both positive and negative with migrants, economic or otherwise. In many respects it is needed to help countries flourish. So of course migrants can be a massive benefit, look how wonderfully well the Ugandian Asians for example, adapted, thrived and benefited both our country and themselves. To that add a multitude of other people from different places around the world. No way is anyone going to tell me I'm a Little Englander, two thirds of my family are not of the indigenous population of this country and when they came here they stayed here and clearly they thought England was a place worth coming to, which is just as well because I wouldn't be here otherwise. My earliest school friends who I still retain are from families with two Irish parents, my first husband was a foreigner who came to England as a student. Both my husband and I have friends from different ethnic backgrounds, one of my longest standing friends of nearly 50 years, we met at work, is West Indian. Another close friend, and the only one I retained from pre and post natal days is Malaysian. Where I lived previously our next door neighbours were Iranian, the mum of the household eventually went back to Iran but told us we were the best neighbours she ever had, and the daughter of the house is one of my son's best friends.

Nevertheless, amongst the multitude of people who come across on the boats will not only be those who will be an asset to this country in whatever their field of expertise is, there will also be a criminal element. I read recently about a woman who was dragged into a park and raped by a man who had only come off a boat a few weeks before he carried out that attack. I have also read about people who have been murdered by an illegal immigrant, one was a seven year old girl who was scooting through a park when she was stabbed to death by an Albanian woman with mental health problems, who shouldn't have been here. Of course random attacks could be perpetuated by a British born and bred person which wouldn't have made it any better, but the point is in this case and some others it wasn't! and if the right checks had been put in place that little girl would still be here. It's not prejudice to want to know that we are not letting a criminal element in, or people with severe mental health problems to walk among us. All of this is also a massive issue in France, Holland, Germany, Italy and other European countries who have taken many migrants. I believe rows over asylum was one of the reasons that the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte resigned. The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in Europe and we come closely behind. I accept that whilst our country doesn't have a finite amount of space, there are large pockets of sparsely populated areas, but still most people want to pile into the somewhat beleaguered south east where there isn't always the infrastructure to support the numbers. I'm fairly new to the town we live in, now outside the M25, so far enough away from London, possibly not to experience the sheer weight of numbers from whence I came. It did quite shock me to learn that a fair number of the pupils in my new location, cannot get a senior school place and have to travel well outside the area, I thought that was more of a problem confined to London boroughs.

It's all very well being sniffy about the DM, sometimes indeed it warrants that, but amongst the dross they have been known to carry out some serious journalism and worthwhile articles, I think it is condescending to imply that to read it with a discerning eye still equates to being feeble brained should you even scan anything less than The Guardian. For example one such article in The DM was an in depth report on the mining of cobalt a component used in electric cars and how the children of the Democratic Republic of Congo are used to mine that mineral in Dickensian like conditions that is ruinous to their health.