Diane Abbott’s take on drownings in Med

Coughdancer I too applaud your posts.

To add, were we in the same situation as those fleeing their countries, we would choose to go where we understood the language, and of course due to historic reasons English as a second language is spoken all over the world.
We take fewer than 5 other major european countries as it is. Germany fir instance takes twice as many refugees. ( reported this morning on Today r4.
As fir 'they should stay in the first safe country,' that would mean some southern ( poorer) countries would have to take the va st majority , which they do, while we, being furthest away would not expect to take any. Which for some would suit.
Is that fair? Is that decent? kind? No. It isn't.

10:09choughdancer

As a British national and a taxpayer you are fully entitled to live here and have first dibs, the ‘oh go on, be kind, let them all in’ brigade don’t do us all any favours if they managed to get their way.

These are not my words 🤔

If the UK became involved again in a civil war, or became a malevolent dictatorship or fires or flood destroyed cities so that we had nowhere to live in safety, I am sure that we would do all we could to find our way to a safe place

If everyone had fled in WW2 then the outcome would have been quite different.

Cloughdancer.. there is a wonderful poem by Thich Nhat Hahn called 'Call me by my true names' which encapsulates what you are saying. you can google it

As a British national and a taxpayer you are fully entitled to live here and have first dibs, the ‘oh go on, be kind, let them all in’ brigade don’t do us all any favours if they managed to get their way.

I know I am fully entitled to this Nicenanny3, but that wasn't my point. I haven't done ANYTHING to deserve it, apart from having had the almost incredible good luck as to where I was born. The people who are refugees haven't done anything different and surely being humans mean that we SHOULD 'be kind' to others.

They are flesh and blood as we are, feel pain as we do, experience loss and bereavement as we do. If the UK became involved again in a civil war, or became a malevolent dictatorship or fires or flood destroyed cities so that we had nowhere to live in safety, I am sure that we would do all we could to find our way to a safe place.
Our ivory tower and island status are not as strong as we think. After all, 'no man is an island entire of itself'.

HousePlantQueen

Urmstongran

Breaking News from the Guardian just now:

“The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has said lifeboats from Dover, Ramsgate, Dungeness and Littlestone were called by HM Coastguard to an incident in the Channel on Thursday morning.”

And?

And you could have found that out for yourself, surely?

HousePlantQueen

Urmstongran

Breaking News from the Guardian just now:

“The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has said lifeboats from Dover, Ramsgate, Dungeness and Littlestone were called by HM Coastguard to an incident in the Channel on Thursday morning.”

And?

And, thankfully, all who were in the water were saved, I believe.
And their boat was obviously unsafe
And it is high summer but the water could still be cold.

And the RNLI are very brave and many will have left their jobs to save others because that is what they do.

Urmstongran

Breaking News from the Guardian just now:

“The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has said lifeboats from Dover, Ramsgate, Dungeness and Littlestone were called by HM Coastguard to an incident in the Channel on Thursday morning.”

And?

MerylStreep

I heard to day that Brussels has passed this law.
It comes down to if your a country that refuses to take back undocumented migrants you won’t get a favourable trade deal.

www.politico.eu/article/pushback-brussels-plan-link-trade-migrant-returns/

The countries have got to get together and work on a plan. Sadly we will not even start until the entitled ones are gone.

Whitewavemark2

I have upped my monthly contributions since I was first aware of their fantastic work in helping save children, women and men seeking sanctuary.

Go RNLI!

You would be surprised at the number of RNLI volunteers who are completely fed up though! I have said on here before that my friend is a volunteer and gets the boats all ready as soon as they come back from a shout for the next one.

She says every day when they are doing this people walk down to have a look and nearly all of them say they will no longer give to the RNLI because they are being used as a taxi service. She feels the same and said it is really embarrassing. Although the boats don’t come in up here she says if she worked down in Dover she would have left by now.

Same thing happened to us, a young volunteer had a stall near our lifeboat house and was hoping for donations but my husband told her we no longer give to them. We sat down nearby and watched scores of people walk past and say the same to her. I felt a bit sorry for her and went and said it was nothing personal and she said “I get it, it’s all I’ve heard all morning.”

HelterSkelter1

have no idea what she said as I won't open a link to that vile newspaper.

It’s in plenty of others and on the news.

I support my local RNLI station, not the national.

choughdancer!! Think you have been voted the best poster on this thread.

I heard to day that Brussels has passed this law.
It comes down to if your a country that refuses to take back undocumented migrants you won’t get a favourable trade deal.

www.politico.eu/article/pushback-brussels-plan-link-trade-migrant-returns/

Oreo

MaizieD

Germanshepherdsmum

I have never said people should stay in the first safe country they reach. Kindly read my posts more carefully. Of course that would be totally unworkable. I have, however, repeatedly said that once they have reached a safe country they are no longer desperate and fleeing, adjectives so beloved of some posters.

I don't see what their state of mind once they reach a safe country has to do with the issue at all.

As a self evaluated top notch lawyer you should know that under international law they are under no obligation to stay in the first safe country they reach. The ones who reach the UK have their reasons, most of them perfectly valid, for wanting to come here. Your opinion on their 'feelings' is, thank God, irrelevant.

You’re right, they have no obligation to stay in a safe country and can push on to wherever they like.You also have no obligation to do that either, especially if it means chancing death on the ocean waves.Why would anyone do that.They have their reasons? Probably they think the UK is a softer touch or have heard it is.

Risking death on the ocean wave is their decision to make, Oreo, not ours.

As for their 'reasons', I really CBA to go through it all again. It's been spelled out often enough on these types of thread.

Oh! And apparently their donations have risen tremendously.

People are marvellous, empathetic and humane.

I have upped my monthly contributions since I was first aware of their fantastic work in helping save children, women and men seeking sanctuary.

Go RNLI!

Urmstongran

Breaking News from the Guardian just now:

“The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has said lifeboats from Dover, Ramsgate, Dungeness and Littlestone were called by HM Coastguard to an incident in the Channel on Thursday morning.”

All manned by volunteers and supported by charitable donations. And whilst they’re doing that they’re not available to help anyone else.

Whitewavemark2

DA ‘s heart is always in the right place, but she suffers from foot in mouth syndrome, - she speaks before she has fully thought it through.

There are lots of posters, including myself , suffer from the same syndrome.

Yes. I've done the same. I have been bitterly angry and equally bitterly sarcastic - it vents the anger. But only in private.

If I were going to tweet as DA did - I would've slept on it first. And then held fast and had the courage of conviction.

When I was at school, back in the 50s, I once wrote a rather bitter letter to a male schoolfriend. It ended up in the headmistress' office (no idea how) and she called me in to remonstrate with me. I was almost paralysed with fear as she had a heck of a reputation and she scared the bejesus out of me. I can't remember a thing about her 'remonstration' but, as I was leaving, she called me back and said - quite gently and kindly in fact, words to the effect that if, in future, I was to "put pen to paper", I should always sleep on it first because I would feel differently in the morning. I've never forgotten that.

Breaking News from the Guardian just now:

“The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has said lifeboats from Dover, Ramsgate, Dungeness and Littlestone were called by HM Coastguard to an incident in the Channel on Thursday morning.”

I’m sure that if someone had said that the Opposition should not oppose and that the Lords should not scrutinise I would have noticed - are you twisting someone’s words?

The lawyers I criticise are the type who have recently been closed down, who fabricate stories for their clients to use. I have no doubt that more such closures will follow. That is not ‘using democratically agreed law’.

I think you may have missed the last one that suggested the Opposition should not oppose; the Lords should not scrutinise legislation, hold the government to account, or considers and reports upon public policy; that Lawers should not use democratically agreed law in aid of their clients, and that properly constituted charities should not give aid to those they are set up to help.

I think both you and the person making that post nipped quickly over here to make this thread very much a repeat of the other one as, at that point, posters with such view were not being particularly challenged on this thread.

Obviously, I could be wrong about that and you could just be interested in the career and sayings of Diane Abbott.

Who has suggested that?

I am rapidly being forced to the conclusions that there are Grannies on GNet who are anti-democratic.

Can I just say that I want to live in an evolving democracy, warts and all. What I do not want is the Dictatorship some of you seem to be suggesting.

Not easy being a politician.
Harder being a female politician.
Being an older female politician - not for softies.
Being an older black female politician . . . ??

Better to fall into the hands of the living God than be shredded on Gransnet.