Syrian asylum seeker arrested after boy, 14, killed and four injured in Austria stabbing.

Freya5

Cossy

JenniferEccles

Only a few days ago, J.D Vance warned of the dangers Europe faces if it continues with the madness of allowing uncontrolled mass migration.

It took an American to point out what voters across the continent have known for years, yet governments still steadfastly refused to take action.

We don’t have “mass uncontrolled immigration”

Oh yes we do. Every day it's happening.

Yes it is, we do have mass uncontrolled immigration!

What do you call mass?

Most immigrants to the UK are legal and working on permits. Its not as if we are not trying to act on irregular migrants

As for the USA, it remains to be seen, despite the supremely arrogant Vance lecturing Europe on our clear failings to think like him,

it actually remains to be seen how effective their policies are and the costs they will incur of holding undocumented people who can't be returned instead of many of them working productively.

BevSec

We will have to agree to disagree about illegal immigrants/ people not raised in our culture/ or 2nd generation of those not raised in our culture. We have very different views, and we both believe we are right. I respect your right to your views, mine are very different, I am really worried about the future not only of this country but Europe, I believe our values and society are under threat. Angela Merkle was so stupid to open the floodgates, I thought so at the time. It will in time change our European values, it is happening already in Sweden and Fermany, to name but two countries.

Absolutely right and people should stop being so blinkered.

How does needing to change a venue due to safeguarding concerns for a life drawing class relate to immigration and different cultures?

Safeguarding is usually related to changing concerns and laws around safeguarding children and young people - it could simply be the first venue has parent /toddler groups and rules relating to that and the Quaker centre doesnt.
(btw, Quakers have strict safeguarding views as regards children too).

It rarely happens now, but when I started doing yoga in the 1980's quite a lot of different christian groups refused to have classes in church premises becuase of cultural concerns!

Wyllow3

How does needing to change a venue due to safeguarding concerns for a life drawing class relate to immigration and different cultures?

Safeguarding is usually related to changing concerns and laws around safeguarding children and young people - it could simply be the first venue has parent /toddler groups and rules relating to that and the Quaker centre doesnt.
(btw, Quakers have strict safeguarding views as regards children too).

It rarely happens now, but when I started doing yoga in the 1980's quite a lot of different christian groups refused to have classes in church premises becuase of cultural concerns!

The point being made here is the usual venue has had children having activities there all along - and so why now? Why now is one of our activities having problems put in its way? No vested interest on that one - as I couldnt draw to save my life/have no interest in it anyway. But if people want to draw/are used to drawing there and used to childrens activities being at a totally different time (as they seem to be) = where's the issue? who is raising it?

I'm well aware re some Christian groups refused to have yoga classes in church premises and find that rather odd a view to take. Re Quaker views on safeguarding children - the only thing I ever noticed was children not being expected to sit through a whole Meeting for Worship (as it's a long time to expect some children to be quiet for). The reason why they would now be there is because of respect for "freedom of speech" and no lines being unreasonably drawn as to who can/can't hold a group there.

Life drawing classes involve (gasp, shock, horror) drawing naked people "from life" so I suppose if the children turned up too early, or left too late, they might get a glimpse of flesh.

Elegran

Life drawing classes involve (gasp, shock, horror) drawing naked people "from life" so I suppose if the children turned up too early, or left too late, they might get a glimpse of flesh.

LOL.

"Scarred for life" I tell ya'.....

Would soon teach their parents about punctuality I guess.....

I struggle with envisaging any British parents being that bothered if that did happen....for the first time in 30 years LOL. Of course we could always send them on a long holiday to Denmark to change their ideas a bit.......shades of when I was an au pair there many years back and naive young Englishwoman as I was at the time had to soon adapt to the idea the children and their mother would walk around without a stitch of clothing on if it was particularly hot. I just told myself "It's Denmark.....#shrugs".

Cossy

woodenspoon

There’s a saying: the devil makes work for idle hands. My view, contrary to what many on here say, is that if they’re genuine asylum seekers they need to be housed for six months only while they get their lives in order. After that, they work, no benefits, no nhs until they’ve proved themselves a model citizen, any criminality then back they go, immediately. It needs to be law and made crystal clear at the outset. No exceptions. No work, the. no benefits, no food bank, no housing., no nhs. If they can’t or won’t support themselves, and let’s face it anybody can do some sort of menial job if they want to, then back they go. No human rights lawyers preventing it from happening.
That way, we would soon whittle the numbers down to genuine claimants who want to settle and assimilate.

Just my opinion.

They are not allowed to work, by law, until their claim to asylum is processed, they are not entitled to mainstream benefits, until their claim is processed.

It’s not them who don’t wish to work, it’s our abysmal slow, ineffective system and our laws which prevent them working.

Once established where they are from, as they do in France etc, then a temporary work permit only, might solve some of the problems, at least they won't be working under the radar, well some will of course.

Wyllow3

Don't get too alarmed - its an anti immigrant propaganda video with nothing new on, and when you read down the comments and such statements as "Free Tommy Robinson" you know what sort of territory you are in.

Absolute rubbish. It is a video about what is happening. Not some made up fairy story to attack immigrants. Or are you of the opinion that all who enter our country, and Europe really mean no harm. Because that is hogwash. See all going on in Europe, they're thanking Merkel in Germany for what is happening. We can thank Blair onwards, and getting worse under this Gov.

these murders are all awful, but some people, in their rush to blame migration, highlight the incidents where the perpetrator is a migrant
Well, this afternoon in France, Macron did just that very thing, saying the perpetrator of a fatal stabbing today in Mulhouse was a terrorist. Macron said there was "no doubt" that the incident was "a terrorist act", specifically "an Islamist terrorist act". His Interior Minister Retailleau also stated, "Once again, it is Islamist terrorism that has struck," then he added that problems of migration were "at the origin of this terrorist act".

Two attacks in Europe yesterday - one in Germany and one in France - both Islamic terrorist attacks.

With Germany having an election today it will be interesting to see if it's possible to detect an effect on peoples voting from that. I know my own reaction if I was living there would change from "Well I guess I'm going to go and vote....little bit undecided" to "Right....that's done it...I'm going to be up there at the polling station 5 minutes after it opens and you better believe I'm about to vote against all this....". These attacks are going to have an effect on how people vote...

CariadAgain

Two attacks in Europe yesterday - one in Germany and one in France - both Islamic terrorist attacks.

With Germany having an election today it will be interesting to see if it's possible to detect an effect on peoples voting from that. I know my own reaction if I was living there would change from "Well I guess I'm going to go and vote....little bit undecided" to "Right....that's done it...I'm going to be up there at the polling station 5 minutes after it opens and you better believe I'm about to vote against all this....". These attacks are going to have an effect on how people vote...

They certainly will. Be interesting to see what the outcome is.

I agree with the "undecided" issue, right up until the eleventh hour. Germans seem to want a change, but are they ready for the alternative? I think I read somewhere that around 30% are undecided. They just want the problems of immigration solved properly and forever, so I'm guessing this will become apparent in the voting.

I hope never to see the AfD in power. Many are holocaust deniers, anti-semitic, use Nazi language, and the youth wing in particular want to over turn the democratic order. The youth Wing was designated as "extremist" in 2023.

www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/german-regional-far-right-leader-sentenced-for-using-nazi-symbolism/

The Friday night Berlin stabbing, suspect btw, was believed to want to link Jewish people. Its not been designated as a terror attack.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr72nrzjj5no

Correction - wanted to kill jewish people not link, sorry.

"My father was Welsh. That doesn’t make me Welsh. His parents were Rwandan. He looks Rwandan, not British. Being born here doesn’t make you Welsh or British."

woodenspoon, does that mean that you think he looks Rwandan because his skin is black? In which case, do you think that anyone whose skin is black must come from somewhere else and neither they not their descendants can ever be British? It seems to me to be a very strange comment that you have made.

Am I the only person to have wondered what, apart from Islamist beliefs, is behind these recent attacks in Germany, Austria and France? Could there have been some AfD or other group encouraging the perpetrators to go for it now, when the German elections are happening? This is not unknown as a Nazi tactic, I believe...

Oh that's a new one. Islamic terrorist attack in France is now the fault of the right wing.

Someone's appearance is the surest sign of what nationality they are. For someone to be "really British" they're obviously going to have typical British appearance. I don't have to open my mouth, for instance, for it to be quite clear what nationality I am just by looking at me - apparently I "look Celtic" (yep...British then). If I dress that bit more smartly/bit better quality clothing then a group of Germans before now hadnt realised I wasnt German - until I started speaking. So - yep....not much doubt just by looking at me.

A simple understanding of genetics will show that is not the case at all. Look for yourself at the example of unidentical twins born to parents of different heritage who look entirely different. Would you class one as not British and one as British based on looks?

Luminance

A simple understanding of genetics will show that is not the case at all. Look for yourself at the example of unidentical twins born to parents of different heritage who look entirely different. Would you class one as not British and one as British based on looks?

Couldn't agree more.

Wyllow3

When we only or mostly have incidents carried out by foreign nationals massively reported and of course the language that goes with it

Then you actually create the far right narratives s opposed to "proving" it.

Exactly.

Luminance

A simple understanding of genetics will show that is not the case at all. Look for yourself at the example of unidentical twins born to parents of different heritage who look entirely different. Would you class one as not British and one as British based on looks?

Would be interested to hear what the odds on that are - ie twins of different appearance. They must be extremely low odds.

I've read of people having a solo child of very different appearance to both parents - and then they've found out one of the parents had a foreign ancestor they were totally unaware of and the mother had indeed been faithful to her husband - but an unexpected gene had surfaced several generations later.

I know personally an unexpected gene can come through literally centres later - when my fathers hands started coming out with Dupuytrens Contracture and, though his family are English going back loads of generations, his tall blonde appearance (passed onto my erstwhile brother) was explained - as he has Viking heritage however many centuries ago that it had totally sunk out of sight in his lineage. That one is not that uncommon I gather and both he and Margaret Thatcher have that gene from centuries ago. But they're both English - as that Viking ancestor was obviously so many centuries ago that we are talking a very very tiny percentage of us is Viking.

Since moving to Wales I've found the Welsh have a phrase they use. That phrase "I'm 5th generation Welsh" and they use it to indicate they are really Welsh and not self-identifying as Welsh. It means "I'm Welsh - because my parents were and their parents before them and their parents before them were etc". They are saying "I really am Welsh".

I've also seen photos of twins that look different nationalities to each other.

But "the exception proves the rule". 99% of the time people look the nationality they are. Personally, I am rather tired of all the "self-identification" going on - any form of "self-identification". In this case of people saying they're a different nationality to what they are in actual fact. It doesn't alter the fact that people are the nationality their parents are - though they might have a passport saying they have a 2nd "nationality".

My erstwhile brother and myself are Armed Forces brats. Both of us were born in England - so totally straightforward then. But if we'd been born a few years later than we were and closer in age then one of us would have been born in Singapore and the other one of us in Malta. That does not mean one of us would be Singaporean and the other one would be Maltese. Our parents are English - and so we're both English and that applies whatever country we got born in. It would be seriously wierd for our mother to turn around and say "Oh my two children are different nationalities to us and to each other". That's left me wondering if I might have landed up being able to ask for a Singapore or Malta passport and call myself a different nationality to what I actually am...

It matters not, love will go where it wants, Those from the US will identify as such wherever their roots originated. Those from the UK will identify as where they were born too. They know nothing else. They are British and will likely love here. For myself I could not care. My son is married to a woman of mixed Asian heritage and my grandchildren British and beautiful and loved. Woe betide any who tries to tell me otherwise to my face. British values are Individual Liberty, Tolerance and Respect and I shall uphold those as I am British.

I do t know what you mean Cariadagain. There are British people who come in various ethnicities. Not sure what looking British could mean.