What's your thoughts on asylum seekers?

I think all colonial powers left the colonies in better state. Better infrastructure, literacy, economy, trade, technology. I'm not British, nor from another "colonial" country :), but I don't understand this auto-flagellation. History is made of bad and good, and everybody had their share of both.

Was meant to quote a pp who had said British people should go to Italy lol

Gosh, how disheartening to have philosophical pondering dismissed as murky waffle.

You can keep your feudal thinking, thanks all the same.

Yet another person reinforces the link between right wing thinking and lack of intelligence and/or education.

Yes I thought so, more murky waffle when the fact remains my many ancestors who lived here for centuries ar the reason I exist here today.

My thoughts? It's a topic guaranteed to get the frothers out of bed and on to yet another repetitive thread. Bit of apparent public support for Nige, Elon and the rest of the vampires. I know you've got a living to earn OP but can't you do better?

Migration is already regulated.

More than 90% of migrants come here legally on a visa to work, study or rejoin family. The numbers who come from war zones and claim asylum are a small minority - less than 7%. If you don’t like the numbers, come up with a REALISTIC proposal that doesn’t involve spouting racist bollocks.

You haven't answered the question.

How many routes would you like?

The point is it needs to be regulated and also factored into total migration figures (which are currently about a million net which is in no way sustainable).

You can't regulate it properly if you've got tens of thousands breaking in as well.

@User32459 "Yeah, i think there needs to be more legal routes to asylum,"

So how many would you like?

We have already taken 20,000 Afghans, 153,700 Hong Kong citizen and issued visas for 223,000 Ukrainians.

That ^ adds up to a city the size of Leicester.

It seems to me that most of the people who want to increase these numbers are the first ones to complain when their kids can't get a school place, they can't get on the housing register/ladder and granny can't get a hip replacement for 2 years.

@PandoraSox

It’s relatively new that inner cities are more desirable and thus expensive than suburbs and rural areas. We used to dump our poor in the dirty, crowded bits - especially east of cities where the prevailing wind would bring all the pollution.

That is why cities tend to have higher populations of ethnic minorities - they’ve lived there for generations and a quirk of fashion means their houses are worth loads. Many ethnic communities embrace inter-generational living in a way Brits don’t, and the newer migrants often live in massively overcrowded houses, sharing rooms and even beds in a way most young Brits never would.

I live in a big city and I worked really hard - from the privileged position of having an excellent education provided for me by Britain. Too many young Brits leave school without basic qualifications- some, of course, because of terrible home lives or learning difficulties - but a lot because of laziness or apathy.

Ronny Chieng says it perfectly: m.youtube.com/shorts/7dPZR1LZi74

@mollyfolk no I mean Aus who is with the convention

They have humanitarian schemes that are controlled be don't have the same uncontrolled issue as we do

If you want a new system you'll need to scrap the 1951 convention first though

Yeah, i think there needs to be more legal routes to asylum, but with the caveat that as an island we can't just accept millions of people every year, there's obviously a limit. But we should do what we can.

It needs to be then put clear that people won't be accepted asylum (in at least most cases) if they arrive without valid status to be here. The laws are so far out of date on this and it's helping the far right gain control of the west.

White Britons can no longer live in the way they used to. Adult children can no longer migrate to the cities where the best jobs are (whereas ethnic minorities live there)

Do you have any sort of stats to back up your claim that the adult children of white Britons can no longer migrate to cities?

Life is difficult for all young people in the UK and many of them live at home for much longer than previous generations.

I don't know @EasternStandard

Counties that make them work? I assume you are speaking about Saudi or UAE aren't signed up to the convention and do a work visa scheme?

At the moment and certainly over the Tory reign the narrative of the government has been deterrence. There would be a long way to go to get a public appetite for coordination with other countries (especially the EU) and opening up genuine and accessible legal routes.

At the moment the main "narrative" seems to be based on lies. 75% of asylum seekers live in poorer and middle income countries. A fact that seems completely unknown by many posters on this thread who are convinced that the world wants to concrete over Britain. Also many don't seem to realise that illegal immigration and asylum seeking are two different things and need to be handled in different ways.

To add politicians are losing the public on this. The longer they wait and use old narratives to paper over issues the harder it will be to switch to a controlled scheme.

I'd say back in 2000s a co ordinated recommendation to put in a new system might have had traction. A lack of foresight and inability to listen to concerns has meant rolling over any discussion.

From that you get increased silos and individual countries shoring up borders. US and Germany major additions which will reshape this.

They'll find it harder to sell in a controlled visa scheme, which really is their own doing.

@mollyfolk you can't resolve issues to the extent people won't want to leave. The problems are vast.

The only things that work within the current laws are hardline, you can see this with countries that have made them work.

If people want a controlled visa scheme it'll take the opposite of our current approach, or the ending of the current system replaced with another

@EasternStandard

it would need to be a genuine attempt to reduce people coming through irregular means.

Otherwise it would be a pr disaster with many people still arriving.

this would mean coordination with other countries and the funding of turkey, the Lebanon and other poorer main host countries (where people often go first) so that refugee lives are better there. A scheme with humanity at its heart. Many human rights organisations and refugee organisations have been calling for schemes like these and they have received absolutely zero interest by the public or by politicians.

People favour a “keep as many people out as possible “ “stop the boats” mentality but it will be utterly futile.

Also, not sure what you mean by ‘yet to concede’.

I haven’t engaged with you before, and why would I concede anything that I don’t agree with?

No unlimited legal routes, but controlled visas

Whether that's 60k plus per year or 20k or less can be decided by the electorate

Unless you believe in reincarnation, or start to pick apart who ‘you’ are.

Are you only you because you were born into that body? Or would you be you in a different body, at a different time or place?

You presumably believe that any deviation from your current existence would mean you were not you. But others have a different take.

Simple only within your personal world view.

@User32459 they already do. There are millions of refugees in Iran, turkey, chad. In Lebanon something like 1/5 people have been refugees because they got the brunt of the war in Syria.

Yoy are totally right. The answer is to make more legal routes to asylum and to help make the countries where people are coming from (the camps in neighbouring countries) better. I don’t think that governments will do this though as this would be unpopular with the many who like to demonise asylum seekers.

@User32459 is making sense, she is citing visa schemes which exist. The pp saying visas can't do that are incorrect.

The magnitude and money made from what we have, which enables crime and risk, is no longer fit for purpose

White Britons can no longer live in the way they used to. Adult children can no longer migrate to the cities where the best jobs are (whereas ethnic minorities live there). Young adults and partners are having the live in the family home so multi generation households and their stresses and control issues are returning. People are not able to afford children and grandchildren
Some of this is due to thatchers right to buy with no replacement which has reduced competition so private rents have risen, some is due to second home owners tax breaks, some is due to grammar school system which undervalued and reduced numbers going into practical jobs so we needed migrants. However there are now more people and England at least is very densely populated with much loss of nature. Those people defending migration need better arguments or else we will end up with Reform which will also destroy the NHS etc. some say NHS workers are migrants but that is because UK govt decided not to pay to train people in the uk

What I'm saying, ehich you've yet to concede, is that I couldn't have been born anywhere else. This is a fact rooted in reality that goes beyond your philosophy.

I think there should be more schemes like Ukraine and Afghan ones (in UK) to allow people to apply for visas. People weren't turning up on boats from Ukraine to seek asylum, they came in on visas and it was mostly women and children rather than just fighting age males. People should seek refuge in the nearest safe country in terms of conflict.

Countries should be able to have border protection to stop people just breaking in. These laws are not fit for purpose anymore.