Katie Hopkins reported to police AGAIN after calling boat migrants cockroaches!

[FourFiveSecondsFromSmiling]

It just keeps getting worse and worse what comes out of her mouth.

I don't disagree with what she is saying just think she uses horrible language.

can you give us some evidence to show how you know most migrants would choose to come here

At a guess, the link starts www.dailymail.co......

I sadly have to disappoint you Mrsstar, I dont read the daily mail.

Refugees might want to live in the UK.

The reality is that most refugees stay close to their homeland. In countries that can ill afford to keep them so they build massive camps. If those countries are lucky, the rich countries may help fund those camps. Then they are out of site,out of mind.

Those that come to the West do not get to the UK. We are an island and that makes things complicated. Germany is the main place.

Those are facts.

daffs - Have just read this thread - are you Katie Hopkins?

Erm daffs Most DO NOT come to the UK as Germany and France have DOUBLE the number of immigrants; news.sky.com/story/1469385/migrants-who-are-they-and-where-do-they-go

tenerife

I quoted the UNHCR statistics which show the same thing.

Sorry, whisk, getting above myself again. I'll pick my nose and burp a bit if it helps?

Daffs, seriously, why are you here? Because it's clearly not to enjoy debating things with other people. What are you getting out of it? Is it fun for you? Really? I'm just curious.

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, daffs, but you're trying to present your opinion as fact, which you can't do without some kind of evidence to back it up.

Are you actually interested in a serious discussion?

Since when does any opinion count for less than anyone elses

When one opinion is backed up by facts and evidence?

daffs is, though, a UKIP supporter. Just in case anyone hadn't realised

I find it sad, daffs, that you disregard anyone who makes an intelligent argument against your rather less educated one, describing anyone who uses actual data to support their argument as 'pretentious' - which you use wrongly - and dismissing data as 'statistics'.

You look very foolish when you comment like this.

An article about why people leave Eritrea

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/21/escaping-eritrea-migrant-if-i-die-at-sea-at-least-i-wont-be-tortured

"Elsa Chyrum, director of the UK-based group Human Rights Concern – Eritrea, sums up her homeland in two words: open prison. “There’s no freedom of speech, no freedom of expression, no religious freedom,” she says. “We have more than 300 prisons across the country and people there have no food to eat. Even begging is criminalised in Eritrea.”"

And she says the root cause needs to be addressed

If Europe is serious about reducing the flow of people from Eritrea, she says, it needs to use its political, diplomatic and financial influence to bring about change in Asmara. “Unless the root cause is dealt with, people will keep taking risks,” she says. “A lot of pressure needs to be put on the government of Eritrea to stop the indefinite national service, to make life bearable for people and to allow them to live a free life. They have to release all the prisoners of conscience from prison and allow people to choose what they want to do in life.”

Unless “tough action” is taken against the Isaias regime, she says, the government will continue acting with impunity, and Eritreans will continue making the long trek north, and fishermen and coastguards will continue fishing bodies from European waters.

Addressing the root cause is key. People don't want to leave their homes. But they are forced to.

My best friend in high school was a refugee.

She, her parents, and three sisters fled in a boat, over 30 years ago now, from the country where she was born. Earlier, her father had been a small businessman with several employees. But things had changed a lot since then.
They used their entire savings to get onto a not very seaworthy boat, to sail through an ocean facing possible pirates and storms, to go to whichever destination they could get to as long as it was elsewhere. On the way, there was a storm. There had been two boats sailing together. My friend's best friend had been on the other boat. During the storm, she saw the other boat sink. Everyone on that boat drowned.

When they reached land, they were put in a refugee camp for two years. Two years of just waiting to see what would happen. When they were finally able to leave, they were given a choice between three countries. Only one of the three was willing to take the whole family together. So that was the country they chose.

Benefits, health care, education, or even language didn't come into the decision-making process.

Incidentally, for those who think that refugees only 'take'.

Nowadays, her two older sisters run their own businesses, she works as a computer analyst, as does her husband, who was also a refugee.Of her two children, one has become an eye surgeon, and the other is a pharmacist.

Also, she ended up changing my life. I started learning her native language from her and her sister while at school, ended up studying it at university, and following a career that, for a long time, involved that language in countries other than my home country.

I wonder if cutting foreign aid to many of these countries will do anything to stop people fleeing?

anzu - great post.

Love you too Goldfish and Plummy :)

That's a touching and inspiring story, Anzu, thanks for sharing it.

anzu your poor friend, I simply can't imagine having to make decisions like that for my family. Her parents are brave beyond measure. It's sickening that their story is still being repeated every day 30 years later.

daffs what possible reason would the UNHCR have to lie about where the majority of refugees end up and why? You have implied that you believe they're lying, I'm interested to know why you believe they would, What would they get out of it?

Just for info, I am absolutely not one of the usual voices. I rarely post in AIBU, so perhaps you might manage to stop sneering for a couple of minutes to answer a question.

Or spend those minutes looking up what pretentious actually means.

And thank you Plummy. The range of condiments is extensive, do just ask.

No auto-condimenting, though. That's just rude. You've got to taste first.

Absolutely Pun!

And so what if they were trying to get to the UK?

We promised to help them rebuild their country if they rose against Gaddafi and he was toppled. We promised, along with France, to stand side by side with Lybia and make their country safe for them and we didn't.

We are too good at meddling in the business of other countries and then turning a blind eye when things like this happen. Babies and children were left to drown like rats. I am ashamed to be British sometimes.

Daffs

I said that most want to come to Britain and they do

What evidence do you have?

Don't for get I also said if I was in their shoes I would too.

Ah that's okay then.

Puffins, just burger sauce for me thanks. I'm highly unpretentious...

I think daffs' evidence is that Uncle Nigel told her so. I don't think she's thought too hard about what Uncle Nigel's evidence is, though.

I've come across several examples recently of people who appear to be fairly intelligent - at least to the extent they can read and write and use the internet - and yet who have this perception that the entire continent of Africa consists of semi-naked famine victims in mud huts. No doubt all the books, programmes and google images of prosperous modern cities, with airports, high-rise buildings and new shiny cars, not to mention verbal reports from posters who claim to have been there, are mocked up to deceive the gullible - or is the word "pretentious" now? Because we know it really is all mud huts and flies. Never mind that pesky evidence. And we are entitled to our opinion. Right?

One person's opinion may be as valid as another's. One person's version of reality, though, is not. The proportion of refugees coming to the UK compared with other nations is a matter of fact; although the UNHCR figures no doubt are not entirely accurate as one might expect some degree of under-reporting, they are the most accurate available, and they do give a clear enough indication of the pattern of migration. (It is really not reasonable to assume that it is only migrants making it to the UK who are under-reported - it's going to be more or less even across the board.) Whether this is a good or bad thing, and what should be done about it, is a matter of opinion.

Likewise, whether other European countries have state-run health services is a matter of fact, observable, provable. Sneering at sources is not going to make them go away; they exist. Whether they are "as good as" British ones is where there is room for differences of opinion.

As for whether everyone outside Europe is absolutely desperate to get to England (exclusively!), I have to say that were I to find myself stuck in any other part of the world I would indeed be desperate to come here. This is not because of the benefits system, the health service, democracy, and it sure as hell isn't for the climate - it's because it's my home. I was born here, I have lived here for over half a century with only occasional forays abroad, it is my comfort zone, my culture, my language, my landscape; it's not perfect but it's what I'm used to and I like it. However you try to sell me another country on the grounds that it's a better lifestyle - and whatever your fond beliefs, the UK is not the most prosperous or contented nation on earth on a number of measures - I'm not going to go there for other than a brief visit, because it's not home. The majority of the people you're talking about so dismissively have had to leave their homes, jobs, families and everything that's familiar, take a massive risk to go somewhere colder, where they don't all speak the language (although I'm pretty impressed how many do, and how well; education is obviously something else they aren't coming here for), surrounded by often hostile strangers - well how would you feel? For most, it's not the Promised Land, it's exile. They're not "all desperate to come to England" because England isn't home to them. They're just desperate not to have their limbs and/or heads chopped off. Which is quite understandable really.