To think thank God we are finally doing something about mass immigration

[Ubik1]

By helping these people here

The Royal Navy expects to have saved more than 1,000 migrants by the end of today - in their biggest rescue operation in the Mediterranean so far.

Pregnant women - including one in labour - and young children and among the 700 desperate people already picked up by HMS Bulwark around 27 miles from the coast of Libya in the busiest day of operations in the Mediterranean.

Efforts are continuing near the war-torn country with those already on board having traveled for around 10 hours in four overcrowded rubber and wooden boats.

Thank God they are rescuing these poor people. I hope Europe gets organised to receive these people from the boats and helps the migrants washing up in Greece.

we as a country can't take "them" we can't look after the most vulnerable in our own country

Can't or won't, Samcro?

Well we can't take everyone can we. There's hundreds of thousands of people in each of these conflicted countries. Where would they live? We literally have no housing

Most of them end up in tents in refugee camps next to the war torn countries they want to go back to.

They are not fleeing to come here. I bet most of them want to live where they come from with their families and friends doing the jobs they used to do until war fucked their lives up.

It surprised me how many fled and on interview said they had left their wives and children behind. Would have thought they would have stayed and let them flee

Really?? Why?

I think a good place to start would be the (corrupt) governments of these countries but of course I don't really know what realistically can be done

Put or kept in place, as often as not, by the corrupt governments of the USA and the UK.

We are living in difficult times, and democracy isn't working anymore. I live in Mexico and people are so fed up with so many, many corrupt politicians and electoral fraud that the army was out today to protect the polling booths as people are setting fire to them and burning the ballot papers. But will it make a difference?

A tent in your garden? How magnanimous.
Not in your house then.

theoddity you seem surprised that they're not bring them back to the UK and liken it to leaving a half drowned kitten outside your neighbours house?

Only if your neighbour lives hundreds of miles away...

They're being picked up in the Med not the Channel. What would be the point of bringing them all the way back here?

I can't imagine the horror that these poor people are living in. But we need to gather collectively with NATO, the UN, aid agencies and other governments and not just sweep them up and dump them in refuge camps. How that can be managed I don't know.

It's great just as long as they don't end up here. We're full!

You're not full. My nephew lives in a north midlands town where empty houses have been sold off for a quid. Post bedroom tax, many three and four bedroom houses in the north are now impossible to fill.

At the faux, why would people flee Iraq,
Syria or Afghanistan? We've done our bit they should sit in camps or be left to drown.

They flee because WE, yes WE in the UK & USA systematically destabilised those countries and regions and sidled away from the results while expecting other much poorer nations to cope with the results.

Libya had a stable (yet evil!)civic Infrastructure and strong sovereign funds, Iraq was the safest place in the middle east to be a Christian (as in integrated into society and government), we were so worried about post invasion Iraq that the only place that merited security after the fall of Saddam was the Oil Ministry -not museums holding centuries old treasures,hospitals or other things then shrug in total surprise that the oil flow continued uninterrupted while life for.millions became nightmares; we equipped ISIS fighters in Syria and were prepared to fight alongside them when we were hoping to topple that government.

Why shod we care about these places? We started it. We are accountable for not having a plan to deal with the consequences of giving arms to terrorists, leaving children to be raped and enslaved. Until we accept the price of our hypocrisy and not the trite lie that we are saviours we see reflected on the news, no one will be held accountable for the tremendous loss of human life we have caused. Why else would we be looking at skipping out of Afghanistan when the job isn't even halfway through?

'We are their parents and originals'.

misto but those houses need work. Anyone in them would need electric etc etc, these people don't have money

Well said, Becles.

Becles, I agree with everything you say except your use of the word "we".

I have not forgotten the huge marches all over the world but particularly in the UK and the US against the decision to go to war. There was no "we" in declaring war on those countries, other interests decided that and young uninformed soldiers were sent to carry out orders.
However "we" do have a responsability to care for the victims.

AnyoneforTennis and penisland Houses that need work and where the electricity supply needs to be paid for is rather different to "we have no houses" "we are full up" etc. etc.

It isn't impossible to build new houses but it may not even be necessary especially for people for whom the alternative to living on almost nothing in a not particularly desirable house in the North of England is living on almost nothing in a tent.

I can see that living in a not particularly desirable house in the North of England is not a great alternative to living in a studio flat with a baby and a toddler, or B&B accommodation ditto, in the SE of England when you have a job in the SE of England. Hence those living in the SE of England in these circumstances feeling that perhaps there ARE no houses.

I don't think anyone believes that the UK should take all these people - but there is nothing to stop it being part of an EU wide solution. Or do people think that Italy and Greece should continue to bear the brunt of the burden?

In the UK there is plenty of empty housing stock - much of it in reasonable condition. It's just in the wrong place (north - where there are no jobs because of failed or absent regional policy) or in the wrong hands (thousands of empty, privately owned properties in london and the south east).

I'm sure most people would agree that these people's best interests would be served by ensuring that they can safely return home, but this is not going to happen any time soon (and that is partly the fault of european foreign policy). Many (not all) come from failed states suffering civil war, total economic collapse, no food security etc.

The European proposals involved all EU states taking responsibility, to avoid the burden being unfairly shouldered by the countries that have born the brunt of migration (Italy and Germany notably).

Atenco

Having marched and had to justify to so many young people why they should be bothered to vote in the aftermath, your point is well made.

However, it could be argued that by not voting out those responsible or holding to account parliament for poor oversight or demanding proper action plans after giving ISIS millions, we have colluded with those that created this mess.

Yes to everything Becles, and sadly while the status quo suits those in power nothing will ever change. But inequality is fundamentally unstable, it can't last.

Well its about time somebody else did something seeing as Italy has had to bear the bruint and cost of thousands of immigrants turning up and resucing hundreds of others. It was only after that tragic accident that the rest of Europe decdided that really they shuould help out.... So well done and keep up the good work ..But for how long ?????

It's not correct to assume these migrants are 'poor' and uneducated.

the Guardian today;
these migrants are teachers, engineers, soldiers, students. they've paid a hefty amount to travel from their countries.

they want to work and earn money and pay taxes and there is no reason they will not be an asset to the countries in which they settle, if they are allowed to be.

We have screwed up these peoples' countries (or assisted in their destruction). I can't see why EU countries cannot agree a quota between them, each taking a certain number of immigrants. We have the resources and sending them back is utterly immoral IMO. These people didn't ask for their lives to be ruined by western powers seeking to impose "democracy" on them with the devastating fall out that's resulted. We have a duty to help.

At the same time, we also need to try and co-ordinate a meaningful response to the turbulence and wars in these regions and endeavour to tackle some of the causes that make people flee.

This is just such a depressing situation with no real answer.

As a mum I can only guess at the utter despair a mum must feel to risk transporting her children/family on one of those boats.

As much as we want to help these people at some point we and other affluent countries will reach a point where we will be unable to deal with the capacity. There just will physcially not be the room/space/accommodation for people if they continue to leave in the numbers that they are currently doing so.

Its terrifying thinking about where we will be if this countinues for another 10 years at this rate.

There was a really depressing article in one of the papers yesterday about no one knowing what to do or how to stop them coming. It is not as simple as sort out their countries. How do we do that? We tried to help in Afghan and failed.