To think that UK bound lorry drivers should boycott Calais?

[Libitina]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33240475

The local police would soon do something to protect them then. If it was my husband (he's not a lorry driver) I would be so worried about his personal saftey. How long before someone is hurt or killed?

My God. This thread is unbelievable. Do people really, honestly believe that migration has in any way hurt the UK? Do people not understand that many, many of the problems that these people are attempting to escape from are ones which the UK has historically either directly caused, or at least benefited from? Do you not see the way in which the comfort of your lives is built on the creation and sustaining of the poverty and insecurity of these 'nasty criminals'? Bulldozing camps?? This is lazy, racist thinking at its worst. I want to scream.

Mistigri but is she heading for the UK?

Moreshabby it's irrelevant - the migrants don't try to get into vehicles in the ferry port itself which is policed by armed police and military. I don't think a migrant would know whether a car was heading for the ferry or for another building in the port area. They really only target lorries, because it's theoretically possible to hide in the back and because you can be reasonably sure they are heading for the UK.

Sometimes migrants do attempt to get to the UK in cars and small commercial vehicles but usually this seems to be a commercial transaction - lots of cases recently of Britons being jailed for people smuggling in the Calais area courts. Sometimes they are part of smuggling networks, sometimes just illadvised people desperate for some cash.

If they dont try to get in in the port areas and usually only into lorries and not small cars, especially with french plates then I would expect your friend to be relatively safe.

Judy the French police regularly dismantle camps. It just displaces the problem of course. But a lot of migrants are not in the large camps. There are little camps scattered everywhere all over the area, right over to Dunkerque and the Belgian border, and inland towards Lille.

These people are desperate and they have literally nowhere to go, so bulldozing camps achieves precisely nothing except to increase the desperation and the potential for violence (violence which by the way mostly affects the migrants themselves).

aermingers not sure where I said I was in favour of immigration? Merely that I think the attitude towards these migrants is abhorrent. And you're wrong, I don't own my own home or have a skilled job- I'm at university. DH is foreign, and not from the EU so I have a great deal of experience with British immigration procedure. I have spent the majority of my adult life living outside of the UK so I'm also very familiar with the immigration process for both EU and non-EU citizens in several countries, including France. Stop making assumptions about me.

moreshabby you are actually being racist. Where is your evidence that "Africans" want to come here and have more than 2.4 children?
woodhill but that's my point, unborn children don't exist yet! You can't prioritise someone who isn't alive over people who are.

Shabby the risk for lorry drivers is if they are held up outside the port areas - at normal times they just drive right in, so there is little opportunity for a migrant to attempt to get onboard.

The risk is when there are delays on roads outside the port, like yesterday, or on previous occasions when the migrants themselves have deliberately caused hold ups in order to attempt to board lorries.

My point was exactly that btw, that lorry drivers are the people at risk here (mainly of inadvertently taking on board a stowaway) but that the idea that people in the Calais area more generally are at risk is really not correct

there are alot of people here who need housing already. Also do you agree with illegal dwellings being built in back gardens and being let?

And here it is, the racist comment!

I asked earlier whether you have ever been to any African countries, I have and have seen with my own eyes how many of these people live. There is no middle class, you are either very rich or very poor, I dont think these migrants fall into the very rich catagory. The poor are mostly uneducated, they dont practise birth control, as I explained earlier they see having many children as a sign of their virility.

I never said anything about the people of Calais being at risk, you were the one who brought up the example of your friend. I am only talking about the lorry drivers and people who are driving to the UK.

Either go for Open Doors everyone welcome or go harsh on illegal migrants, but the in-between situation we have now is seeming the worst of both worlds. As things are, our de facto entry test is doing something insanely dangerous to get here.

Some of the boat people across the Med accuse other passengers of being jihadist infiltrators. If Europe had proper processing centres in Libya or Calais & provided safe ferry services, then people wouldn't destroy their documents before paying the people smugglers, and we'd have a better chance of excluding jihadi infiltrators.

As interesting as this debate is I now have work to do so will leave you to plan where you are going to put all these people you are so keen to welcome.

I thought the idea was to have a large family to look after you in old age as well and possibly infant mortality would be factors.

we do send alot of aid to Africa. Perhaps we should have left Gaddafi in power, at least it fortified the borders to some extent

No actually Patapouf I think I was bang on the money about you. You sound like someone who is going to look forwards to a very comfortable life and who has personally benefited a great deal from immigration.

You don't care if some British oik can't get affordable housing, a decent wage or get a decent education for their children. You just want all the benefits you get from immigration and sod them. Uppity bastards getting above their place not listening to student politicos telling them what's good for them.

I have been made poor directly by immigration. My husband used to get a reasonable wage working in construction. It literally halved overnight when workers from the new EU states came in. It's never recovered. And I have to listen to people like you crowing about how marvellous it is they can get a cheap plumber. Ignoring the fact that it also plunged plenty of workers who weren't on brilliant wages onto poverty wages. But you benefit from it. So I just have to suck it up.

Having seen first hand some of the immigrant camps in the woods around Peterborough, I have no desire for the rest of the country to be knee deep in other peoples shit and rubbish.

I have no desire for my kids to be unable to work because every non-office job is taken by someone who lives in a tent and has no overheads, whereas they'll have to pay for the facilities they use.

If that's what it takes to make someone a racist, then I guess I fit the bill....

The UK is an island nation that has thrived on migration and has a proud history of being a safe haven for those who seek refuge. These are things we should be proud of and continue to endorse.

But on the other hand the kind of mass migration and type of migrant that seems to be attracted to the UK via calais at the moment serves no positive purpose to this country. As far as I, and many others, can see it simply serves to bring a drain on already underfunded services.

I work in a front line service. The hoops people have to jump through to access services are massive BUT can be completely overridden by waving human rights around.

It's a tough one. Something needs to be done in calais to protect our imports and exports and even help the French with managing the situation. But we cannot take them all on. We do not have the infrastructure and that is why communities that get battered by mass immigration complain. Repairs don't get done. Schools are over subscribed. Ghettos form. It's grim. We need to be able to articulate these fears and worries sensibly without being shut down by the bleeding heart liberals who largely seem unaffected by it.

Moreshabby - you should have known better. Attachment to your way of life, a desire to preserve it, and wanting to prevent your own children from becoming ethnic minorities in their own country, is racism.

Conversely the impulse of Africans or Asians to want the same for themselves in their own countries is simply natural and right and to be celebrated.

Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, Europe for everyone. Have you not learned the drill by now?

I was referring to her post regarding Africans planning on lots of children when they arrive in the UK iknow it's not racist to be concerned about population effects on infrastructure but it is when you say you are only worried about foreigners, but Brits don't matter.

aer still completely wrong, you are making sweeping assumptions about my family and background. Affordable housing and job availability are immediate pressures for most of my generation.
As for student politicos really?
You are aware the minimum wage is set in law? If you think that's a poverty wage maybe you should take it up with your MP rather than trying to blame immigrants for all of the problems this country faces. If your spouse was British you had the luxury of not worrying whether you could even live in the same country together so let's not get into who has benefitted more from which policies.

Can somebody please explain why you are inherently deserving of more in life if you are born in a relatively rich country? Why, over everyone else in the world, you deserve opportunities to live a comfortable life with access to free education, healthcare etc? Knowing your children won't go hungry?

It's down to sheer luck you were all born in Europe and I don't think anyone is in a position to look down on someone else, view them as vermin as a pp said and say that they are not deserving of any of that by virtue of their nationality.

No middle class in Africa??

Rubbish. Just come from there last week and I've never seen so many 4-wheel drives on the roads anywhere around here.

Also lots of well-dressed families out and about with their 2.4 children...

pata but huge numbers of people in the UK don't have a good life. Are you forgetting huge cuts are being made due to the massive deficit this country is running at? Parts of the UK are now amongst the most deprived in Europe but that's OK because we are Britain and we are rich.

Aermingers well said

Aermingers I'm from Sheffield and I work with a woman from Page Hall. She's lived there all of her life and is devastated with how it is now. She is always coming into work upset. She has complained to the police countless times but they won't/can't do anything. The stock reply is that they were persecuted in their own country so they are entitled to do as they like here. It's so unfair.

Aer why are they allowed to do as they like though, this is what is so wrong. why are the people not accountable?

I think the police are so scared of being called racist that it's easier for them to just ignore the criminal behaviour. This is South Yorkshire police don't forget.