To keep shouting, they are refugees! !!

[ginmakesitallok]

And not migrants!!!!

The people who are dying on Europe's shores are not migrants! They are not coming to Europe for jobs, for benefits, because they think it will be an easy life. They are escaping war, ISIS, starvation, rape, death. They just want to live and give their children an opportunity to live.

Stop calling them migrants, as if they just fancy living somewhere else. Brits rearing abroad are migrants. Other eu residents coming here are migrants. The dead baby on a beach in Greece was a refugee.

It looks like you're being heard OP

"they're meant to stop in the first safe country they get to"

Can you imagine the uproar from the Daily Mail if that country was the UK? They'd soon say they should be shared out equally.

I think the terminology isn't really helping.

Not all people fleeing Syria will meet the technical definition of refugee, that doesn't mean they don't need our help. People who don't qualify as refugees may still be allowed to remain in the UK on other grounds such as humanitarian protection.

Additionally, some of the people in Calais are economic migrants not people fleeing war or persecution. It doesn't make them lesser beings but does reduce the likelihood of them being able to settle legally.

In the short term I do think we should be taking people on humanitarian grounds (refugee or not) but the whole system of dealing with migrants coming to Europe needs a much better co-ordinated approach. Ideally applications should be dealt with quickly on the other side of the Med so people can legally get on a plane or ferry rather than an overloaded fishing boat.

p.s. I married a refugee and its not a label he liked at all - it carries a lot of pain and reminded him that he had to reject and be rejected by his country of birth.

The comments I am reading about this is making my fucking blood boil Absolutely disgusting and I can't bear to read anymore.

This is a humanitarian crisis, not an economical one. For fucks sake, people need to do something, this country isn't fucking full, they aren't coming for fucking benefits, they want safety, a roof over their heads, access to food. It is their basic human right to seek these out.

And all this bullshit about what country should be helping. Britain says what about Saudi? Saudi say, what about America? America say what about Britain? Britain say what about France? France say what about Germany? We could go round and round in circles forever more and nothing as per fucking usual is being done. I don't give a shit who helps, just DO SOMETHING.

This graph doesn't even show UK on there. We are doing fuck all yet all the Proud to British First cunts seem to think we will be inundated with refugees.

I'll open my own refugee settlement of I could, I would go to the march in London but sadly I'm at a wedding in Cornwall that day.

www.statista.com/chart/2938/germany-comes-first-for-syrian-refugee-resettlement/

Huge apologies for the rant but the reaction I've seen amongst British people on social media and news websites makes me so fucking disappointed to be British.

I agree with stripey socks. The parents of that boy are responsible. If they were genuinely fearing for their lives then they would have stayed in Turkey. Although im not suggesting that its Turkeys responsibility as I know that they take in many more people than us and many more than anywhere to be fair. However, Turkey is a VAST country.
Going back to the parents and also going off topic a bit. My friend works in a big inner city hospital and she quite regularly sees heavily pregnant women literally step off the plane and walk into her unit . Just about ready to give birth after having flown in from Afghanistan, Somalia or pakistan. Risking theirs and their unborn babies life to get to the UK. Thats how attractive a prospect it is.
I think Uk citizens are just about sick of being quick to welcome anyone. Now many of these may be genuinely fleeing persecution, in which case we absolutely should give aid, but I suspect many also just want a better life . Thing is, we cant accommodate every one who wants a better life no matter what poverty they have come from. Everyone wants the Uk .
As for suggesting that that the immigrants at calais are choosing the Uk as they speak English. Really? Come on. Again, if you were looking for a place of safety then you would stay at your first destination.

turkishly

Everyone wants the UK is a complete and utter fiction. We don't have the largest number of refugees in Europe and compared to countries like Jordan and the Lebanon we have very few indeed.

If everyone wants the UK why are there over 1.3 million Syrian refugees in the Lebanon?

turkishly - Everyone wants the UK

We've taken 166 Syrian refugees between June 2014 and June 2015. Lebanon have taken 1 million so far. It's so arrogant to assume they all want to come here.

thatjust

Yes I am proud to be British and whilst as ever more can always be done to help people we have a good record actually and esp in the past decade compared to many other countries. Countries who are closer by, who are rich and whose culture and religious beliefs are more in line with the refugees.

Xpost Chaz.

cricket, I am with you 100%. The lack of compassion and empathy makes me sick. I am sick to death of the "they should have stayed in Turkey". "they should have stayed and fought" . I'm also sick of people suggesting that someone puts their children in a leaky boat and risks their lives just because they want £30 odd a week and a bedsit. This latest family came from Kobane and were Kurdish. I an understand why they wouldn't want to stay in Turkey as it doesn't exactly have a great reputation with regard to its treatment of the Kurds and I have personally seen over the years the prejudice of ordinary Turks towards them, long before this crisis.

I never go on marches but I would go on this one. Ironically I shall be in Greece at that time!

And as for children drowning, absolutely tragic but it is the parents of the child pictured in the media who are responsible for putting him in such danger by going to sea in a rubber dinghy. Did you know that the family had been turned down for asylum in Canada, and that the father now plans to go back to Syria? He must think his life won't be in danger if he goes back.
Stripey - well said.
Not easy to post against the prevailing Mumsnet view. I've been struggling to post something that won't get me accused of wanting to kill babies.

SoThis - previous track record may well be brilliant but its the right now, as we speak, problem that is being spoken about. And we are failing massively to help out with such a large humanitarian crisis.

Applying for asylum in the first safe country works for isolated cases of political oppression and particularly where the individual can get on a plane.

It really does not work when people cross borders in their millions having been bombed out of their homes or sent fleeing by ISIS. Do people really think that it's OK for over a million Syrian refugees to be hosted by Lebanon?

I don't think I can read these threads any more, the stupidity and ignorance and lack of the compassion and (yes) racism upsets and angers me too much.

And that man plans to go back to Syria to bury his children and wife in their ancestral home. I doubt he is safe, and given all that he has lost I doubt he cares any more.

Some of you sicken me. Just unbelievable.

You know I do look at these crowds of young healthy men in Budapest and Calais and Lampeduesa and wonder what would have happened in 1939 if the young, healthy men of Europe fled to the U.S. leaving behind just women, children and the elderly.

I hadn't seen this point made before, and it bears consideration.

From a language and culture point of view it would make sense for Saudi to be opening their borders too.

Really? Despite having a vile dictator, Syria was actually a secular country and not that many people were devoutly religious. The average Syrian would probably be just as horrified at the thought of going somewhere like Saudi Arabia as you would. Even if Saudi would take them, which it won't.

Did you know that the family had been turned down for asylum in Canada, and that the father now plans to go back to Syria? He must think his life won't be in danger if he goes back.

He's returning to bury his wife and 2 children for fuck sake. He's been refused asylum and his whole family is dead. Your lack of compassion is astounding.

I hadn't seen this point made before, and it bears consideration.

Not really. It's a false analogy to compare the two and that I think is why many Europeans (especially the Greeks who suffered dreadfully during WW2) are showing more compassion than the UK.

Firstly Europe wasn't being bombed by its own leaders as well as invaded by the Nazis, whereas Syria is attacked from both sides. Secondly, many young men did flee and came here where there was an organised resistance movement and they could join the RAF etc and fight. That is not possible, not least because the West will not get involved militarily in the same way.

Also, what do you think happened to those men who did stay? They didn't just go to work in the office you know. Many were sent to concentration camps, prisons and forced labour camps. Those who joined the resistance often had to live in hiding, sharing the rations of those who would help them. (You don't get a ration card if you don't officially exist.)

If these young men stayed in Syria, many of them would be probably be dead. Have you seen any footage from Syria lately?

Well to be honest, if every healthy young man in Europe in 1939 had said, "Fuck this, I'm not going to fight", then we wouldn't have had any war would we?

Im not denying that genuine refugees, those who are actually fleeing war torn countries should be given asylum here! Of course they should.
But the sheer number of people who.want to come for a better life and the fact that so many have been allowed to has kind of made so many Uk Citizens pissed off
. And to suggest that the UK is callous is ludicrous. How much more can Britain take. Yes let these poor refugees in so long as we can distinguish them from the scroungers.

I agree that it is the fact that we have had such a flood of legal EC economic migrants that has made people less compassionate about genuine refugees.

I did point out to my righteously indignant teens last night that accepting more people will have little effect on us in our naice Lancashire village. But if we lived down south with stretched services and were on a council house waiting list or worried about our jobs we may have more concerns.

I challenge anyone to argue that a parent would risk their child drowning unless they thought it was truly their best/only option. The image if that boy on the beach is forever ingrained in my mind, i fail to see how anyone can not be affected by that. And yet i've jst seen a comment on the daily fail (i kniw, i know!) where someone has rightly pointed out these are human beings not animals and it's been red arrowed!!! I mean seriously i despair.

Though i would agree with pp, these are human beings seeking refuge. I feel if you try and label them anything else it's a way if disassociating them from ourselves which somehow makes it acceptable for them to suffer in a way we would never wish to. At least thats what i think all the nob heads tell themselves.

Itsmine I meant it as an example of everyone wanting someone else to bear the brunt of it. Of course it would be fairer and a lot more efficient if the majority got together to share the 'load' so to speak. But that's not what is happening.

And yes, if I could I would open a settlement. What do you think the other countries who open settlements are doing? Even Iceland have offered to help. The people of the Gulf do want to help too:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34116381

turkishly
You do know that Spain, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, Latvia, Italy, Cyprus and Austria all have a higher proportion of non-nationals in their population than the UK?
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Non-national_population_by_group_of_citizenship,1_January_2014(%C2%B9)_YB15.png

Where has the myth that the UK is taking more than its fair share come from? the Daily Mail