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.

but they don't have grounds to call themselves refugees

To anyone who thinks this, they can fuck off right after they remove their head from their arse. I guess if you do think that, chances of you removing your head from that orifice are rather low.

The people fleeing from Syria are stuck between ISIS and a government that used chemical weapons to make a point. They are escaping from a horrendous civil war.

Do you honestly think they get on a boat, overloaded, with the chance of death for the people they most love to face a hugely uncertain future, simply because they'd prefer a nice, cushy life in the UK?

They don't want to come here ffs! They have no choice!

And you know what? If I was in that position and I thought the only way to save my daughter was to flee, I would do exactly as they have. How fortunate we are to not have to make such a decision.

If they just wanted to be safe from bombs they would be content with Turkey or Hungary or France. Those who move beyond their first EU state breach EU law and are much more likely to be economic migrants.

The UK is not inundated with refugees. The UK is not taking more than its fair share.

Where are people even getting this idea from?

Hiding this thread now. Really saddened by the amount of blinkered, racist, non-empathetic people that seem to be inhabiting MN of late.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

we may not be taking our fair share but where the fuck are all these people going to live, how can they support themselves and or kids, there isnt enough housing for our own people never mind thousands more and then more after that

But you can't expect Kurds to go to Turkey, or non Muslims or non Sunni Muslims to go to Saudi. I think the economic migrant argument falls down there.

And how do you know, turkishly, that we don't live or work in a big city?

Where are people even getting this idea from?

The Daily Fail of course. Which, incidentally, in the mid 30s was a big supporter of Hitler. Which in 1938/39 when people like Nicholas Winton were trying to get Jewish children out of Nazis occupied Europe, referred to the "misplaced sentimentality" of people like him and said we shouldn't take them.

Talk about history repeats itself. This is a rerun of the 1930s.

Immigration in the UK and the Syrian humanitarian crisis are totally separate issues. This isn't about the number of immigrants in cities, its about offering a safe environment to people who are fleeing war.

If you cannot separate these two issues, you are sadly lacking intelligence.

Trouble is soft touch, amazingingly tolerant England is the joke of Europe. Lno other country that I know of is this soft

Well I'm sorry but you obviously live in a different England to me. This country has become horribly fascist over the last few years and isn't tolerant at ALL any more. Just compare it with Greece, where there is a massive financial crisis, unemployment is staggering high, and people have NOTHING, some of them, and they are still helping. Because they have compassion and decency.

Oh, and I lived in London for years and know all about immigrant neighbours, many of whom didn't speak much English. Incidentally how do you know your neighbour still speaks no English? Have you ever tried actually talking to her?

Immigration in the UK and the Syrian humanitarian crisis are totally separate issues. This isn't about the number of immigrants in cities, its about offering a safe environment to people who are fleeing war.

If you cannot separate these two issues, you are sadly lacking intelligence.

Applauds.

turkishly I live in London. Fairly big (in fact THE biggest city in the UK). I don't see "immigration at its worst" - I see lots of incredibly hard working people from vastly different walks of life/countries/skill sets/languages getting on, contributing to society, bringing up some of the best behaved kids you see around. Please don't spout such untruths.

According to the BBC the UK has taken in the region of 1000 people from Syria this year, Germany is planning on 800,000 over the course of this year. So I don't know where the idea that we've been a "soft touch" - to quote turkishly - comes from.

Your anecdotal 'evidence' is really quite astounding, turkishly. I wasn't aware that proficiency in a language was linked to the ability to procreate.

Which particular large UK city do you live in which has been so negatively impacted by immigration? By which particular group? Are you able to spot the 'genuine asylum seekers' worthy of your support within these groups?

According to the BBC the UK has taken in the region of 1000 people from Syria this year

I think we've pledged to take that many. However, on the news last night it was said only 216 Syrians had arrived here so far this year and the Government spokesman did not deny that was the figure

But people are plainly not separating the two issues. Because for some people, the perceived adverse impact on their own lives is the same.

And if you cannot understand, or at least attempt to understand, why people are unhappy about the idea of the UK taking in refugees, then you cannot hope to reassure them and change their minds.

And I do believe it is easier to be generous and take the moral high ground when you are a Have, than when you are a Have Not.

catlover I thought DC had pledged to have 1000 over here only recently? The figures I saw earlier was 166 Syrians in the UK as of June 2015. I my be wrong though!

Yes you're right Louise which just makes it even worse! We could and should be taking many times that number.

I still say where the hell are we going to put them and the thousands more who will follow them (if they get the chance)

do believe it is easier to be generous and take the moral high ground when you are a Have, than when you are a Have Not.

Well that argument certainly doesn't apply to the Greeks since most of them have B all right now.

Of course Greece knows what it's like to go through hell. Over 1 million ethnic Greeks were booted out of Turkey less than 100 years ago, many couldn't even speak Greek and so they know what it's like to be refugees. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died in Greece during WW2 and in the Civil War that followed. They had a repressive dictatorship until the 1970s. I think their compassion comes from their experiences. The UK generally has had it soft in comparison and I personally would think Have Nots would have more sympathy because they'd have an understanding of what it's like to be marginalised.

somewheresomehow. We have 64 million people in this country. Much as I dislike Yvette Cooper I think her idea of ten Syrian families per town is a sensible one. You wouldn't even know they were there.

Or do you seriously expect other, much poorer, European countries to take them all simply because they are geographically nearer?

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?

^

This! Why do people have their heads so firmly in the sand that they cannot contemplate this very obvious fact?

so thats still ten homes/flats rooms that towns dont have and if they did then our own people should be in them

so thats still ten homes/flats rooms that towns dont have and if they did then our own people should be in them

I can't respond to this. I am staggered by your lack of compassion.

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.

Would you have condemned young healthy Jewish men for leaving Nazi Germany? What do you imagine would have happened to them if they had stayed? Do you think that ultimately they did more to fight the regime by joining other countries' armed forces than they could ever have done from the ghettoes and concentration camps of Germany, Austria and Poland?