Sothisissummer The thing is that something is going to have to be agreed in terms of certain border camps anyway because, if the situation in Syria continues, Lebanon will no longer be able to cope. There are already protests in Beirut about refuse.
And there is a history of refugee populations in Lebanon pulling the Lebanese into civil or trans-national war. If Lebanon falls into a repeat of the 80s with war in Syria alongside ... the potential for the entire Middle East to go up in flames is high.
And considering the EU is edging very close to war with Russia, and all that clusterfuck with the Gulf vs Russia's-backed Assad, and the Ukraine and how it pulls in the Chinese who are rather itchy because they had purchased Ukrainian land in order to feed their burgeoning Chinese population, and those bloody gas fields in the Eastern Med where everyone wants a piece of the pie, we could be looking at a "world war" scenario.
This is how serious this shit is.
And, fundamentally, Britain should retain capacity to be able to offer asylum to certain strategic populations should this occur. Cyprus is only 60 miles from Lebanon and Britain has military and strategic bases there, so the island would be a target. Imv, Britain would have an obligation to offer asylum to the Cypriot population in such a situation.
These things must be considered.
Again, Britain needs to ensure viable provision for any refugees. As an illustrative example, the way that Iraqi interpreters for the British Army were settled in Britain was atrocious. Some Iraqi families ended up living in high-rises that should have been demolished years ago, surrounded by hard-core criminals and heroine addicts.