Merkel is responsible, Germany should take them

[longfingernails]

Merkel has idiotically encouraged millions of illegals to risk their lives getting to Europe, and then promptly shut the door on them. Now sensible countries like Hungary are having to bear the brunt. It's the most idiotic policy I've seen for quite some while.

Germany should pay. Germany should house them. And the EU rules on free movement of people should be torn up. I hope the AfD gets a massive boost at the expense of the CDU/CSU.

I think even someone as wet as Cameron could get Hungary, Croatia, et al to agree on making Germany bear the brunt after the problems caused by hordes of illegals at their borders over the last few days. I am sure the Greeks would be more than happy to oblige too.

[shins]

Talk if that's the case, why is the UK population increasing so quickly and why is it one of the most densely populated countries in Europe? Would adding millions more people help with the housing shortage?

The UK has always had immigrants but nothing anywhere near the numbers of recent years. In the mid 90s annual net migration was approx 50, 000, it's now 330,000. That's insane.

And native people picked fruit and veg as recently as the 1990s.

[woodhill]

Totally agree Shin

[Justanotherlurker]

Ok Talk, you ignore the premise of the article if you so wish.


The shortage in skill sets you mentioned is directly relative to the financial collapse in 2008 when house building went into reverse, since the pick up this area has been affected by immigration and is currently suffering wage depression


Still I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that you wasn't to happy with the economists view in the op-ed today discrediting corbyns policies.

[shins]

The edited footage didn't show the men trashing the duty free shop, ripping tiles off roofs and hurling them at police along with burning tyres, bottles and rocks. It didn't show them shoving women and children up the front into danger while the cameramen pleaded with them not to. It didn't show them chucking two kids over the fence. It didn't show the long period of violence that culminated in the fence being broken. It was then that the police sprayed water and teargas. To watch Sky News you'd think the evil police just did it for fun. They focus on the tiny handful of kids and women but the vast majority were angry violent men.

[woodhill]

Do we honestly want some of the violent lawless people here. I'm afraid I don't

[Tartanbeachhut]

So how many people on this thread, who are pro the refugees coming to Europe on masse, live in a household where both parents who were working in decent jobs, having been to university, have recently been made redundant and are finding it difficult to find work and are therefore on benefits and are now shitting themselves that they won't be able to find a decent job to look after there own family in the way they'd like in the country they grew up in.

And how many of you think that the above statement is irrelevant, that are not in that situation, so haven't a clue how this whole situation is actually quite worrying in the country you grew up in.

[ColdTeaAgain]

You are making a right tit of yourself long.

[TiredButFineODFOJ]

Long I thinks it's your fault and you should pick up the tab.

[Tartanbeachhut]

Their own family

[IKnowIAmButWhatAreYou]

I said last week, when other MN'ers were burbling about packing up their old clothes & sending them to Calais, that the best way to help these people is via the camps in Syria that the UK and other countries are pouring billions into and that taking hordes of uncontrolled immigrants into countries wasn't feasible or sustainable.

I was slated for it.

Now look what's happening - borders closed across Europe because it isnt' the best way for anyone....

Unfortunately the media have played 1 photo of a 1 dead child like a violin & half of the world has danced their merry little jig......

[Ta1kinPeace]

Shins
The UK's housing shortage is massively exacerbated by the fact that there are over 500,000 empty homes in the UK and 1,000,000 holiday and second homes and 400,000 plots with planning permission that the developers are sitting on.

The UK's population has risen, but the unemployment percentage has not.
Implying that the people who have arrived have found work.

And native people picked fruit and veg as recently as the 1990s.
The seasonal Migrant worker scheme for fruit and veg farms was set up in the 30's

justanotherlurker
I've not had my copy of this week's Economist yet still finishing last weeks but I'm not at all surprised that they are going to rip Corbyn's economics to pieces.
Any accountant knows that much of what he spouts is la la land hot air.
But then again Dave and Gideon picked the figure for the living wage off a lottery ticket as it has no evidence base either.

[Tartanbeachhut]

The migrants now feel entitled to come to Europe to start new lives and if they arrive and can't get what they want there will be civil unrest, they are from war torn countries with a different culture to ours and have nothing to lose, and the lives of your children and all you've worked so hard for will never be the same again.

[elementofsurprise]

Ta1kinPeace
I don't know about the other jobs you mention, but there is absolutely no need for the UK to have shortage of nurses. In fact when I was looking into training, circa 2007, there was actually a problem with newly qualified nurses struggling to find work. Nursing courses are massively oversubscribed - it's just that it's cheaper to import nurses and put them through a conversion course than to train our own from scratch. I'm not trying to put this forward as an anti-immigration argument, but I think it is a misrepresentation of the facts to use it as a pro-immigration argument.

I'm also concerned about the dehumanising way you refer to "the unskilled", as if it doesn't matter that they're unemployed/v low paid because somehow they're not worth as much, being merely unskilled plebs. Plenty of graduates I know (and the type who would have gone to university even before so many people went) have worked in "unskilled" jobs, because there are simply not the graduate positions available, or it has taken some time to find one. We can't all go to university or train as something and be at the top of our speciality, because the structure doesn't allow for that. Someone's got to be working lower down the ladder.

Interesting that you're left wing when it comes to immigration - because it has benefitted you personally - but not when it comes to income distribution etc.

To the OP - yur language is utterly inflammatory, and sadly news sources need to be checked, not least the DM. However Germany offering refuge to thousands then closing the borders seems ridiculous and yes it's not on to expect poorer countries to suddenly deal with the fall out. However I really need to go off and read the news because this may be a wild interpretation of what's actually happening... (in my defence I've been in bed with horrible flu for two days and not read the news!)

To PP who mentioned Australia keeping refugees/immigrants on "nearby islands" - I googled earlier, those islands are miles away, in the middle of nowhere!

[TheNewStatesman]

"There is no evidence that immigration hits the wages of other than the utterly unskilled (who often did not have wages anyway)"

Not true--low-skilled workers tend to take a hit too.

In the long run, highly diverse society with a lot of "churn" in their populations tend to find it very hard to maintain a generous welfare state or well-funded public services, because people tend to be less instinctively trusting of strangers and have a weaker sense of national unity. This is likely to make income inequality worse still. Economists like Paul Collier have talked about this. The "Economist" doesn't care much, because their vision for society is that of a highly individualistic society with a minimalist state.

The result is increasing inequality and a more uncomfortable, anxious, angry society. In terms of genuine social welfare, equality tends to be more important than absolutely wealth.

"And if the people of Western Europe want carers and taxpayers to reduce our pension shortfall, either the rich needed to breed like rabbits 15 years ago, or we need immigrants."

Except that the layer of immigrants will age too, requiring even more younger workers, and the only long-term effect this will produce is an ever-growing population. Can you really not see that? Again, Collier and other economists have also pointed out the flaw in this scheme. The only long-term, sustainable solution to this issue is to raise the pension age in line with our growing life expectancy.

[TheNewStatesman]

"Interesting that you're left wing when it comes to immigration - because it has benefitted you personally - but not when it comes to income distribution etc."

There is a term for this--"The Progressive's Dilemma." In a nutshell:

A lot of people on the left want to have "a generous welfare state and well-funded public services and incomes that are as equal as possible"

BUT

at the same time they also want "really open borders and tons of immigration and as much diversity as possible."

You can't combine those things easily--not in the long run.

I hugely admire the social welfare democracies of the Nordic countries like Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but this kind of setup only really works in not-too-diverse societies where there is a low level of churn in the population--because it results in societies having an extremely high level of natural, instinctive trust in their fellow citizens, making people happy to give up large amounts of their income in taxes to benefit strangers.

It is absolutely no coincidence that the Nordic countries tend to really struggle with immigration (poor levels of integration and so on)--there is an inherent tension between generous immigration policies and generous welfare policies.

The countries have also split to a certain extent. Sweden seems to have gone down the road of high levels of immigration...not surprisingly, its public services are becoming less generous and are starting to be privatized. Meanwhile, Norway and Denmark have tended to throw up the barriers to outsiders, and have found it easier to maintain their generous social welfare models.

[yeOldeTrout]

Lise Doucet was interviewing migrants/refugees in Croatia, on the radio yesterday. The refugees were saying that some (too many) other migrants they met on the road were fake Syrians, for instance really Egyptians but pretending to be Syrians.
The refugees were saying they wanted asylum in a nice country with good economic prospects, not a country with a depressed economy like Croatia or Serbia.

So they didn't just want refuge, they wanted good economic future, too. They are refugees and economic migrants.

I think the whole premise of giving asylum is going to go Tits Up.

I'm finding what LFN says distasteful, but I agree that turning back the boats is the best way to stop most the deaths. And reduce money going into hands of ruthless traffickers.

[Mistigri]

The only way to ensure that the crisis doesn't continue is to pour money into the refugee camps in the Middle East.

Instead, the UNHCR is dramatically underfunded and in some camps is being forced to cut rations to all but the most vulnerable. While this remains true - they will keep coming. And so would you, in the same position.

In any case a humanitarian solution is required for those already on their way, unless we want to see news pictures of people dying at EU borders.

There has to be coordinated EU and UN action now, to keep people safe and process asylum claims quickly.

[abbieanders]

So they didn't just want refuge, they wanted good economic future, too.

It's almost like they're human beings with hopes and dreams and futures and not just a pack of losers who should be grateful to live in massive camps of displaced people.

[comingintomyown]

Interesting post newstatesman and also the edited coverage on Sky news , I wonder how things would be different now if a still of burning tyres being thrown instead of an infants body dominated front pages last week.

It's all well and good talking about being humanitarian but I don't believe vast swathes of people can successfully integrate into a culture totally different to their own and I don't understand why Europe should be expected to provide the means for them to do so.

[Limer]

The point about the million holiday homes - where are these? Mainly in the holiday resorts, surely? Coasts, national parks, remote beautiful areas, etc. Where there aren't many permanent jobs - and there will be even fewer jobs if there's no tourism because the holiday homes are no more.

[OTheHugeManatee]

I was coming in to post something like TheNewStatesman just did but s/he has said eloquently everything I would. Eventually we will be forced to choose between generous welfare and very porous borders. And if we choose open borders, it's the poorest and most vulnerable who will lose out because they are most reliant on the welfare safety net. Middle-class advocates of diversity are net beneficiaries of high immigration as well as being insulated from its downsides; claiming the progressive, compassionate moral high ground on top of this is frankly hypocritical.

[lacktoastandtolerance]

So they didn't just want refuge, they wanted good economic future, too. They are refugees and economic migrants.

The bastards.

You're aware, of course, that the 65% of Premier League players born abroad are economic migrants, yet hundreds of thousands of people vote with their wallets each week to approve them? Many of the people who clear your office, wash your car, pick the food you buy, nurse you back to health - the people who contribute in a myriad of ways to the dynamic, exciting world we live in - are economic migrants.

Then there's the five and a half million British people abroad. Econonomic migrants trying to improve their present and their future - and let's not talk about the 30,000 British people on benefits who live abroad.

The I'm-alright-Jack-fuck-em-what-if-they're-paedos attitude is sickening, especially when it's spouted by hypocrites. The world changes. People move about. Cultures absorb cultures and are the richer for it.

Human beings - that's human beings like you, like your parents, your children, not illegals, not immigrants, not swarms, not hordes - are trying to make their lives better. If you treat that concept with contempt then it is you who is making this country a worse place.

[Mistigri]

lacktoast morally I agree with you (though your 30k on benefits living abroad is an astonishing understatement; I would say that 90%+ of the Brits I know in France claim benefits of some sort).

Practically though with the best will in the world Europe cannot host all the Syrian refugees - the population is/was 20 million and probably three quarters or more of those would leave if they could (and most would have a reasonable claim for refugee status). And let's not even get started on the 60 million Iraqis and Afghans many of whom may have a valid claim for asylum.

So a pragmatic political solution has to be found ... which will involve the EU taking its share of responsibility for the problems it has been complicit in creating. But open borders is not a realistic solution.

[lacktoastandtolerance]

Mistigri I think it's full-time unemployment benefits rather than bits and pieces. I've lost the source and am in a bit of a rush to find it again.

I totally agree we need a realistic, pragmatic solution, and also that simply opening all borders forever is probably not one. But pretending these people are sub-human scum is completely offensive - that's really what my argument is in this case.

[woodhill]

totally agree about the nursing thing not needing to import people. I was involved in a course and at least 40 students wanting to go to university. Is it because the former are easier to exploit and are cheaper to employ?

What about all our graduates and young people who may require housing and want to have a family etc.

Also I think often the immigrants bring their elderly relatives in who haven't contributed and have health care needs so even more of an ageing population to support and pay for so I don't agree that we need any more young people to arrive to support the elderly.