To think that the 'Calais Camp' situation needs to be resolved ASAP!

[Kreacherelf]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3413566/Port-Calais-closed-migrants-storm-harbour-make-Spirit-Britain-ferry-desperate-bid-reach-UK.html

This is just getting ridiculous now. France need to take this problem to the EU and ask for help dealing with it immediately. It has gone on for too long and needs to stop.

I don't know what the answer is. I think the UK should take anyone under 18, and their family members. Other than that, everyone else should have to apply for asylum in France or risk arrest. Not a perfect solution, but the only one I have.

Sonya that's several threads at any given moment in a nutshell.

Well said.

Bloody good post, OTheHugeManatee.

"I understand the desire of some posters on this thread to think the best of everyone and to feel compassion for the experiences of people fleeing warzones. But you have to understand that Calais is just the tip of the iceberg. There are literally millions, if not tens of millions people who could be said to have a case for asylum here. Is anyone seriously suggesting we let them all in? Every single one of them?"

Exactly.

Anyone who doubts what she is saying, take a look at the Gallup figures. They show what proportion of people in developed countries would choose to migrate to a developed country if they could:

www.gallup.com/poll/124028/700-million-worldwide-desire-migrate-permanently.aspx

"Thirty-eight percent of the adult population in the region or an estimated 165 million say they would like to do this if the opportunity arises."

Bear in mind that the above figures come from Gallup, not from a nutty right-wing site with an agenda.

Most of the above would probably come to Europe because it is geographically closer to more of the poorest countries.

You want 150 million people added to Europe's population? Seriously?

The migration won't end when (if) Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan stabilise, because it's not just about warzones. It's about the fact that life in Europe is quite safe, stable, free and affluent, relative to much of the world, and understandably many, many people who live elsewhere in the world would like a nice life too. Some 45 million of them would quite like a nice life in the UK, if that Gallup poll is to be believed.

But no-one seems to be asking the question: is it really the duty of European nations to offer a European standard of living to anyone - or indeed tens or hundreds of millions of anyones - who turns up here and wants a European standard of living?

We need to stop focusing on Calais. Trying to address Calais as an isolated problem is like trying to treat chicken pox by putting cream on one spot. These are massive, global macroeconomic trends we're looking at here and the European political conversation has a very long way to go to address those realities.

Tempting though it is to lose the big picture in understandable empathy for individual cases, we in the UK need to be very honest with ourselves about how far that generosity born of empathy really, truly goes. 20,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 45,000,000? It's all very well saying 'we are all equal' but does it really follow that we have a duty to provide 45 million people with an equal standard of living to our own in the UK, as they are all equal to us?

No. If people really believed that, we wouldn't have the levels of inequality that already exist within the UK. 'We are all equal' is a laudable sentiment, but when set against macroeconomic trends it's just that: a sentiment.

You want 150 million people added to Europe's population? Seriously?

If I believed in country's without borders, then Yes! I would want that! Its also what the leaders of the EU want.

These nutters exploiting the migrants in Calais are not far removed from the Nutters running the EU.

Its a shame that so many social questions have cropped up isn't it, I bet they were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of all this cheap labour flooding in. More money, more money more money. Money is what its all about.
No matter about the social cost to anybody.

Actually whilst I agree with the general sentiment on this thread I don't think for one minute that the EU leaders were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of a new influx of people. Germany was perhaps an exception to this but only to a limited extent.

They are in a very difficult position where they are under massive pressure to look after everyone who wants to enter whilst having to somehow find the money to do this. It's clearly easier to take a stance that you are not allowing people in other than through the correct channels however the pressure to do the "kind" thing and open the borders is immense.

I don't see why Cameron is under fire for calling them a 'bunch of migrants'? The majority of them are!

(excluding the kids of course)

People really should use their brains a little more than constantly listen to their heart!

The number of emotional blackmail that sprout on threads like these are alarming. They obviously haven't thought about the issue properly.

Brains, people. Brains! Most of your life, your brain tells the truth. However, your heart can always, always lead you astray and create havoc in your life.

See, my heart weeps for the genuine refugees.

But my brain is telling me Manatee's post is right. My brain tells me this is just the beginning, and a large proportion of those who made it this far are chancers (because they have passed so many safe countries to get to Calais). It tells me our infrastructure won't cope. It tells me that our way of life would change.

Which one of you on this threads (mainly female, I guess?) would want to lose your freedom and everything we fight for, like gay rights, etc.? l

Seriously, for once... please listen to your brain rather than your heart.

red I would to like to believe that but none of the schenegen makes sense to me know.

I don't understand why immediately after the Bataclan the chief EU man said at the conference in a high handed dismissive way " dont even think about closing borders or talking about borders" this was when ( and still is) terrorists have exploited those borders to freely travel between countries and garner weapons and everything they need.

I mean, the first thing that comes to his mind are his precious borders? Not the safety of those within?

Then we get told how we all need mass immigration but there is a distinct flow of immigration from poor to rich countries. So....the rich need more immigration to get....richer but Poland, Romania, Lithuania...apparently they don't need mass immigration like we do?

Then all the other very real negatives of open border like the ease with which people smuggling, sex trafficking, guns and drugs can go on, and yet there is no information sharing between police forces ( something blown wide open by Paris attacks) I mean wouldn't anyone think - basic things like police sharing info would have all been put in place BEFORE mass immigration of anyone entering anywhere?

It doesn't lead me to think that anyone up at the top actually cares for us below because they have not shown it.
Now we have awful War in Syria, but again instead of moving to help Greece - a country already in dire crisis, and Italy, and having foresight...they strangely let the situation carry on, until mass out cry at the drownings and even then, they are slow to react and now, Merkel has opened up the doors to not mainly syrian refugees but migrants from African Nations...

something fishy going on.

I don't think it's anything 'fishy' - police across the UK aren't able to share data, for goodness sake. The infrastructure to share data just isn't in place at the moment and wouldn't be for a long time.

Irrespective of whether or not you believe there's a conspiracy, the fact is we have to deal with the situation now, and the best way to do that is not to open up the UK borders.

Still no response to my earlier question from tangerine. Why is that, I wonder.

The thing I don't understand is why they aren't already doing the thing they're going to have to end up doing: namely establishing containment camps in Turkey or Jordan, and using a concerted military blockade to prevent boats making the crossing to Greece. That's the only real way to prevent the drownings, and to ensure that all refugees who want to reach Europe get an equal hearing, rather than it just being a Darwinian race where the ones with the sharpest elbows or biggest wedge of money to pay traffickers get to go.

Many on this thread may think I have a 'heart of ice' to talk like this. But I genuinely don't see how tacitly condoning countless incredibly dangerous crossings, and indeed encouraging the volume of crossings to escalate as Merkel has done, is more compassionate than using a marine military blockade to stop the drownings, level the playing field and take people traffickers out of the equation.

Because no politician wants to be seen as the one who wants to stop them? You only have to look at the emotive rhetoric on here to see the kind of backlash they face - and that's before 'Jews fleeing the Nazis' and 'concentration camps' is referred to.

'I understand the desire of some posters on this thread to think the best of everyone and to feel compassion for the experiences of people fleeing warzones. But you have to understand that Calais is just the tip of the iceberg. There are literally millions, if not tens of millions people who could be said to have a case for asylum here. Is anyone seriously suggesting we let them all in? Every single one of them?'

I have said people should not be left to rot in camps. Look at the people that let people rot in camps in the past, they weren't very nice.

Not rotting camps doesn't mean averyone coming to the UK. It means something humane being done and cases actually being looked at raher than ignored. I don't think looking at their cases will mean more people will 'flood'over. Some will, but there is space in the UK. The UK takes a very small amount off asylum seekers in comparison to other European countries and the rest of the world.

Allthe, I don't know how you claim the EU wantcountries without borders. Have you missed all the recent razor wire and bodies in the sea?

Kreacher, you have no way of knowing who they are unless you have been to the camps. The majority seem to have led war or persecution in my opinion. That makes them refugees or asylum seekers, for starters. So Cameron is being offensive, because he is belittling their situation.

If many are economic migrants, it is still likely they fled great hardship. Reducing that hardship to 'a bunch of migrants' is harmful. It dismisses that hardship.

Cameron doesn't want people to feel sorry for them. He wants attention away from him and his greedy pals, so the people in Calais are a convenient scapegoat. If great hardship falls on anyone in the UK, this is how Cameron will treat them.

The line between genuine refugee and economic migrant is quite blurry anyhow, quite often the two cross over. People like Cameron are dehumanising refugees and migrants and encouraging anger at them.

No they're not dehumanising anyone. They are echoing what many people feel and taking a stronger stance, probably as a reaction to the uncontrolled immigration of the previous decade.

The majority seem to have led war or persecution in my opinion

Let's leave your opinion to one side. Facts and figures - and an explanation as to why they don't seek refuge in the first safe country?

using a concerted military blockade to prevent boats making the crossing to Greece

indeed.

police across the UK aren't able to share data, for goodness sake. The infrastructure to share data just isn't in place at the moment and wouldn't be for a long time

very true, its not in place but it should be re uk police

re Europe wide police I have read cases where British police have followed dangerous suspect in child abuse to somewhere like Holland but their police have not responded.
And vice versa.

I would have expected this to be set up before open borders.

The free movement of people to go on hols and work does not trump in my opinion the opportunist for increased sex trafficking and abuse.

given the lack of housing, spaces in schools, queues in a&e, waiting times to see GPs, overcrowded trains and roads, where is all this room in the uk, emily?

We have lots of money compared to other countries. We absolutely have a duty to help. But opening the floodgates to this little island isn't the way forward. Time, energies and funds would be better spent helping in camps and providing better education and health facilities etc in their home countries in my view.

Some will, but there is space in the UK. The UK takes a very small amount off asylum seekers in comparison to other European countries and the rest of the world.

Emily I love your ability to predict and see into the future. I would love to know which shop you got your crystal ball in.

The line between genuine refugee and economic migrant is quite blurry anyhow, quite often the two cross over

ah, convenient when faced with facts about migrants and true Syrian refugees now they are all a blurry mass!!!

'I have said people should not be left to rot in camps.'

Oh for goodness sakes Emily - this emotive language doesn't work. Wise up.

The 'something humane' which 'should be done' is to use a military blockade to stop people traffickers raking in cash to take desperate people out to sea on leaking boats in the middle of winter, often with counterfeit lifejackets that don't even work. Sometimes they can't even be fucked to fill the boats with enough fuel for the trip, because they assume the patrols will pick them up halfway across.

This needs to stop. Anything which sends a message that making it to European soil is the Golden Ticket will only encourage this appalling exploitation. The only genuinely humane solution is the tough one: pay Turkey or Jordan to host containment camps, where claims can be processed in a measured way rather than in a first-come-first-served way that only privileges the relatively wealthy or most aggressive.

I have said people should not be left to rot in camps. Look at the people that let people rot in camps in the past, they weren't very nice.
By 'camps' I am assuming you mean the ones in France.

1. They can apply for asylum in France (or in many other countries that one assumes they have already passed through): they do not have to stay in the camps.
2. Are we back to Hitler again? There is a distinct difference between people forcibly put in a camp and made them stay there while being starved and worked to death, and people waiting in a camp that they could leave.

If many are economic migrants, it is still likely they fled great hardship.
The people who face the most serious hardship are the ones, as I pointed out before, who can't afford so much as a bicycle, never mind pay for a flight to Turkey.

Which one of you on this threads (mainly female, I guess?) would want to lose your freedom and everything we fight for, like gay rights, etc.?

^ this ^ concerns me. We've fought so hard to get where we are right now and if our culture is diluted we are going to go backwards. People coming into this country have to have certain beliefs that are aligned to ours or are prepared to live by ours. And for those who don't and won't shouldn't be allowed to stay.

Agree Maisy. We've already seen what happened in Cologne - I don't want that here. I heard an interview with a (Muslim) female journalist afterwards - she said (words to the effect) that we had to learn from what had happened and begin to have conversations about the future, but that we shouldn't impose our belief system on immigrants

I've always believed that birds of a feather flock together. People will only live in harmony if they can share or respect the beliefs of others.

I hope she was happy to allow that to work both ways Sirchenjin

Useful piece here on why it would be misguided to bring the Calais camp inhabitants to the UK ... it actually refers to earlier EU amnesties, but the general principle certainly backs up what Manatee was saying:

www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/131

Oh, and since we're back to claims about people "rotting in camps" isn't it interesting that nobody's yet addressed the issue of migrants refusing accommodation in the safer, warmer facilities offered ...

If you want to see the threat to your rights, I suggest you look to the British government, the one that wantedto opt out of the Human Rights Convention and recently tried to restratify child poverty. Far more likely o affect your rights than a small number of immigrants.

Inkanta, it's not emotive language. It is FACTUAL. Their feet are literally rotting from the cold and wet. Sorry if that triggers an emotional response in you.

Lumela.you have no way of knowing who has suffered the greatest hardship.
The current siuation does evoke the Nazi regime and the treatment of people during the Bosnian war. Bulgaria recently advised Greece 'to push people back into the sea.' So basically, to drown people. Two people froze to death yesterday on the Bulgarian border. The parallels are obvious to me. They are stuck in Calais and not being goven any better options. It is deeply wrong.