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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

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

999 replies

Kreacherelf · 24/01/2016 14:20

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.

OP posts:
OhforGodsake · 30/01/2016 19:27

Bloody hell you're clutching straws there Tangerine Grin !

clam · 30/01/2016 19:29

this is what you think passes for intelligent, erudite debate?!

Sure as hell beats the asinine shit we had to listen to on the BBC's Question Time on Thursday.

clam · 30/01/2016 19:32

Our borders are being attacked, basically. Of course they should be defended. Or are you saying (emily, widow and tangerine) that we should just politely wave them all through?

SnowBells · 30/01/2016 19:32

Snowbells, so fleeing war or misery means you should be pleased to live in squalor in the cold with inadequate shelter and little food, where disease may break out, which hinders your health and safety, where neo Nazis attack and tear gas canisters are chucked in?

Oh, emily get off your high horse. It has been said time and time AGAIN that if they were genuine asylum seekers and not economic migrants, they could claim asylum in France. Sitting in squalor is what they CHOOSE to do to get to the UK. You will get the attacks you talk about everywhere (yes, in Britain, too!) when there are a lot of migrants coming into a country.

You seem to think they will have it better in the UK than France. What makes you think that? They won't!

AllTheMadmen · 30/01/2016 19:40

Do I empathise with their wish for a better life? Yes, more often than not. Do I think it's acceptable to deceive your way in to a country? Not usually. Do I think it's acceptable to try and claim asylum by deception? No. Do I blame them for trying? Not at all

That's how I feel too. I don't blame anyone for trying to better their life, but what they want and what is best for the UK are different things.

It reminds me of politicians being interviewed. It's almost like you've had media training....

Maybe it is media training but it makes every post seem utterly nonsensical and thereby pointless.

And incidentally your agonising about children suggests that you would approve the use of children as human shields for any acts of illegality

Well this is the bizarre thing! Everything is glossed over!

Ultimately emily you just want any pretence of border control abandoning. You don't care if that means someone walks into Europe with Uranium or Polonium or anything else. You couldn't give a shit if a region of Europe is devastated by a dirty bomb, because most of the people who will die or be hurt are from a race you don't care about and view as expendable. You have a fit about one of your pet race being hit by a baton, but you couldn't care less about real risks to large numbers of people if they were born in the wrong place for you to care

^ This sounds very much like the philosophy and limited thinking of the No Borders Contingent who are simailry obsessed^ with Calais.

Just been reading in the Independent about the group of masked men who have apparently just stormed through Stockholm station beating up refugees, including children

Frightening and awful, Far left and Far right again, awful. Communists versus Nazi's. Its only going to get much worse unfortunalty.

WidowWadman · 30/01/2016 19:43

"Pet race" - the language gets uglier and uglier.

Moreshabbythanchic · 30/01/2016 19:44

Widow you said Has anyone seen the reports of buses smashes up by Nazi thugs near Dover today isn't this dehumanising, or is it only violent migrants that should not be spoken about in this way but its ok for the rest of people?

SnowBells · 30/01/2016 19:46

And emily... since you like bringing up history so much, in previous occasions, when 7,000 people did storm a border, people very likely didn't think "poor migrants".

7,000 people storming a border is called an invasion.

SnowBells · 30/01/2016 19:47

Is emily for real??? Where is she from?

Someone said she lives in a European country that's anti-immigration... where is this, please tell me.

WidowWadman · 30/01/2016 19:50

Moreshabby - I quite happily use derogatory language where violent Nazi thugs as a group are concerned. It doesn't make a statement about their ethnic origin or is designed to make a statement about their wider (non-nazi thug) community.

Moreshabbythanchic · 30/01/2016 19:53

Right, so violent thugs illegally and brutally forcing their way into a country gives them the right to be respectfully spoken about. I don't think so.

WidowWadman · 30/01/2016 19:58

Snowbells why do you keep going on about where Emily lives? What does that have to do with anything? And even if she lives in a country with a large anti-migration stance, how does that invalidate her opinion? It's not like she says being anti-migration in her country of residence is totally fine and she's only critical of Britain (and, you know being British, why shouldn't she comment?)

I live in Britain, and am (naturalised) British citizen and am pretty critical of how the government handles immigration and seeing the rise of xenophobia makes me pretty uncomfortable. Doesn't mean it's not my home. Similarly I don't think I shouldn't have an opinion about what's going on in my country of origin, where grew up and where I have family and friends. It'd be bizarre to not have an opinion about the place that used to be my home.

tangerinesarenottheonlyfruit · 30/01/2016 19:59

OhforGodsake just following the logic Grin

OK then, I'll ignore the bullshit and take your question at face value, because it is an important one.

What should be done?

Honestly, I have no idea. I'm not a politician nor claiming to have all the answers.

But I do know that whatever we do, it should be based on humanity and compassion, not ill-informed xenophobia and dangerous assumptions about why people are doing what they are doing.

The starting point for working out what to do with Calais must be to see them as people in desperate circumstances who are acting as you or I might, given their circumstances. They are not criminals on the whole, nor reckless parents, nor people after our benefits. They are ordinary people like you and me, who have experienced extraordinarily horrific circumstances.

I understand the apparent paradox between wanting to help children there and not wanting to make children more vulnerable by making them a ticket into the UK. But that's not a reason not to help the children in Calais. That's an argument for a very carefully thought out solution, drawing on the experience of agencies who have dealt with similar. It's not a reason to let them rot, deny their existence or dehumanise them.

Also, it's deeply ironic to hear people saying they want out of Europe because of this. Because actually what we need is better coordination between the countries, not worse.

We also need to examine our own role in this and that of our allies. How many of the weapons there have we sold and profited from, directly? How much of this situation (e.g. the creation of ISIS) is a knock-on effect of our illegal invasion and subsequent destruction of Iraq, and other military ops in the region? How much is down to fighting over control of oil? Or to do with the US and allies like us meddling in foreign affairs with US interests at heart? How much devastation and "collateral damage" that people are fleeing from is a result of bombs from our allies and us?

I'm not saying we're at fault and no one else is - of course not. That would be massively far from the truth! It's a complicated situation with many players and no obvious good guys on any sides. But we are responsible for what we support in our name, and that's what concerns me.

We need to learn from the recent past and have our eyes wide open about how the UK's sale of arms encourages war, how waging war creates more war down the line. How climate change and dwindling energy resources is going to make this kind of thing more common over the coming century.

I believe we're in for a bumpy ride, as our governments and media seem unable to be frank and honest about what's going on. They should be examining the root causes of these massive movements of people, not talking about "swarms" and encouraging people to think of refugees as possibly terrorists, instead of the very people who are fleeing those terrorists! We should be putting in place constructive systems and structures that help people, not building bigger fences, because there's more of this to come, and anyway a fence can only be so high. And what if we end up needing asylum ourselves?

So, no I have no answers. Mainly because I like to think about things thoroughly before saying I have an "answer" rather than make assumptions and knee-jerk proclamations, and I'm not there yet.

Like many posters here I suspect, I am scared for what the future will bring for our DC. But the difference is I think it's a bleaker future if we refuse refugees asylum because we're too busy being xenophobic to ask what's going on. We need to recognise the victims of war, of ISIS, and of the meddling of foreign interests from all sides, as ordinary people just like us, not the enemy.

I think if allow fascism to rise its ugly head - and the signs are that's what we're doing - then the future looks pretty bleak from where I'm standing.

SnowBells · 30/01/2016 20:00

My heart sank when I read of those thugs attacking the bus in Calais. Horrific behaviour. But sadly, I do think that that is what can happen when politicians ignore refugee's concerns about the brutality of response from the Frence police, their terrible living conditions and the trauma they've suffered from war and at the hands of people smugglers, and the continued lack of a humanitarian response to their plight

WTF Tangerine. Any politician's responsibility is first and foremost the wellbeing of his/her countrymen. The electorate. And as already mentioned xxx times, these migrants passed plenty of safe countries before coming to Calais. And by the way, these people are not 'refugees'. You only become a refugee once you've successfully claimed asylum. They're not even asylum seekers because they don't want to claim asylum.

Without achieving either, they're just migrants.

TwistedReach · 30/01/2016 20:00

There are many reasons why people don't want to go into the containers built by the french (not that there is anything like enough room for most people anyway).

Many of the refugees are frightened of applying for asylum in france. They have been abused by the police and don't believe they will be given a chance.
A vivid and haunting example I have in mind, about why some people want to get to the uk, comes from a syrian man, I met there. He was absolutely broken- in a state of shock and broke down in tears when I spoke to him. He told me had lost everything, that he had had a family, a home, a job, a life. He had not been in the jungle long and clearly could not take in that this was his current life. He asked me if i understood why so many wanted to get to the uk, and I said I didn't really understand. He told me it was about reunion. His wife and children were still in syria, his wife had been injured by a bomb and could not make the journey. In france it can take two years to be reunited, if asylum is granted, while he understood in the uk it could be 6 months. He couldn't leave them that long, he had to try everything he could to get them to safety as soon as he could. He knew he might die trying, and he also knew they might die waiting. He looked hopeless, and I don't think believed he would make it.

I couldn't understand why so many were risking their lives, but they believed, rightly or wrongly that it was their safest option. To reduce that desperation to criminality is extraordinarily blinkered.

In the camp, people are surviving by supporting each other and creating communities. The sudanese have made camps together, as have the syrians, as have the Eritreans, Afghans and some kurds. They look after each other and have at least some shared experience of a homeland, however broken. The containers will not allow people to stay together.

But I think the biggest factor is the lack of trust from the refugees to the french officials. The rates of receiving asylum in france are lower than in the uk. If you have been refused asylum in any european country, you cannot then apply elsewhere. Therefore you want your shot at permanent safety, to be as likely as possible to succeed. Add in, as has already been said many times, many, like the distraught man I met, can speak English, and like the ones I have mentioned before, have family or friends in the uk.

I think that for many, after escaping so much, they have held on to a hope that in the uk, they may finally be ok. Unfortunately, their hopes may not be realistic, but they have little else to keep them going. To use the fact that they don't want to go into the containers as proof that they are not escaping danger, is ignorant at best.

Tholeonagain · 30/01/2016 20:00

People who use violence can be correctly described as thugs. People who act peacefully shouldn't be, even if they have some racial, religious or ethnic similarity with those who are. Doesn't seem too complicated to me.

OneWingWonder · 30/01/2016 20:04

WidowWadman

'I live in Britain, and am (naturalised) British citizen and am pretty critical of how the government handles immigration and seeing the rise of xenophobia makes me pretty uncomfortable. Doesn't mean it's not my home. Similarly I don't think I shouldn't have an opinion about what's going on in my country of origin, where grew up and where I have family and friends. It'd be bizarre to not have an opinion about the place that used to be my home.'

Britain is truly one of the most self-harmingly tolerant places in the world - it offers naturalization and citizenship to those who do nothing but criticize it for being vicious and racist!

tangerinesarenottheonlyfruit · 30/01/2016 20:05

SnowBells you have totally missed the point! Please feel free to substitute the word migrant if it helps you understand what I'm trying to ask!

I'll try again ...

Clam said

"My heart sank when I read of those thugs attacking in Sweden. Horrific behaviour. But sadly, I do think that that is what can happen when politicians ignore the general public's concerns about the sheer numbers of migrants they allow in in a short space of time"

So do you also apply this logic to the Calais bus story?

Would you say

""My heart sank when I read of those thugs attacking the bus in Calais. Horrific behaviour. But sadly, I do think that that is what can happen when politicians ignore migrant's concerns about the brutality of response from the French police, their terrible living conditions and the trauma they've suffered from war and at the hands of people smugglers, and the continued lack of a humanitarian response to their plight"

If not, why not?

OhforGodsake · 30/01/2016 20:07

I am NOT erudite, intelligent or politically savvy, Tangerine Emily & Widowwadman but I genuinely am interested, as it would appear are other posters, as to what YOU would do about the problem. You've shot down in flames, ignored. repeated posters asking exactly that question. The vast majority of posters apparently don't want mass immigration to the UK for a whole host of reasons, (unacceptable financial burden; social cohesion being unlikely, an inbalance of cultural differences) etc etc. You clearly believe this to be a non argument for having an open border policy. Genuine question: how would YOU finance all of the immigrants to come to the UK (and bring their extensive families with them)? How would YOU ensure social cohesion and integration? How would YOU allay the fears and mistrust of mass immigration that is gripping Europe now? Don't post video links or extracts from tabloid journalism to support your argument or theory - just YOUR ideas of HOW IT COULD BE DONE. Just 3 questions .......

OneWingWonder · 30/01/2016 20:07

tangerinesarenottheonlyfruit

'So, no I have no answers.'

Well, it seems to be a binary choice: (1) let the Calais migrants into Britain; (2) don't let the Calais migrants into Britain. So which do you choose?

OneWingWonder · 30/01/2016 20:13

TwistedReach

'He told me it was about reunion. His wife and children were still in syria, his wife had been injured by a bomb and could not make the journey. In france it can take two years to be reunited, if asylum is granted, while he understood in the uk it could be 6 months.'

'But I think the biggest factor is the lack of trust from the refugees to the french officials. The rates of receiving asylum in france are lower than in the uk.'

So in other words, the UK is far too soft both in admitting too high a proportion of applicants, and in permitting reunion too quickly. We should harmonize both of those with France, thus eliminating the pull factor drawing them from France to the UK.

WidowWadman · 30/01/2016 20:19

Onewing so should only those who are born here have a right to an opinion on how this country is governed? I've been living here a long time, am married to a British (born) citizen and the mother of two British (born) citizens. I have passed my test and sworn allegiance to her Maj as was asked of me. But that doesn't mean I should be compelled to agree with or not criticise the government.
I don't think the country is racist as a whole, I know plenty of lovely non racist friends. Doesn't mean that there isn't a whole lot of xenophobia in the media and also pushed by our current government. Why shouldn't I criticise that?

WidowWadman · 30/01/2016 20:23

Onewing how about assess people's asylum claims and then offer them safe passage so they don't have to stow away first to have them heard. Why should continental Europe be left on its own to deal with those who already have arrived? The thing about Britain's pull factor is rubbish, it's a tiny minority of refugees arriving in Europe that looks to go to Britain.

TwistedReach · 30/01/2016 20:27

OneWing: 'So in other words, the UK is far too soft both in admitting too high a proportion of applicants, and in permitting reunion too quickly.'

I suppose you could look at it that way OneWing. Although the fact that the uk approves more asylum claims, I am not sure is evidence that we are soft. The longer it takes, the more likely it is that his wife and children will die in Syria. I don't think trying to reduce the time counts as 'soft' personally.

OhforGodsake · 30/01/2016 20:32

Bullshit Tangerine ! You lost your argument the instant you admitted that you "have no idea "! You have shot down everything that has been presented as a logical argument for rejecting mass immigration. You have vetoed the use of the words "immigrants & refugees", whilst using them yourself. You happily refer to protesters, whose beliefs you don't happen to share as "thugs " whilst lambasting others for usinng the same terminology when referring to the Cologne rapists and sexual predators. You were asked just 3 questions. And you couldn't answer a single one! I call bullshit.