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.

twisted they could form communities in the container housing - in the report there are 3 extra large containers for socialising...
Do they not trust any other EU country except the UK?
They must have travelled through a couple at least to get to France.
And do you acknowledge there are economic migrants in the camps too - or are they all 'refugees' ?
The UK is viewed as a soft touch - I have been told that by the same type of people you are talking about. We have free health care and education and nice police who aren't armed and benefits so people are looked after ...
And some of it is the stuff the smugglers have told them ...
What they think of Europe in general is gained from what they see on tv, films, pop videos...just the same as the image we have of their countries (unless we have been) will be widely different to the reality...
Imagine what you'd think if you watched TOWIE or Brits go mad in Magaluf (or whatever it is called) or Myley Cyrus in concert or Nicky whatever videos or Grand designs or Escape to the Country...
even the soaps....(imagine the surprise you would get if you turned up at the GPs and was expecting it to be like Doctors...)
Maybe we need to do more to show the likely reality of their lives - beds in sheds or worse - drowning on Morecambe sands, working shit jobs on illegal level wages just to pay back the smugglers and possibly some to a dodgy 'family friend' who has told the authorities they will 'support you' in the community whilst you await the outcome of your claim ....

LumelaMme do you see the refugees as ordinary people just like us?

unlucky, I feel really sad to think that the few who make it to the uk, may well continue their struggles and will no doubt face prejudice and ongoing hardship.

The fact that they think that the uk will not abuse them and may even offer them a chance at a life where they can work and contribute, does not seem to me the same as thinking it's a 'soft touch'.

I struggle to know what to make of the term economic migrant in this context. As I have said repeatedly, nobody living in that squalor can have anything that I can begrudge them for.

To answer your question, yes, I see genuine refugees as ordinary people. I believe that there are good and bad amongst them as in all strata of society. I agree that the genuine refugees simply want a better life. Do I agree that they can or should all be accepted into Europe? No. I do not. My reasons for this are as stated by the zillions of posts upthread who have patiently and laboriously explained over and over again. My feelings about the economic migrants who, I believe, simply want to cherry pick where they live, differ.

OK, so do you think economic migrants are ordinary people like me and you?

Can you not read?

Yes I can read

You say your feelings on economic migrants differ, but not how exactly.

I wondered if that means you still think they are ordinary people like you and me - or not?

Everyone seems a good proportion of the economic migrants as ordinary people. If they are just economic though and they are here they are here illegally which makes them criminals just as if I sneaked into Saudi (or here in Mexico over stayed my tourist rights and rightly would be thrown into jail or thrown out), So yes those who are not ISIS spies (and some are) are just like us except if they are purely economic migrants they are unlike us in that they are criminals. You can apply to live here from abroad and if you are given permission then move here.

unlucky83 I think so, too. For what it's worth some people think most Brits live in a Richard Curtis movie. I know someone who owns a house used in an A-list Hollywood movie partially set in the UK. In the movie, the house was a nice house, but normal. Well... that house costs millions, and the upkeep of the garden runs into a high five figure sum.

If people from abroad came here, expecting that life, they'd be in for a rude awakening. Just like that man, "Unhappy in Sweden", who thought Sweden lied to them, because they weren't given a nice new house and a nice new car.

DG2016 do you see my Grandfather as a criminal?

As I said upthread, he fled his home country and avoided being conscripted by the Nazis. He came to the UK without papers.

Should he not have done that?

Snow i think thats an excellent point . There would be a shock in store for some (im not aiming this at the refugees) when they see the state of some of the rental accomodation in the UK both private and HA.

And then there is the understanding that gas safety checks MUST be done every year within a 12 month window. (ours are done every nine or ten months) They wont be able to rent and then just be left alone. There will also be things like flat inspections.

They wont have seen this online unless they have been reading the social housing blogs.

And before anyone starts.....yes i know they are not being given social housing (and it wouldnt bother me if they were) and that its being funded by the Home Office. But the rules for gas safety checks.....flat inspections will still apply and many may not have come across this before.

A criminal is someone who breaks current law at the time. I don't know what English law was in those times. Who is a criminal and who is not is simply a matter of fact, not opinion. If I overstay in Mexico tomorrow I will presumably break their law. Now people may be sympathetic to me because I might have mitigating circumstances but that would not remove the fact that I had broken a law.

I doubt anyone given refuge here is doing to be worried about someone coming into the place to check the safety of the gas! If people hate that they need to get a life and think about priorities!

Tangerine - did your grandfather report Allied sailors, who, according to him, traded with the enemy?
I've never heard of that before. How did they manage to trade with the enemy when they were fighting against them.
Sounds fairly insulting to the incredibly brave men many of whom lost their lives.

DG i cant see them putting up with what many social housing tenants have been for the past several years.

In fact a councillor has just set up a fb page asking for ppls experiences of a certain company because hes had so many complaints about tenants having gas leaks AFTER a check and tenants including the disabled and elderly who have been left without heat and hot water for months on end.

Another company is part of an investigation where after a gas check there was a leak and a fire which totalled 16 homes.

Dapplegrey1 I have no reason to doubt him.

A 10 second Google came up with this. (I have not checked how reliable it is)

How the Allied multinationals supplied Nazi Germany throughout World War II

Ok, on reading further that link might be suspect!

Like I said I didn't check it! (Perhaps I should have!)

But I have no reason not to believe my GF. He was a very moral, thoughtful man.

twisted Economic migrants in this context are not asylum seekers/refugees...they are migrants - people who have moved country to try and better their economic circumstances. They have not fled from war/imminent death/torture or imprisonment. They will have their asylum claim turned down - if they apply. They will only be able to work and contribute legally IF they can purchase fake ID...which could be done pre 9/11 easily now I guess (or would hope) less so. Without ID they are ones who will most likely end up as in those pictures ...
But even genuine refugees especially whilst waiting the outcome of their claims will struggle more than they realise. They get housed somewhere and £36ish per week to live on -although they would be unlikely to be housed in the most expensive parts of the UK that isn't a huge amount. But it probably seems a fortune for people from some countries with a much lower cost of living. It is hard for anyone to appreciate the difference - must be a real shock for them.

(I had an Indian friend who studied in Calcutta (she was from Mumbai but insisted on calling it Bombay...so Calcutta) she said the tourists/foreign students went to the market and bought a weeks worth of fruit/veg for £1 and thought they had a bargain, said how cheap it was ...but the locals/she would get the same for 10p. Can you imagine thinking your weeks veg would cost 10p and turn up at Tescos to find it is going to be 100 if not more times that....)

Can you agree that if we let everyone from the Calais jungle into the UK there would be 10x the amount of people there in a years time? It would just keep filling....can you really not see that?
And all the time the people smugglers are making money...people are drowning or dying in the desert etc etc. Being given false expectations.
For the Syrian refugees we have the right policy - but we need to make the camps as good as we can, make them secure and safe, then just take the especially vulnerable.
For other refugees they have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, blockade the sea and turn them back if necessary - process them there and then distribute them.
Then you can take into consideration things like family in the UK etc - although we need to ensure they are genuine family (DNA testing if nec) not the fake kind who 'support' them and take money off them. It has to be controlled.
As for economic migrants - I said before I have less sympathy because they are the kind of people who could make a difference in their own countries -make their countries 'better'. Because to stop people wanting to come we have to tackle that - but we (the UK) can't do it for them ...we can't tell another country how it should treat its work force etc.

And also I don't think we have it right - I think our cost of living is horrendous so by necessity our wages are 'high' which means we can't compete in eg manufacturing globally...and also we are attractive to migrants.

(A counter argument for allowing some economic migration is that one person earning a UK level wage and sending even (to us) small amounts money back to their family, give that family more spending power which can help take a whole village out of poverty)

Dapplegrey1 this is a more reliable link - US Government Archives

Tangerine, I view them as ordinary people as a group as a whole. A mixture of good and bad.

But I view the people on Calais differently. I think to be there and to be involved in the things that are going on there without (I don't think) anywhere near enough genuine reason for needing to get out of France to justify it....well you have to have particular qualities and none of them are very good.

In fact, I view the far right protestors in Dover today and the migrants in Calais as two sides of the same coin. Both are prepared to use violence, intimidation and break the law to get what they want.

But I do think there is a bit more of a general point about how people in Europe and people in the ME would define a 'good' or 'bad' person. You seem to be working from the assumption that they are both the same.

I'm not sure that's true. I think in Europe being 'good' is far more likely to be defined by compassion and kindness, treating all other people well. Bad by a propensity to harm or have disregard for others. In the ME 'good' is much more likely to be defined as being pious, adhering to Islam. And 'bad' being or behaving unislamically. There's also the whole issue of 'honour' tied up in that too, the prevention of shame and a sense that it is 'good' for people to act as a society to suppress what they see as bad. For example by punishing women who they see as acting shamelessly. Just like Cologne on NYE. Sometimes amongst ME people things that we see as bad, like making people's lives difficult because of people's sex, or religion or sexual orientation are seen as positively virtuous acts done for the common good.

Ditto things we see as fairly innocent, wearing a short skirt, having a few drinks on a Friday, having a boyfriend your Dad doesn't approve of, disobeying your mother by staying out late; these can all be very 'bad' in the eyes of someone from the ME.

So yes, we are all 'ordinary people', a mix of good and bad. But I'm not sure that ordinary people means the same thing in Europe or the mid-East or even that our perception of who the good and bad amongst those people would be the same.

I think it's a lot more complicated than just saying 'We're all ordinary people'.

Incidentally that story about the allies and the Germans trading at sea is absolute nonsense. Anybody who knows the slightest thing about how shipping worked in WW2 would know that it was an absolute impossibility that any allied/German ships could get that close or even try to. I think he was spinning you a yarn.

And, um, tangerine. You look like a bit of an idiot using Charles Higham to back up your claims. He is not a historian, he is best known as th author of scurrilous National Enquirer type biographies of the famous and is a proven fabricator and sensationalist. That's a bit like linking to David Irving as an authority on the holocaust.

Tangerine I agree with Billsykes that your grandfather's story sounds unlikely. He sought asylum in Britain, joined the fight against Hitler and then accused his Navy comrades of being traitors and collaborators?

BillSykesDog I don't stand by that first link at all!

Dapplegrey1 said she had never heard of the concept. I googled it and posted the first thing I found - but I clearly said I hadn't checked it!

I then posted it looked dodgy! I'm hardly trying to use him to back anythign up!

I then read it, retracted it and posted an American Government link - you noticed that, right?

Dapplegrey1 no, you are twisting my words.

My GF saw other ships trading while at sea. I never asked him what ships they were. He described them as Allies and German but he might have meant US companies - or something entirely different, I didn't ask.

I never got the impression he meant British Navy, you are inferring that incorrectly.

I have no reason not to believe him. As I said he was very moral.

Ah, I see the US Government Archives Link didn't work.

Here it is again.

Trade With the Third Reich

Yes, but the American government link doesn't work...

Anyway, all of what you've found refers to possible financial collaboration. Not to ships of soldiers meeting at sea to trade. Which is just impossible. There is no way you could have kept an entire ship of men silent about that sort of collaboration. It couldn't have happened anyway, getting a ship of men to do that would have been tantamount to telling them that you were taking them to almost certain death, there would have been mutinies. Do you really think a ship full of men would have agreed to being sailed into position for easy torpedoing which would kill them all? It's impossible. Just impossible.