To think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged?

[Theselfishsister]

Having an ongoing conflict with my sister regarding refugees, she’s very ‘let everyone in’ I would say I’m somewhere in the middle.

She’s given up spare bedrooms to refugees, spends weekends in Calais helping them and is posting everywhere on SM about letting them all in. As well as attending protests regularly for the last 4 years or so.

What strikes me is that her and her other friends going to all of the events are white, MC (although she is by marriage, we grew up very WC) and live incredibly comfortably. She’s a SAHM and her husband owns his own company, they have never needed benefits or social housing and her children are privately educated with all of them receiving private medical care.

A massive increase in people here are unlikely to ever have much affect on her life, she won’t have to fight for jobs or wait for a house or deal with benefit cuts when too much is paid out, as well as the increase in waits for Medical care and school admissions. Whereas for someone like me, this is obviously a more worrying factor and the thought of just opening our borders to everyone does scare me. As much as I would love to be able to take every person fleeing a great life, it just causes me worry and I don’t think I could support completely open boarders.

She obviously just thinks I’m a selfish heartless bitch for not protesting to remove our borders or similar. When I asked why she let refugees sleep in her spare rooms but never the homeless man on the road behind her (who’s been in the same spot since she moved there 5 years ago!) she called me a racist!

So AIBU to think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged or am I just a selfish cow?

And again, these young people will get old! We can’t keep endlessly bringing in younger people. What happens when they too are elderly?

They'll have had kids of their own who will be by that point be working to support the elderly.

And good for you for pulling her up on the refugee/homeless hypocrisy i think opening up rooms with kids inthe house is dangerous tho.

then your food in the shop would go up in price 30%
is that what you want ?

Yes. Yes it is. It amazes me that lefties will pay ££££ for fair trade goods which guarantee a living wage for some farmer in the Windward Islands or Kenya and protest about unfair wages on nana plantations in El Salvador, but they’ll argue against paying a fair living wage for UK agricultural workers.

We should pay for the value of the labour and the goods, not seek to lower prices by exploiting workers for less than the worth of their labour. And get rid of government subsidies for low wage payers like tax credits by paying them a fair wage in the first place.

You might have heard of that sort of thing before, Those ideas used to be very popular with the left wing before they became a mess of middle class university educated poseurs who can’t fathom why any working class person would aspire to more than life on a subsistence level benefits system from cradle to grave.

Millions of people are already struggling to feed themselves. If the price of farm produce went up 30% how would that make things better for British born people?

Well that’s absolutely irrelevant because we would be expected to fulfill our legal and moral obligation to support them here. We certainly wouldn’t be allowed to parachute them into KSA or Indonesia or the Philippines unless they actually wanted them. They could go to Europe anyway if they wanted to, they have free movement. But we would be legally obliged to support the ones who didn’t want to move on, regardless of public opinion.

It's not irrelevant - so you're saying you think Italy and Greece should bear the entire burden of every refugee who arrives in Europe? How is that going to enable those refugees to integrate into their new society, get work, and be able to contribute rather than "scrounge"?

I’m sure plenty of Jordanian and Turkish people aren’t very happy about their Syrian guests. That makes zero difference to their country’s legal obligation to support them and give them refuge.

Legal obligations and the practical realities being lived by the people on the ground are two very different things. Legally, yes, they have the right to live there. But they're living in tents as there aren't enough houses to accommodate them, there aren't enough schools for their children so a generation is missing out on its education, and it's very difficult for them to find work - there are too many of them in too small a country.

Syria is not going to be a safe country for them to return to for many years to come. How much better would it be for these people who have experienced the worst things imaginable to be able to settle in a country that hasn't been overwhelmed by an influx of millions? Where they can live in proper towns and cities rather than hastily erected tent cities? Where they can work and contribute to a society rather than relying on the help of charities in the camps. Where their children can get an education so that if, one day, Syria becomes safe again, they can help to rebuild their country.

Nobody gets more than one life - these people are being forced to waste years of their lives, just waiting around in the hope of a way out. Why should they have to live in this state indefinitely?

We are absolutely to blame for the systemic instability in many areas of the world. It is a legacy of the empire we are so proud of

I’m neither proud of it nor ashamed of the Empire. It’s history. And we are not to blame. I absolutely disagree that because of decisions made by our ancestors long before we were born we, a century later, somehow have the obligation to right the wrongs. I have no responsibility for them, and they have agency over their own lives and decisions.

This thread was never going to be conducive to a genuine discussion, because the OP has confused the issues of open borders (which I don't support) and the rights of refugees.

And get rid of government subsidies for low wage payers like tax credits by paying them a fair wage in the first place

That would only work if the tax dodgers like Google and Amazon et al were forced to pay their taxes. It's all well and good asking Tesco and other retail giants to pay a living wage but in reality they would simply pass the extra cost down to the consumer. And then you would need to consider other jobs. The NHS paying cleaning staff, catering staff, porters, admin clerks etc a living wage would push them under unless they received a massive boost from the government, something which would never happen without more tax income.

I work for a care agency funded by families and the local council. For me to receive more money the families and council must be able to pay it. My job is to keep people in their homes and out of hospital/NHS care homes. If you took away care workers because the council/families could not afford them the strain on the NHS would be massive.

The tax credits issue is more complex than just pay people more. You would also need to consider single parents. No matter how many hours I work, I would not be able to afford to live without tax credits because there is only me to pay for my children. The sums simply do not add up.
A living wage without tax credits would need to be high enough for a single parent to run a home on one income.

The chaps work for up to seven months solid, living in caravans moving around the farms

That’s only realistic as a summer job for a couple of years when you’re young. It’s not a permanent job for someone who has a home and a family. And at the end of seven months a Brit would still have to reapply for benefits and all the hassle that entails. They don’t have a nice cheap country to go home to, where the wage they’ve earned is a fortune.

It’s history

Some countries didn’t gain independence untill a couple of decades ago, I think it was 1980 when Zimbabwe gained independence. Hardly long ago.

And yes, farmers could pay £10 an hour then your food in the shop would go up in price 30% is that what you want ?

Millions of people are already struggling to feed themselves. If the price of farm produce went up 30% how would that make things better for British born people?

If we're selling people cheap food by exploiting others through very low pay then that is completely wrong, regardless of where they're from. Surely you don't disagree with that @Ta1kinPeace and @Frequency?

DongDing
Cheap food is what people say they want.
Its ALWAYS produced by exploitation.
Take your pick.

The problem is that the UK government doesn'tneedto be selfish. If the government prioritised helping the working classes and homeless people instead of just benefiting the rich then we could easily pay foreign aid as well as helping people over here. People don't seem to understand that though so they just blame everything on refugees.

OP what you don't seem to be getting is that the refugee crisis is partly Britain's fault. The government is just as responsible for the lives of refugees from Syria as they are for homeless people in the UK. How can you sit there and say that we should abandon these people for the sole reason that they are not British? For the sole reason that they were not as lucky as us to be born here?
This in buckets.

If people campaigned and held governments accountable then I'd be backing them in their
issues with immigration (even if they differ in their views from me).
But complaining about refugees and immigration whilst never piping up about the causes on inequality, us regularly bombing countries we don't like the leaders of etc always strikes me more about racial intolerance than it does a genuine political concern.

Although some would say low-skill immigrants compete for jobs with British low-paid workers, if the price of labour were to rise, prices would go up for everyone (and the most vulnerable would be the poor). Overall foreign workers contribute more than they take in benefits.

Although some would say low-skill immigrants compete for jobs with British low-paid workers, if the price of labour were to rise, prices would go up for everyone (and the most vulnerable would be the poor). Overall foreign workers contribute more than they take in benefits.

So we're happy to exploit foreign workers by paying them awful money so we can buy our food a bit cheaper? Surely that's just taking from Peter to give to Paul.

I don't understand how people on this thread think it's fine to pay people a pittance and treat them like dirt (I'm sure working conditions as a picker aren't the greatest) so the rest of us can have "cheap food".

f we're selling people cheap food by exploiting others through very low pay then that is completely wrong, regardless of where they're from. Surely you don't disagree with that @Ta1kinPeace and @Frequency?

I'd like to say, no, I don't want that. I want everyone to be able to afford to live but as a parent who recently visited a food bank and struggles to put balanced meals on the table on a limited budget despite working one full time job and one part-time job I'm afraid my answer would always be I want food cheap enough that I can afford to buy it without worrying about whether I will have enough to pay the gas bill.

Also, is it exploitation if their cost of living is much lower and the low wage we pay them affords them and their family a decent standard of living back home?

@MrsAriadneOliver so the responsibilities of our colonial past are nothing to do with us?

Don't forget we still reap the rewards of this past. The wealth of Britain is based on the slave trade. The economy we benefit from - 7th largest in the world - is a result of empire.

The buildings, the institutions, the companies, the power we have in the world is historical and based in large part on our exploitation of other countries.

To deny the link or claim not responsibility for it demonstrates historical illiteracy.

Dongding
I don't understand how people on this thread think it's fine to pay people a pittance and treat them like dirt
Who has said that ?
At least folks like me have disabused the OP of her conflation of EU workers and worldwide refugees ....

They are not paid "a pittance" they are paid the going rate for the job.

If you want food prices to go back up to what they were (proportionately) in the 70's, that is fine
but something else will have to give

Not RTFT but I agree with your sister.

By definition we'd be classed as middle class. But we've both also been on benefits and sat on the bones of our arse. We've been homeless and not had a penny. Someone must be pretty desperate to become a refugee. I think we should do everything in our power to help them. And actually we get a really small minority of refugees compared to loads of other countries.

The problems with the NHS are due to the volume of old people we have, over 90% of spending is on them. A few immigrants is not going to make a difference to this.

How is the UK responsible for Syria?

Moussemoose said my thoughts:

The borders that Syria has - who made those? Which countries divided up the Middle East and Africa to deliberately keep it unstable? France and the U.K. drew boarders and enforced them to keep the region unstable so it was easier to rule. We are absolutely to blame for the systemic instability in many areas of the world. It is a legacy of the empire we are so proud of.

Your argument of 'there are always geopolitical factors and if governments can't deal with that then it's not our fault' is bullshit. We know what this nation did. We know we have a responsibility to help the innocent men, women and children being murdered as a result of Britain's actions. Turning away these people for the sole reason that they are not British, even though the British government has caused their problems the same as people here, is disgusting.

Millions of people are already struggling to feed themselves. If the price of farm produce went up 30% how would that make things better for British born people?

Yeah, you missed the whole bit about prices going up to raise the wages of the lowest paid. So they would at least be no worse off. With less migration employers would need to be more competitive in their pay, so they might even benefit and be able to spend less % of their income on food. The wealthy, the people that pay their wages - well if they have to pay more for their staff there is less profit and free cash to give themselves lots of money. So they would spend a higher (and fairer) % of their income on food.

See, its not really about making food affordable for the poor- because they’re poor because they are not paid a fair wage. It’s about keeping food cheap for rich people so they can spend their cash on holidays and houses and cars and school fees from the whacking great salaries underpaying their staff allows them to do.

Even the most lefty pro migration think tanks admit that their massaged figures show migration has a positive effect on the wages of the richest and a negative effect on the wages of the poor. And those figures are usually massaged by stripping out the wages of the poorest workers - temporary and sessional workers, zero hours, gig employees, the self employed- they only count permanent employees because that shows a smaller difference.

Bejam
Yeah, you missed the whole bit about prices going up to raise the wages of the lowest paid. So they would at least be no worse off
Pensioners?
The unemployed?
Children?
If the wages of one person in a household go up by 10%
but the food bill for EVERYBODY in the household goes up 30%
the whole household is MUCH worse off

With less migration employers would need to be more competitive in their pay
No.
Without a good supply of labour, companies will take their business to other countries.
increasing unemployment here

BejamNostalia
Even the most lefty pro migration think tanks admit that their massaged figures show migration has a positive effect on the wages of the richest and a negative effect on the wages of the poor.
Could you link to that admission please ?

And what about the right wing open borders think tanks ?
Dull ones like the Adam Smith Institute

I’ve had wonderful nhs care from doctors and nurses and specialists who are non native to Britain

But these people have not had to jump through the same hoops as people born in this country.
Maybe if we returned to, in the case of nursing, just being able to go into nursing at 16 we wouldn’t have the shortage we have now.

The bit where she wouldn’t take the homeless guy from the local streets but will take a person who she probably knows even less about makes her the racist and a fool.