AIBU to think Europe should let refugees in

[Gin96]

Surely Europe has room for these people?

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/world-news/eu-accuses-turkey-of-using-desperate-migrants-for-political-purposes/07/03/

I agree, but only if you agree to have some staying with you on a long term basis and are willing to support them personally during that time.

The trouble is that those people who say yes to them are not the people who ultimately have to pay for them or put them up.

A bit hmm by this vote as it doesn't seem to reflect the comments on the thread.
Am I correct in thinking that you can have a vote without actually bothering to articulate your reasoning?
That's disappointing.

It’s not in the slightest bit surprising, when you see the comments and put them into the context of the last few years. I find it unbelievable how many people have failed to learn the lessons of the referendum and understand that you can’t just shout and lecture at others until they change their minds. The majority in the uk do not want immigration to increase or even continue at the current level. It doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong, they don’t want it. And I’m a Remainer, btw, and campaigned to overturn the result until it became blindingly obvious that we were not changing public opinion, only becoming more entrenched ourselves.

And from your username, @WomanIsTaken, I’m guessing you entirely understand arguments about freedom of speech and silencing when you’re on the other side of the fence. But it applies whichever side you’re on, you can’t pick and choose.

Yes, of course we should. Humanity shouldn’t have borders

Boundaries are healthy. Having boundaries and clear standards on who can be here and who cannot is healthy. This is the basis of a nation state. This protects you and also protects those around you.

@Ylvamoon as I said I don’t have the answer IF both scenarios are exactly the same.

Generally speaking though and for the sake of the article, I’d say a refugee faced with death. Whilst homelessness is a real thing in this country and many others, there is help out there, there are at least organisations to help them. Although I feel your just pushing me to say that, my argument is, I wouldn’t chose..... I will never be one of the many who sit behind their screens saying Help ‘our’ people first. People are people are people.

sunfloweryy but I don’t see anyone spending millions on luxuries. Maybe that’s because of the social circles I move in, but the people I see and am in contact with on a daily basis don not spend on luxuries. I see people struggling to get a home because they can’t afford to buy, and there are no social housing available unless you go on a ten year waiting list. There are more and more people on the streets in sleeping bags due to this. I see people who can’t get an appointment at their gp because they are massively over subscribed, and don’t get me started on getting appointments for operations or long term treatment - the nhs is chaotic and over loaded. I’ve agreed it’s a sad situation but we just do not have the capacity currently to take anyone.

We do let refugees into Europe. The uk being an island nation is very unlikely to be the first safe country one finds themselves in

I will never be one of the many who sit behind their screens saying Help ‘our’ people first. People are people are people

I just don’t get this. You help your family first, then your community and then your country, region, etc etc. This is the natural way of things. You ideally get out of your community (family/country) what you put in. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

womanistaken I believe refugees are given some form of accommodation, then normally vouchers for food, I know that the children have education as I have taught a Syrian refugee.
Are you trying to say that when a refugee comes to Britain nothing at all is given to them then?

@Livelovebehappy I meant that as an entire nation we spend millions on luxuries not individually- sorry that wasn’t clear!

Of course there are people that are struggling - my family have struggled at times so I know how hard it can be. Higher taxes would have to be for tiered for it to work so as not to tip more people into poverty. But better investment in schools, council housing, health and social care etc would benefit lower income families that were born here too.

LiveLove, you are making a huge assumption. I live on a crowded housing estate, deep green on the deprivation index. I am an occasional carer for DP. One of the DC has SEND, not an outstanding school. But I, and most of the people I know in my area, know the importance of looking out for those in need, be they 'home grown' or from further afield. We know that the national and regional allocation of resources which would have us believe there is not enough is a political strategy.

"Yes, of course we should. Humanity shouldn’t have borders."

Yes, in an ideal world perhaps. But in the real world, the economy would collapse, and there would most likely be civil war on epic proportions if we have no borders. While freedom of speech, religion, political opinion and expression is permitted in this country, it's a very different matter in other parts of the world.

MangoFeverDream Healthy? Indeed political isolationism does protect the wealthy.
I’m not sure why my children are more entitled to food, healthcare or a safe place to live than a child born in Damascus or Djibouti.
Boundaries and standards? What standards would that be? A standard where it’s better everyone has lavatory paper stashed or where we allow children to starve to death because they are black?

But the better investment needs to happen first before we take in refugees. If that’s not in place then we can’t accommodate them. Investment is not something that will make everything better overnight. It can take years of implementing and planning. If a few thousand immigrants arrived here tomorrow, the reality is that there would literally be nowhere for them to live.

@MangoFeverDream of course MY family would come first and foremost as they are my family and I love them. Wether someone lives in my ‘region’ or not makes no difference to me, they wouldn’t deserve my help any more than someone who lives further away ... why on earth would they??

Humanity shouldn’t have borders.

Then you are talking about the end of the nation State, and the end of borders. This is not going to happen. There is no point in history where this has happened, and I can’t see any indication from current geopolitics that there is any appetite for this: if anything, it’s the opposite, with nationalism rising in many countries.

But what happened to women want equal rights ??In that case men AND women should stay and fight and we should house the children no??

How utterly disingenuous. Women want equity, not equality. And we aren't going to get that by allowing millions of adult male economic migrants to come and live here.

There's no equality on the battle field. You know why the Yazidi women fight so powerfully and ruthlessly? You know why those women are so feared? Because they know what's coming to them, their mothers, their sisters and the little girls if they lose.

Women get raped, tortured and dismembered by men during war. This is why we, traditionally, give safe harbour to women. Ultimately, someone needs to look after the fleeing children and it makes most sense that it be the existing primary carer - who faced being brutishly torn to pieces if left inside the war zone.

Women and actual children only.

@Pics I’m not disagreeing with you.

I’m not sure I said it was ever going to happen. Sadly fanatical nationalism is on the rise. That doesn’t make it right.
The best ( possibly the only way) to improve global security is through a fairer distribution of the world’s resources. Make Yemen and Sudan a better place to live and they’d be fewer displaced people. If instead of HS2 we helped create irrigation systems people might be able to farm more effectively and be protected from drought.
If instead of funding non essential healthcare and fuelling opiate dependency (that benefits only the international pharmaceutical companies) we funded measles vaccine, malaria treatment and HIV prevention in sub Saharan Africa, there might be less child deaths. Less child deaths reduces birth rate; It reduces maternal deaths and stabilises communities.
If we supported technology development in poorer countries and created wealth and jobs, fewer people might need to leave. Solar power seems the obvious way forward to put a few African countries on the world stage in terms of sustainability leadership and selling clean electricity.
Why are we not investing heavily in that instead of letting Coca Cola invade every town and village even where there is no clean water or sanitation?

I understand where you are coming from OP but I have to agree with other posters we haven’t the infrastructure to support thousands of refugees. Housing being the main problem, what should we do concrete over every spare inch of green space to accommodate them? Also as another poster stated the places the refugees want to be are already incredibly crowded e.g. major cities

Also just to add I often think that it would be fine in the short term until things are resolved in their home country but I’d their whole family is brought over here will they really want to go back home?

No we shouldn’t, not during the pandemic we are currently facing.
But in “normal terms” We already have a housing crisis, families stuck in hostels and B&Bs for years... homeless left, right and centre. Poverty. Why an earth would adding more people into the mix be a good idea right now?

Make Yemen and Sudan a better place to live

How?

Normally I'd agree with this stance, but the examples are not the best.

I suggest that people who are very keen to support and invite these hordes into Europe take a couple of these young, unwashed, uneducated, robust men into your own homes and shelter and look after them. If you want to be a hero, please demonstrate it. It’s easy to support these hordes from the comfort and safety of your home where you imagine that these people will be taken care of by someone else in a far-away place, as long as it doesn’t happen in your own country at your door step and doesn’t affect you. Because at the moment all your support is just verbal and hypothetical. Please, all of you very kind, helpful British people, start taking these men into your own homes and help them, otherwise shut the fuck up!

Doobie, I hope I haven't come across as shouting on this thread. Or as deploying silencing strategies. Apologies if you perceived it as such.
I come from a European country where far right nationalism is on the rise (you too, Ylvamoon?), and these kind of discussions have been commonplace in the years running up to the election of an openly racist and xenophobic party to parliament, as the third largest party.
It is frightening, and from what I see, very hard to stem the tide once one set of nationalistic ideas have been given validation. Now, people are gunning for hijabs.
I am not picking and choosing.

DJ, I think you are using really inflammatory language: hordes, unwashed, uneducated. But I suspect that's on purpose.