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/

Famine is more or less coincident with conflict and displaced populations.
Sadly, armed conflict is rather difficult to solve by outsiders. What is left is to support those who manage to escape it.

Yemen won't be solved while SA has oil.

Lweji, yes - 9.30 am and comments after.

Yes, recent famines are caused by arm conflict, but those suffering through it are not mostly displaced.

I was tempted to say "Yes Europe should" but why should they?

If the immigrants are decent, hard-working people who don't want any trouble then those are exactly the kind of people their homeland needs to make it a place fit to live in. Every country in Europe had to do it.

In cases of natural disaster that's different and we do help then, but aside from that when do a large proportion of people want to leave their country?

Is there a lack of food/resources for everyone? If that's it then Europe must take ALL of the excess population and continue to do so for each generation. Surely that's not a sane long term solution.

Perhaps back home evil people outnumber the nice ones who want to come here so they must leave for their safety. But then we're making that proportion worse for those remaining. Again Europe need to commit to taking ALL the good people in this and future generations.

Can we not help them fix their own home?

Or maybe turn it around. Let's agree to take only those who won't work to make their country better. Those who want to fight not plant crops and those who think rape is all the contribution to society they need to make. Now if we take all of those THAT would make things better for those left behind.

Fair enough, 2 pps.

What I did say is that famine coincides with conflict and those displaced. Not that most that suffer are displaced.

If the immigrants are decent, hard-working people who don't want any trouble then those are exactly the kind of people their homeland needs to make it a place fit to live in. Every country in Europe had to do it.

You don't seem to be familiar with out of and within Europe migration history.

As a PP said, the UK takes refugees directly from the camps so there is a fair idea of who they are. We also, iirc, fund the camp's. The Kng of Jordan was over for a conference when Cameron was PM, and the UK agreed to increase funding.

Erdogan is bussing people out of long established camps to force the EU and NATO to get involved in Syria. He is trying to get others onto uninhabited Greek islands in the Aegean, that under UNLOS, he can then claim as Turkish under the right of self determination. Erdogan is weaponising the migrants for his own ends, not because an enormous country like Turkey can't cope.

Erdogan is a bastard, but it's not fair that Turkey is left to deal with the vast majority of the refugees, which has been for years.
The UK do take families from camps, but and as most countries, in small numbers and in many cases much fewer than promised.

Lweji We could go back in history to the Romans or before, but the people currently living in Europe who have enough food are the people who planted it.
They have to keep on planting it to keep eating. They had to build homes and schools and design a society that would make it possible to live comfortably.
That's not something only Europeans can do and we were not even the first so why people think others in the world are incapable I don't know.

No - refugees are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe country they come to. Struggling to get to the UK above everywhere else

• these are economic migrants and no we shouldn't "take" them.

I meant very recent history. Not Romans.
People seek where they can make a better living.
Have you looked recently at uk emigration?
Are you going to encourage doctors and nurses from other European countries to return home? They are needed there.

No - refugees are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe country they come to
Thus leaving border countries with the burden.

@Lweji So what about all the economic migrants hanging around Calais wanting to get into the UK? It's for pure economic reasons as they have passed through many countries and are in France a safe country now (assuming they were fleeing anything in the first place other than living in a poor country)

Iorderedyouapancake "The choices we as a nation make about how we structure our economy and distribute our wealth. We could easily “afford” to allow more refugees in if we chose to."

Well yes. For a start anyone who has a spare room can take someone in. Doesn't need to be an immigrant as we do also need to sort those homeless out you mentioned in passing. People won't like it but we'll send someone around with a bit of paper saying they now live in your house and can eat your food.

There won't be enough spare rooms for everyone on the planet who has a problem where they live so people can double up in bedrooms. In fact many immigrants are willing to work shifts so they can use your bed while you're at work. That will help fit more in.

We're onto something here. If I start a petition to start this immediately will you all sign it?

Lweji "Are you going to encourage doctors and nurses from other European countries to return home?" It was criminal to take them in the first place. I bet their home countries are wishing about now that they had stayed.

We wanted them cheap so we took those already trained at some other country's expense. Not our proudest moment and yet people think we should put our needs first there.

YABU. They are economic migrants and mostly young men. Europe is completely full - services are on their knees - hospitals, schools, housing etc, there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people on our streets who need help and aren't getting it. They should try and get to Saudi Arabia or one of the Gulf States who will treat them much better as fellow Muslims and provide them with everything they need.

Sod the refugee child, my child is more important? Why should one child get a fantastic education and another child get nothing by virtue of where they were born

Yes let’s make it all equally shit ffs. And yes ppl do in fact think their own children are more important than other people’s children. Yet you are clutching pearls at this very basic human concept?

I would like us to train many more doctors than we need. There are many young people who can’t get on to a medical degree but who are suited to completing one.

I would also wager that most would not have had a problem taking in Yazidi girls. In fact we make ourselves less able to help by accepting clear economic migrants.

Europe is full

Bullshit.

Yes let’s send them to Saudi Arabia where LGBT people are stoned, women’s rights are nil and wealth is even more concentrated than it is in Europe. Great idea!

@lasttraineast - the people in Europe who have enough food on their table benefit hugely from the aftermath of a colonial system that saw them enrich their nations’ coffers through exploitation of others. Many of those others are still today struggling with poverty and conflict, often generated by artificially created borders by the UK and so on. It is so hugely disingenuous for someone like you to claim that you are more worthy of safety and food because what, you claim you had a direct contribution to establishing UK as a democratic country?

I come from a poorer European country and it is not long ago that we were the victims of externally imposed dictatorship, torture and occupation. You’ve no idea and you should hope never to find out how quickly your self righteous ivory tower can go to shit.

Btw those dismissing the point about claiming asylum in the first country should note that it isn't just a rule but a clue. If you rescue someone from dire circumstances and they look around and say "I was hoping for something better" and ask for directions to another country then you know they were not as desperate as they claimed.

How many refugees a country takes is not an indicator of how much help you’ve provided. You can help many more people by paying for facilities where they are rather than encouraging some survival of the fittest march across Europe

Yet again someone risks bringing common sense into it ... except that quiet work done in the camps doesn't provide quite the same touchy-feely "we've all got to do something" potential as photos of the allegedly desperate clamouring at a border

There's very few of David Cameron actions which I admire, but his proposal to do more in situ was one of them

IronCurtain so are you proposing that the entire population of that poorer European country should come here? Or more sensibly that we help that country get on its feet?

* I would also wager that most would not have had a problem taking in Yazidi girls.*

The Yazidi as a population are tiny. What happened to these girls was horrific but no different to what happens to millions of minority girls in war zones world wide - the media overreported the yazidi atrocities because a lot of these girls are blonde haired and blue eyed.