Where will the refugees coming to the UK live?

[Meeklynamechanged]

In no way a goady thread, I fully support helping the people fleeing such horrid circumstances, but genuine question.. where will they live? Where do we put people?

Where I live we have people waiting 10 years for a council property. Most areas around the UK have a huge deficit in available housing that doesn't meet demand.

With so many families stuck in overcrowded hostels and B&B's, families of 5 in 1 bed flats, I can't see where all of the required the housing will come from?

@phishy
I wouldn’t trust any one source on statistics. By all means link to the article/study which produced the claim. As I thought my comment would have made clear, “net contributor” is vague as to be meaningless. Net contributor compared to the average Brit, or zero sum overall? Are you including funding for education/police? Or just, say, the NHS? Are we taking individual income or household income? Anyone with an agenda can make statistics say pretty much anything they want them to say.

@burritofan
Crossing a border without authorisation isn’t a criminal act.

It is in most countries. Otherwise what is the point of passports? You do know that to claim asylum you need only present yourself to authorities at a border crossing...land, sea or air? With or without passport?

Sneaking across a border is usually against a criminal statute and thus is, in fact, a criminal act. It just happens that authorities don’t always prosecute illegal immigrants.

So refugee seeking asylum legally is not an illegal immigrant. But illegal immigrants do in fact exist.

And that's without the issue that countless thousands of undocumented migrants may all try to claim they're from Afghanistan

Somebody needs to grow a pair and put an end to this pronto. It's a massive issue for national security. It's not a joke

And, yes, the Economist does have agenda, as does any other national media title.

This thread is full of communists

I think the 'where will refugees lives' whilst a good question is a red herring. The question should be why isn't the government building enough homes for rent? Why do they allow citizens to live in terrible housing? Why won't they allow councils to release capital and build council houses again?

There's plenty of spare land especially brownfield sites and lots of good ideas for low cost sustainable homes, just need the government to allow it to go ahead. Needs to be across the Uk as well, not just in poorer urban areas.

20,000 is a good number for U.K. to accept in. Cannot forget you are a small densely populated island with rising sea levels such that even London is flooding now.
I’d add migration and refugees to government diplomatic agendas to get other nations to take in their fair share.
Here in France we are still making up our minds. Macron has said he won’t allow a “wave” but also has stopped deporting them. Many mayors have said they’d welcome refugees. Others have said opposite. But I personally think France could easily accept 200,000 if we put our minds to it.

I didn't mean to derail this thread, BTW, but I have seen at first hand the issues. I feel desperately sorry for the Afghan people, but more people coming to the UK and no extra money or resources just causes more problems. If the Government doesn't stump up oodles of cash to local authorities, it won't work.
(SORRY)

Thank you for your insight LoislovesStewie Many people seem to be ignorant here

Crossing a border without authorisation isn’t a criminal act

burrito have you tried to arrive on a plane at Heathrow without a Visa? You would be sent back home on the next plane.

Why should it be any different for anyone who is not a vetted asylum seeker following the appropriate channels?

[quote supermoonrising]@phishy
I wouldn’t trust any one source on statistics. By all means link to the article/study which produced the claim. As I thought my comment would have made clear, “net contributor” is vague as to be meaningless. Net contributor compared to the average Brit, or zero sum overall? Are you including funding for education/police? Or just, say, the NHS? Are we taking individual income or household income? Anyone with an agenda can make statistics say pretty much anything they want them to say.[/quote]
Here are the stats

Immigrants from outside the EU countries made a net fiscal contribution of about £5.2 billion, thus paying into the system about 3% more than they took out. In contrast, over the same period, natives made an overall negative fiscal contribution of £616.5 billion. The net fiscal balance of overall immigration to the UK between 2001 and 2011 amounts therefore to a positive net contribution of about £25 billion, over a period over which the UK has run an overall budget deficit.

www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/about-department/fiscal-effects-immigration-uk

If its really that bad then a hostel /temporary accommodation should be good enough as it has to be for us.

In my experience asylum seekers are placed in housing which has been rejected by local residents - where I am they’re housed in the worst areas in incredibly poor housing, over lockdown they were placed in budget hotels with no choice about the food provided to them (the cost of which was deducted from their paltry £37 weekly allowance). They aren’t allowed to work, can be moved with no notice, have to live where accommodation is allocated to them and if they don’t, all financial support is stopped.

It’s really not the land of milk and honey for refugees, who then also face discrimination, and the impact of misinformation and scare mongering.

God forbid some catastrophe struck the U.K. and our population found ourselves unsafe in our home country - I assume none of the doom mongers here would be seeking asylum to escape? Or maybe they’d realise the lengths desperate people will go to for the ability to live safely and raise their children.

Will Soho House, The Ned or Soho Farmhouse offer any accommodation? These are places where liberal media lefties like to congregate

God forbid some catastrophe struck the U.K. and our population found ourselves unsafe in our home country

It's probably happening as we speak

Why should it be any different for anyone who is not a vetted asylum seeker following the appropriate channels?

The “appropriate channel” is to present yourself to border authorities stating you are seeking asylum, there then follows an assessment process to determine whether your claim is accepted by the Home Office, which can take years. During the assessment process the applicant is an asylum seeker, if the claim is successful they are granted refugee status. There’s no such thing as a “vetted” asylum seeker.

But illegal immigrants do in fact exist.
Nope, because people themselves cannot be illegal. Actions, sure. But people aren’t illegal. HTH.

Immigrants from outside the EU countries made a net fiscal contribution of about £5.2 billion, thus paying into the system about 3% more than they took out. In contrast, over the same period, natives made an overall negative fiscal contribution of £616.5 billion. The net fiscal balance of overall immigration to the UK between 2001 and 2011 amounts therefore to a positive net contribution of about £25 billion, over a period over which the UK has run an overall budget deficit.

Totally meaningless generic nonsense. How do you quantify the benefits that asylum seekers bring to those of, say, Australian academics or a technician from Hong Kong?

@mustlovegin

God forbid some catastrophe struck the U.K. and our population found ourselves unsafe in our home country

It's probably happening as we speak

I agree it has already happened. Look how some people regard/groom/drug/rape/prostitute children and even when we know it is happening we let them get away with it because we don't want to offend ethnic communities.

@mustlovegin

God forbid some catastrophe struck the U.K. and our population found ourselves unsafe in our home country

It's probably happening as we speak

Spot on. My dad was born in a refugee camp, so this thread is really quite horrible to read.

His family didn't want to be refugees - they had a nice life but they had to flee fighting and lost everything. It could have been any of us.

As a side note, my Dad, despite having a disrupted education and traumatic childhood wound up with a great job, a detached house in the Home Counties, put me through private school and has never claimed government assistance since his family got back on their feet.

If he's a radicalized mass murderer, he's been hiding it well

@burritofan

But illegal immigrants do in fact exist. Nope, because people themselves cannot be illegal. Actions, sure. But people aren’t illegal. HTH.

That’s a stupid response given the English language rules where you can put a noun version of an action with illegal.

Illegal immigrant- one who immigrated illegally
Illegal doctor/nurse/dentist- one who practices medicine illegally
Illegal driver- one who drives without a license
Illegal business owner- one who owns an illegal business

And so on. So yes people are not illegal but it is perfectly acceptable English to say illegal immigrant.

If we are to help asylum seekers then we should stop giving foreign aid.

This country and its benefit system is already unable to support people living here who need help. People who are ill/disabled/older/already homeless need better care.

Actually, the primary issue in the most high profile investigations into grooming and sexual exploitation was the attitudes of professionals towards the girls involved - that they were engaged in risk taking behaviour, had made lifestyle choices which involved so called promiscuous behaviour or had chosen prostitution. Nothing to do with not offending migrant communities, everything to do with general attitudes towards very vulnerable young people.

How do you quantify the benefits that asylum seekers bring to those of, say, Australian academics or a technician from Hong Kong? Many asylum seekers ARE academics or technicians, don’t be so silly.

I’m interested in how they tell if someone is under 18 or not?

I am aware of that @5zeds but the article is nonsense because it is generic.

Don't be so patronising.

@Anordinarymum

If we are to help asylum seekers then we should stop giving foreign aid.

This country and its benefit system is already unable to support people living here who need help. People who are ill/disabled/older/already homeless need better care.

This country and its benefit system was perfectly able to support huge swathes of the population through furlough. There’s plenty of money when it suits. What’s lacking is political will.

@5zeds

How do you quantify the benefits that asylum seekers bring to those of, say, Australian academics or a technician from Hong Kong? Many asylum seekers ARE academics or technicians, don’t be so silly.

I’m interested in how they tell if someone is under 18 or not?

But it’s true that asylum seekers typically are fleeing leaving all their possessions and often their money behind them and so arrive with next to no resources. They cannot usually be a net contribution right away. Even academics and doctors and such will need support and housing until they can get their qualifications sorted, a job, an income and so on.