You and your family could be asylum seekers by this time next year.

[Nevermay]

Just want to point this out, as many posters seem to be of the opinion that asylum seekers are a different species, with different aspirations, different hopes and fears, different medical biology, and different housing and nutritional requirements than the rest of humanity

It could be you and your family next year.

There could be any number of natural disasters in the UK. Meteor strike? Tsunami? Volcanic eruption? All of these are likely in the UK at some point. There could be manmade disasters, war, famine, there could be something more personal that happens to you, you could be a witness being searched for by a hostile government.

You might be a highly qualified professional, ( many asylum seekers in the UK are) you could have worked hard all your life to pay off your mortgage ( many asylum seekers in the UK have) you could have kept yourself fit and healthy all your life and you may also have an assortment of serious or trivial medical needs. You might have french or spanish GCSE to help you, or you might not.

None of these things will mark you out as special, or different, if you are in a crowd of asylum seekers seeking refuge in another country. You will just have to sit and wait and hope with everybody else, maybe for years, your children with you.

I really wish people understood this, refugees and asylum seekers are no different to our own population, some are uneducated, some are criminal, most are decent people, many are highly qualified and come from affluent and successful back grounds.

When ever you think and speak about them, please just keep in mind, this could be you next year.

Not true: 86% of small boat arrivals in the last five years were granted asylum, so therefore had a legitimate claim to protection under international and UK law.
But hey, it's a shame to let facts get in the way of your casual racism....

facts we are -according to IMF figures no less- the country with the sixth largest GDP figure in the world. We can afford to take asylum seekers and migrants.

But we can’t afford to house and care for our own population? Please do tell me where all this magic money is, and how we can utilise it quickly enough to ensure allowing an enormous influx of migrants won’t push the British public further into poverty?

How is that fair? You're an island a but further so you shouldn't have to take anyone in?
Simple geography doesn't take away your international obligations.

It can’t have been the Canaries because

• the Iberian peninsula would block any tsunami headed north from the south atlantic
• Brittany would have to be gone round or over by this tsunami as well to get to the Thames estuary
• the tsunami would also undergo massive attrition due to going counter to the ocean currents of the equatorial region of the Atlantic and then counter to the flow of the English channel itself

It must have been an undersea volcanic eruption up north by Norway that the program was about. They have tons of undersea active volcanos and it’s one of them theorised to have caused the tsunami that split Britain from mainland Europe in prehistoric times.

@3dogsandarabbit

loads of brown field sites and redevelopment opportunities

@Jamtartforme

the reason we can't care is due to terrible tax policies primarily ( just look at the tax the top 100 uk businesses paid in their report LD versus their profits) and lack of responsibility of a lot of people. Not the majority just a lot.

We have no live volcanoes in the UK so we won't have a volcanic eruption. Tsunamis are also v unlikely - we don't live on the Ring of Fire!

I totally agree that asylum seekers are just the same as us though, and there by the grace of God...

Well yeah because where we are building is on good agricultural land. Every new housing estate reduces our food security on an already over populated island. It’s not racist to be thinking ahead and thinking ok, when do we say we cannot keep building houses. How much food security risk can we accept?

Btw, we are not the first island nation to face this. Try getting residency in Singapore, Malta, Galapagos, Grenada, etc…many places do not allow immigrants of any sort to permanently settle for the reason of over population.

Without wanting to appear inflammatory - truly I am not, but like most people I do not understand much about the people who come across in boats and drown who appear to be families with children, who really are asylum seekers or why would they risk everything to get in a boat that may sink and that is awful..

As opposed to all these men currently staying in hotels (one near to where I live) costing the taxpayer millions every day who are being encouraged to go into the barges (which to me look like floating prisons anyway)

If you say they are economic migrants you are being nasty but isn't that what they are?
Isn't it about time a line was drawn between the two so we know exactly who the asylum seekers are and for those who say turn the boats back to actually learn about them and want to help?

MN is generally very sympathetic to refugees and asylum seekers.

It's almost as though the disappearing OP deliberately worded a post that would be as patronising, goady and factually inaccurate as possible so it could feed their own agenda. It definitely isn't a post that helps refugees or asylum seekers.

You mean deprive the UK of all the seasonal labourers who farmers are struggling to find because British people won't do it?
Or all the doctors and other medical staff who are no longer coming from the EU, which means the sector is having a recruitment crisis?

Why do some people arrive with no passports?
Because often they are stolen or lost en route, or they are destroyed for the bearer's safety eg many countries have things like religion on the details page of the passport holder. In some cases these details can get the passport holder killed in areas of civil war etc.
As the reply to your post clearly explains, by your definition the UK would take NO asylum seekers, and it would all be on the poorest countries like Lebanon (next to Syria) or neighbouring countries Moldova (also poor) Slovakia, Poland, etc next to Ukraine.
Also the UK has signed international agreements on asylum.
As the world's no 1 colonial power in the 19th and 20th centuries , Britain invaded and ruled many countries, setting up cultural and family links, and of course exporting English. It's not a surprise therefore that someone eg from Nigeria with relatives in the UK, speaking English, having followed a UK style education, would rather claim asylum here than in Hungary or France.

How would a post on mumsnet help them anyway?

Men may be more active in political opposition and therefore more vulnerable to persecution. Women may not be as visible in society so less vulnerable because of that. Money made here may be sent back to their families because that is safer than their breadwinner being killed by the government and then them being left with no provider, or the women and children dying en route.

How long do you think it would take to get legislation through that mean you can repossess brownfield sites, then repossess them, then have them assessed for suitability, then find a home builder to develop it, and then actually build it? And what would be the cost for, for example, a standard 3 bedroom house? And how long would it take to do this on a scale that houses a million people? Any ideas?

People are focussing on the volcano comment, which is a bit silly.

However all these are perfectly possible in the UK within our lifetime, and all of these could lead to people in the UK seeking refuge in other countries. The combined risk is probably less than 10%. But as someone has said upthread, Syria was a thriving, peaceful place until recently:

(i) A major tsunami like that caused by the Storegga Slide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide)

(ii) A meteorite strike like the Tunguska Event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event)

(iii) A tactical nuclear strike by a rogue state, or a 'dirty bomb' used by terrorists

(iv) Something climate-change related - god knows what, the science is so uncertain, and therein lies some of the risk

Each of these could kill hundreds of thousands, and cause untold disruption to healthcare, water, electricity, food supplies etc etc.

A fourth possibility is that a more extreme right-wing government gets into power, fuelled by the kind of rhetoric you can see on this thread, coupled with state persecution of minorities - including second, third, fourth-generation immigrants - and forcing a wave of refugees to more tolerant shores. Still, some of you would fucking love that, wouldn't you?

For the rest of us, there but for the grace of god etc.

A lot of halo polishing in that post!

The idea that 1) the UK is poor and 2) and should do less than other much poorer countries is both selfish and nonsensical, especially given that the UK has colonised so many of the countries that asylum seekers originate from.

So, we are not a rich country and as a matter of fact we do as much as countries that are much richer than us. The reason why poorer but larger countries closest to the origin of many refugees take in more is because of choice of the refugees due to common language, culture, religion and likely family ties.

Secondly, the U.K. never colonised Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Albania, Syria or Ukraine which is where most of the refugees have been coming for the past decade from so this is a myth. The British empire while covering 25% of the planet, didn’t cover 100% as many would like to think.

Secondly, the U.K. never colonised Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Albania, Syria or Ukraine which is where most of the refugees have been coming for the past decade from so this is a myth.

Ah, that must mean they're not human then.

Oh, so you based it on population for fair share? So the more crowded a country is, the more they can apparently budge up? That is counter intuitive.

hear hear

It'll be similar to what I've typed above, but here goes.

Yes- it is awful that many people drown trying to claim asylum. The UK government has made it really hard to claim asylum here- unless you are from Hong Kong or Ukraine (and previously Afghan under some circumstances) you can't claim asylum from abroad. Most of the small boat arrivals are NOT economic migrants. How can we say this? Because in the last five years, 86% of these claimants have been allowed to stay, and granted asylum or some sort of protection.

Many people in the Daily Mail and in the Tories say 'why don't they stay in France or the EU?' An interesting question- but in reality Germany and France take more asylum seekers per capita than the UK.
As for the men in hostels- and it is mainly hostels and not hotels- there are also children some of whom are sexually abused by the staff mean to protect them. If the government had't had cut asylum seeker decision makers under the coalition government, there wouldn't be this backlog now and need to put people in hostels/hotels/dangerous barges.

You’re just showing yourself up with comments like that.

What about all the French Colonies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_possessions_and_colonies

But, but, climate change, countryside and 15min cities.

How about their own government spend their own money on housing, infrastructure and all the rest of it.