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.

I'm absolutely thrilled that we are giving asylum to all of these people who despise us! How heart-warming.

@pleasehelpwi3 "Britain did colonise Afghanistan for a short period!"

True but we had no control after the Armistice was signed in 1919.

We were not involved with Iran (Persia at the time) after the coup in 1979.

Exactly this.

pleasehelp - France and Germany are larger countries in land mass than the UK. You say they take more asylum seekers than us, yet in the last 30 years percentage wise, the UK population has grown more than France or Germany's. It's not sustainable to keep adding to our population.

And perfectly okay for us to be hated I'm sure.

What on earth have I said that’s racist? You’re just coming across like you’re flouncing because you can’t engage with the actual arguments. Throwing in a sociological concept to try to look intelligent.

@Museya15 Brit/white people bashing is a thing now which I find really stupid. As a brown immigrant myself.
Many of these people are also quick to shout 'diversity, BLM blah2' but believe in outdated practices like the caste system or tribal hierarchies in their countries of origin. Equality when it benefits them ... not in their own countries where their wealth comes from bribery, cheating and trampling on their fellow citizens.

I was a scholarship student and appalled by these attitudes.

I agree with your point OP, if not the examples. My grandparents came to the UK from Lithuania during the Russian pogroms. Everyone who couldn’t get out were killed. My family have been so grateful that the UK accepted us here. There’s still a lot of antisemitism where I live, so I always feel like I have to be careful and steer clear of any of the awful stereotypes around Jews.

Asylum seekers are such an easy scapegoat to pin every societal problem on and I find it really troubling there is so much hostility. The mental health problems that having to leave your country suddenly, in complete terror, have rippled down the generations of our family - anxiety, OCD, suicides, depression etc. I fear for the huge amount of people who are likely to be affected in similar ways, trying to get out of Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, Iran etc. Not to mention the lives lived for years in limbo and fear and being unwanted everywhere .

No the British did not. During the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 they sent British troops to secure their commercial trading interests and embassies in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul that had been established there by the East India Company due to the instability of what was literally a civil war.

Then in 1920, Abdullah was proclaimed king of Iraq by Iraqi nationalists which the French who controlled and colonised Syria disagreed with and had eyes on getting bits of the falling apart Ottoman Empire tried to prevent. The British decided to back the underdog and help Abdullah secure his throne in Iraq.

But at NO TIME did the British ever colonise Iraq. For the record setting up commercial trading posts and embassies is NOT colonising. Sending troops to protects company property and embassies is NOT colonising.

Colonising requires conquering the local rulers/government and then setting up our government in its place and then sending…well you know actual colonists to seize and colonise the land.

Iraq was not colonised.

You make a good point; essentially highlighting the unfairness in the “othering” of asylum seekers. I deplore such mindsets.

You undermine your argument however by saying that U.K. citizens could be asylum seekers this time next year. Whilst this is of course possible. It’s a highly remote possibility. The longer term future is, of course much less certain. But to underline your point with the examples you give does not assist your otherwise good argument.

We also did not colonise Afghanistan.
We won a war and then promptly withdrew all troops and held only political influence in Afghanistan for a short period.
Again no colonies were established. No British government was put in place. No colonists went and colonised.

I agree with the people saying we would be treated differently- the gathering of people together to help Ukrainians is a world away from when Syrians came over, here in Ireland anyway, while there’s been disgusting racism for both, people have tried hard to integrate the Ukrainians while the Syrians simply got the standard donations

Suggesting people start housing refugees is like suggesting people start giving free emergency medical care or teaching a class of children, or emptying bins in your street. Complete straw man argument. We pay taxes for the government to sort this out, and accepting refugees is our duty according to international law. They aren't sorting it out because they are a bunch of right wing corrupt guttersnipes who don't give a shit.

Eh? That was in response to @Yalta's post, which stated, "Friend is married to an “asylum seeker” He was given leave to remain because he said that if he went back to his country, because of his political leanings he would be killed

Every year he spends 8 weeks visiting his parents and family back home."

Presumably he does exist, and Yalta knows his name and address. Or are you suggesting that Yalta is not being honest?

Finally, addressing Persia (Iran). That was actually just a war fought by the British to ensure Afghanistan remained an independent country as Persia (Iran) was invading it and the British wanted it to be a buffer between Persia and British colony of India. They fought to a stalemate until a treaty was signed where Persia agreed to back off and leave Afghanistan alone, refused to replace their leaders and the British sodded off back to India to put down a rebellion.

Fighting a war with a country isnt colonising it. I can’t believe I am having to explain that colonising actually requires colonies with colonists be created in a conquered country but here we are.

So the houses wouldn’t be funded via taxation? Where would the money come from then? Because asylum seekers don’t have the cash to buy newbuilds from Persimmons.

As for the greenfield land, we have built on 10% of the country already. Now think about what that actually looks like. We still require farmland, parks, meadows, open spaces, play grounds, forests to soak up the CO2 we churn out, natural habitats as I’m guessing you don’t want to wipe out yet more species. How much more do you propose we build on to solve this? And what happens when the population goes up again afterwards do we just keep building?

I agree with you. It's abhorrent how some people speak about asylum seekers. You'd honestly think they were evil aliens the way they are othered by so many. They spout hate speech about how they take our jobs and housing but take no time to look at any of the facts.

@3dogsandarabbit "Keepyaheadup - So where are all these houses going to be built? You can't just build where you want to. The land has to be tested to make sure it's suitable otherwise you get flooding, subsidence etc. What about the wildlife? Or does that not bother you, that we are pushing wildlife into smaller spaces. It all has a knock on effect on the eco system. It's not just humans that live on this planet. I'm sure some of the do gooders on here won't be happy until we're all living in a concrete jungle."

We're not even close to building the houses the govt has targeted itself with delivering. We're really not being overrun and we're nowhere close to turning England into a concrete jungle. We don't build in flood zones unless in exceptional circs (tho crap drainage might lead to flooding) and since the Environment Bill came in planning authorities and developers have to deliver biodiversity net gain, and many are ploughing investment into nature recovery. So yes, building may be bad news for nature on a specific sqm of field but overall can deliver huge benefits. Large swathes of greenfield land (and green belt while we're at it) is crap agriculturally speaking and for nature. It's poor value in terms of carbon capture, ecology and has little landscape value either. It's perfectly within our capabilities to build decent, affordable housing for people here now and for people who might need to come here. It's not going to happen without intent, but it's feasible. Not doing it is a choice.

@Jamtartforme - see above

Yes, but how many of those are as populated as the UK?

I asked you a question as to the basis for your fair share, please do me the courtesy of answering it.

I missed a decimal point, hardly the crime of the century. Let’s move past that.

I'm pretty sure if all of those things happened, my husband, brother, uncle etc wouldn't just leave us (me, my sister, my daughters, my mother) in a country with disaster all around.

All we are seeing are migrant men, who do pose a threat. Men pose a greater threat than women and children. And migrant men, who come from countries where women are deemed lesser beings, pose an even greater threat.

You sound desensitised and jaded. But you cannot extrapolate what sounds like a specific type of interaction with a specific type of group to an entire planet and say "they're not like us". You have NO idea how people live, think and feel.

You're working on the mistaken assumption that the people you're arguing with give a shit. They can't be persuaded with facts and arguments.

Honestly, I've been on the thick end of people like this all my life. It's best just to recognise what you're dealing with, and move on.

"I agree. It is naive in the extreme to think attitudes are the same across the world"

They're NOT the same. Cultures aren't the same. That doesn't mean they're all fucking backwards, women hating heathens.

Reminds me of a family member's refusal to believe Great Zimbabwe was built by ancestors of current Zimbabweans because she'd lived there and had "houseboys" and "their type weren't capable". It had to have been white Europeans.