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

477 replies

Nevermay · 14/08/2023 08:35

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.

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parfaitamour · 15/08/2023 21:25

KeepYaHeadUp · 14/08/2023 13:46

@Coriolise "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? "

Except we're not building on good agricultural land. National planning policy specifically directs development to grade 3b, 4 and 5 and away from the best and most versatile agricultural land. The fact we spend so much time and resource arguing over every housing development that comes forward because of a loud minority who oppose to everything near them sometimes means, in some areas, good agricultural land is built on because there is a presumption in favour of development of enough housing isn't being delivered.

Some of the best quality farmland in England & Wales in being built on right now in Thanet, the house building there is relentless, on grade 1 land which removes our ability to grow vegetables.

SweetLorele · 15/08/2023 22:44

My much missed in-laws were Asians ejected from Uganda by Idi Amin. They both came from prosperous families, with businesses. My MIL grew up with servants. Their lives changed overnight. My FIL's father went to Kampala to arrange travel out of the country and people were being shot in the street if they did not have the right papers. I look at my son and it seems unfathomable that within his life there were people who had experienced that.

A former colleague is Ugandan. Their parents were intellectual and were forced to flee when Idi Amin turned on his own people later. Two different families on either side of history in the same country both finding themselves refugees.

These types of thread make me very sad. And never more convince me that history should be given greater weight in the curriculum.

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