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.

Lots of people leave the U.K. for a better life abroad as it is. Whole swathes go to Australia, Spain and France both to work and retire. Even after Brexit. You do the paperwork and if you qualify you go. It’s hard work to get say an America visa even as someone from a white, successful country. I wouldn’t be able to get in there or Australia.

If a disaster happens meaning need to be refugees I think most of us would be looking to move to a country that had similar values to our own with the mindset we would return “home” once the war/ natural disaster was over to rebuild.

That was my thought, how likely?

@Nevermay

well said on your original post.
shame people picked at one point a complete deflection technique by them to avoid your overall statement.

I personally think it points to a dark rational from people that underpins a lot of talk on this.

How many are you wanting to build?

Did I say that? No.
One man has been charged with rape. So he is innocent until convicted by a jury of his peers and found guilty. As a child I had an escape from a paedophile teacher- luckily he just looked at me getting changed -who went on to become a prolific offender in India. This doesn't mean I think British men shouldn't be able to go to India.
Interestingly, this is covered in one sentence. And the rest of the article is saying how Skegness is a dump because of asylum seekers. Sorry to say this, but it was a dump already. Nothing to do with asylum seekers.

It's the fact that the majority of asylum seekers are males, creating a gender imbalance in their host nation that is inherently dangerous. Also they tend to come from cultures that are incompatible with life in Europe, putting local citizens at risk. Some of them openly perceive themselves as conquerers of their host nation, and see committing sex crimes and taking housing and benefits as their loot.

Why does it always have to be Europe that acts as host? Most notably, many Muslim countries refused to step up to take in Muslim refugees from other countries, citing concerns about culture clashes.

Only the West is so pathologically intent on taking in foreign citizens to their own detriment. No other region of the world does this, nor do they get criticised for it.

You need to check your maths

320,000 out of 37m is 0.86% which seems about right.

FFS most of this can fuck right off. It's scare mongering bollocks. Having said that unless we have an extinction level event in this country, which is highly unlikely it might be better to go very quickly.

Yes, I think if they can get out of Afghanistan they qualify for refugee status under the UNHCR and can get her via that route.

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.

Why are so many young men? Where are the women and their dc in all this? I don't believe that all these men are wanting to build a better life in Britain then bring their wives and dc over. It's more likely, they more here and forget about wives and families back home.
If this thinking makes me a bigot, so what?

I think this is what's influencing people's perceptions. I understand your point OP but all our media images are of hundreds of young able-bodied men from safe countries like Albania. Ukraine the images were men saying goodbye to their families and staying to fight while women and children fled to safety. The optics were very different rightly or wrongly. But your basic point I understand and agree with.

Well ok… yes, plus alien invasion etc.

I'd be annoyed if my family were being pushed to the back of the queue by people who hadn't experienced any of the life threatening events (Albanians). I wouldn't be happy if DH cleared off without us either. I'd be aware that people traffickers would be keen to exploit us and I would seek safe and legal passage.

I do understand the “boats full of young men, but where are the women, kids and older adults?” argument.

I also know that if I lived in some grim and impoverished country, I’d do what it took to get my sons (20 and 18) out, and to a better life in the UK. Save up to pay for passage? Yes! I suspect that I wouldn’t care about the ethics.

This. Let’s just say we COULD snap our fingers and magic up a million houses. This would further reduce our farming land, reduce the land available to absorb rainwater, reduce the habitat of wildlife. When it compounds climate change and food production issues further down the line you’ll be the people screaming ‘Why didn’t the government see this coming? I can’t believe they were so short sighted as to throw up so many houses, they only ever think about their popularity at the time, there’s no long term plan’ blah blah.

The issue is not about war or natural disaster migration.
It’s about young male economic migrants, many of them masquerading as children to abuse the system.

I think those saying "theyre just like you" can be very naive.

Until recently I worked with people from Afghanistan who had left by various methods. Some asylum seekers, some refugees, some sponsored by family etc. I actually couldn't take any more.

Towards the end I was working with one group, a UK man (originally from Afghanistan) who had got several members of his family over by various routes. His brothers, nephews, two cousins, and his mother. They had all left behind wives, sisters, daughters. The UK citizen had left 4 children (3 girls and a boy) behind with his first wife. He was trying to get the son on a plane.
There was no care at all for any of the women. Constant talk of how it was too dangerous for the men to stay in Afghanistan, the safety of the women, now in far more danger without male family members, was barely ever mentioned.
There was so little respect that in official documents they were referred to only as their relation to men...X's mother, Y's sister. No names. They're not even on their childrens birth certificates. The men talked about how they could get new wives in England. The women are disposable.

Don't tell me we're the same. We're not the same. I don't care what anyone thinks of my attitude, you try listening to this day after day and still care at all.

I've read it- and it says the Tories have trashed the economy and that Brexit is shit. Yep- I'd agree with both of those analyses.
But the fact remains that despite these two 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.
And the really stupid thing is, if we created a system that meant we actually had safe routes into the UK from across the world, not just from Ukraine and HK, we could then grant asylum abroad and people could come directly to the UK. At the moment the only way you can claim asylum in the UK if you have a valid claim (and most small boat arrivals do, as almost all are granted asylum) is either by getting a UK visit visa and then applying (very hard) or arriving by small boat. These boats could be stopped in an instant -it's so simple- but the government loves to wind up the racists and DM readers (many of whom are out in force on this thread today) and doesn't have the intelligence or political will to bring in a system of:

• lots of approved safe routes into UK with agreement with EU and third countries about fair distribution of asylum seekers
• once this is established, a returns agreement to France of all and any small boat arrivals

If the government hadn't have cut decision maker jobs at the Home Office- the definition of a false economy- we wouldn't have the backlog and delays and hotel costs we have now. PS just repeating the word incantation on its own doesn't make your point!

Where do you live OP? I doubt it's in East London, where large scale immigration has had a detrimental effect to those of us living here, certainly I don't go out alone now after a certain time, and I absolutely wouldn't walk through the parks alone, where many of the men gather and chew drugs and shout abuse because they view women as second class citizens. You have your reality, I have mine, but don't preach.

That’s not a very good measure to say “top half” because there are a few very large countries of over 6 million km2, several large sized countries of 1-3m km2, lots of medium sized countries in the 500,000- 1m km2 range, and then lots and lots of small countries of 100,000-499,000km2 range where we are and then tons of very tiny ones like the Vatican of less than 100,000 km2

We are #80 by size in terms of land area in the world, or 0.2% of world land mass. We are in fact a small country.
https://www.worldometers.info/geography/largest-countries-in-the-world/

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

The biggest cause of immigration is human overpopulation. In many countries people are still having huge numbers of children, in some places men can have 4 wives and numerous children. Aid agencies in many places is all that keeps them fed. Perhaps there should be more spent on contraception.

The UK is a small country and outside MN world most people do not want them here

Came here to say this 😂

Of course you're right overall OP, but nobody is going to be displaced by a volcano in the UK!

For me there is no difference between the man arriving from Africa on a rickety old boat whose farm has been washed away by floods and the man who moves his family from the UK to Australia because they want a better lifestyle. Both want a better life for themselves and their families. The only difference is one has a legal route and one does not.
This doesn't make one of them anymore criminally minded than the other, it just means our government doesn't provide enough legal routes into the UK.

The majority of those crossing the channel in small boats are asylum seekers. 92% of those that crossed since 2018 have claimed asylum on entering the UK. 86% of the very few who have a decision have been granted refugee status. And let's not forget those whose claim is initially refused but then granted on appeal.

If the political situation in the UK were to change then it could be any one of us.

Apologies if this has been asked before but why the UK? If fleeing for their lives, surely the nearest safe country is a good place to be. Not saying that we shouldn’t help at all but why risk your life on a dinghy coming over from France. Also, why arrive with no ID or passport.

Where is the boat to help the homeless who are in the UK.