What's your thoughts on asylum seekers?

[Lynds778]

I'm all for offering asylum to those genuinely in need but I've seen a lot of negative media recently around 'fake' asylum seekers; people pretending to be from war-torn countries etc to gain entry to the country. Also videos of men giving advice for future asylum seekers on where to say you're from so that you can get in.

Also seen a lot of uproar from local communities about asylum seekers behaving anti-socially, most recently hanging around outside a primary school in Deanshanger and it's got me worried.
I'm also wondering why the large majority of asylum seekers are men and there are less women and children?

So, what's your opinion?

Also, this isn't a racist post. I would have the exact same concerns if these were white asylum seekers from Germany for example. The worry is the system is being abused by some and that we are a bit too lax when it comes to documentation and monitoring of asylum seekers.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14058597/Fake-asylum-seekers-conning-way-Britain-telling-Home-Office-war-torn-Eritrea-bragging-thousands-followers-TikTok.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14185169/amp/Four-asylum-seekers-costing-taxpayer-estimated-160-000-year-living-575-000-luxury-home-accused-faking-Afghan-nationalities-UK.html

@EasternStandard

it would need to be a genuine attempt to reduce people coming through irregular means.

Otherwise it would be a pr disaster with many people still arriving.

this would mean coordination with other countries and the funding of turkey, the Lebanon and other poorer main host countries (where people often go first) so that refugee lives are better there. A scheme with humanity at its heart. Many human rights organisations and refugee organisations have been calling for schemes like these and they have received absolutely zero interest by the public or by politicians.

People favour a “keep as many people out as possible “ “stop the boats” mentality but it will be utterly futile.

@mollyfolk you can't resolve issues to the extent people won't want to leave. The problems are vast.

The only things that work within the current laws are hardline, you can see this with countries that have made them work.

If people want a controlled visa scheme it'll take the opposite of our current approach, or the ending of the current system replaced with another

To add politicians are losing the public on this. The longer they wait and use old narratives to paper over issues the harder it will be to switch to a controlled scheme.

I'd say back in 2000s a co ordinated recommendation to put in a new system might have had traction. A lack of foresight and inability to listen to concerns has meant rolling over any discussion.

From that you get increased silos and individual countries shoring up borders. US and Germany major additions which will reshape this.

They'll find it harder to sell in a controlled visa scheme, which really is their own doing.

I don't know @EasternStandard

Counties that make them work? I assume you are speaking about Saudi or UAE aren't signed up to the convention and do a work visa scheme?

At the moment and certainly over the Tory reign the narrative of the government has been deterrence. There would be a long way to go to get a public appetite for coordination with other countries (especially the EU) and opening up genuine and accessible legal routes.

At the moment the main "narrative" seems to be based on lies. 75% of asylum seekers live in poorer and middle income countries. A fact that seems completely unknown by many posters on this thread who are convinced that the world wants to concrete over Britain. Also many don't seem to realise that illegal immigration and asylum seeking are two different things and need to be handled in different ways.

White Britons can no longer live in the way they used to. Adult children can no longer migrate to the cities where the best jobs are (whereas ethnic minorities live there)

Do you have any sort of stats to back up your claim that the adult children of white Britons can no longer migrate to cities?

Life is difficult for all young people in the UK and many of them live at home for much longer than previous generations.

Yeah, i think there needs to be more legal routes to asylum, but with the caveat that as an island we can't just accept millions of people every year, there's obviously a limit. But we should do what we can.

It needs to be then put clear that people won't be accepted asylum (in at least most cases) if they arrive without valid status to be here. The laws are so far out of date on this and it's helping the far right gain control of the west.

@mollyfolk no I mean Aus who is with the convention

They have humanitarian schemes that are controlled be don't have the same uncontrolled issue as we do

If you want a new system you'll need to scrap the 1951 convention first though

@PandoraSox

It’s relatively new that inner cities are more desirable and thus expensive than suburbs and rural areas. We used to dump our poor in the dirty, crowded bits - especially east of cities where the prevailing wind would bring all the pollution.

That is why cities tend to have higher populations of ethnic minorities - they’ve lived there for generations and a quirk of fashion means their houses are worth loads. Many ethnic communities embrace inter-generational living in a way Brits don’t, and the newer migrants often live in massively overcrowded houses, sharing rooms and even beds in a way most young Brits never would.

I live in a big city and I worked really hard - from the privileged position of having an excellent education provided for me by Britain. Too many young Brits leave school without basic qualifications- some, of course, because of terrible home lives or learning difficulties - but a lot because of laziness or apathy.

Ronny Chieng says it perfectly: m.youtube.com/shorts/7dPZR1LZi74

@User32459 "Yeah, i think there needs to be more legal routes to asylum,"

So how many would you like?

We have already taken 20,000 Afghans, 153,700 Hong Kong citizen and issued visas for 223,000 Ukrainians.

That ^ adds up to a city the size of Leicester.

It seems to me that most of the people who want to increase these numbers are the first ones to complain when their kids can't get a school place, they can't get on the housing register/ladder and granny can't get a hip replacement for 2 years.

The point is it needs to be regulated and also factored into total migration figures (which are currently about a million net which is in no way sustainable).

You can't regulate it properly if you've got tens of thousands breaking in as well.

You haven't answered the question.

How many routes would you like?

Migration is already regulated.

More than 90% of migrants come here legally on a visa to work, study or rejoin family. The numbers who come from war zones and claim asylum are a small minority - less than 7%. If you don’t like the numbers, come up with a REALISTIC proposal that doesn’t involve spouting racist bollocks.

My thoughts? It's a topic guaranteed to get the frothers out of bed and on to yet another repetitive thread. Bit of apparent public support for Nige, Elon and the rest of the vampires. I know you've got a living to earn OP but can't you do better?

Yes I thought so, more murky waffle when the fact remains my many ancestors who lived here for centuries ar the reason I exist here today.

Gosh, how disheartening to have philosophical pondering dismissed as murky waffle.

You can keep your feudal thinking, thanks all the same.

Yet another person reinforces the link between right wing thinking and lack of intelligence and/or education.

Was meant to quote a pp who had said British people should go to Italy lol

I think all colonial powers left the colonies in better state. Better infrastructure, literacy, economy, trade, technology. I'm not British, nor from another "colonial" country :), but I don't understand this auto-flagellation. History is made of bad and good, and everybody had their share of both.

If by "better" you mean - took anything of any value, dismantled any existing power and leadership structures, then fucked off and left a few nice buildings and roads behind. Then sure. "Better".

My post was rather toungue-in-cheek.

The British left many of their colonies in a better state than when they arrived.

In India, for example, in December 1829, Lord William Bentinck, the first governor general of British-ruled India, banned sati, the ancient Hindu practice of a widow being required to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre to burn to death.

The British also banned the sacrifice of new-born babies to the goddess Kali.

In addition they built schools, roads, railways and introduced law & order and medicine.

In the 6 months to June of last year Vietamese made up the largest % of small boat arrivals to UK. Vietnam is not and never has been a British Colony. It became a French colony in 1858.
So go figure that one out.

You should do your some research before you post such uninformed material.

Slavery, ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass murder, torture and civil war are the legacy of colonisation.

More tongue in cheek I assume?? If not I suggest YOU do some proper research about British rule in India.

Oh yup, those things famously never happened until the British invented them.

Is this like how the British also invented the concept of having two sexes?

Not at all. It happened before and after, all over the world

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The British colonised a lot of the globe and were very cruel. To suggest that colonisation only brought good things when for many it had devastating consequences, is plain ignorance.

Why you're wittering on about two sexes is anyone's guess.

These events were not necessarily the result of colonisation.

Slavery ; The oldest known slave society was the Mesopotamian and Sumerian civilisations located in the Iran/Iraq region between 6000-2000BCE. Can you say who the 'colonisers' were?

Ethnic Cleansing - Although scholars do not agree on which events constitute ethnic cleansing.The term was first used to describe Albanian Nationalist treatment of the Kosovan Serbs in the 1980's.

Genocide was a term first used to describe the Holocaust 1941-45 which was not a result of 'colonisation'. Neither was the Rwandan Genocide1994, the Armenian Genocide 1915-16, The Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979, or the Guatomalian Genocide 1978-1983.

Mass murder and torture- see above ^

Civil War - I am curious to know who were the 'Colonisers' during the English Civil War, the American Civil War, the Finnish Civil War, Russian Civil War, Greek Civil war etc etc ?