U.K. 'Quietly' announced it won't be taking anymore unaccompanied child refugees

[Motherofhowmany]

Absolutely appalling, we've only resettled 350 of the promised 3000.

I work with some of these children. The things they have seen are horrendous.

www.independent.co.uk/news/only-350-syrian-refugee-children-will-be-allowed-to-settle-in-britain-thousands-less-than-promised-a7569691.html

Many of these "unaccompanied child refugees" are none of those three things - they're healthy adult men who've paid thousands to the people-traffickers in order to get into Europe.

And has been pointed out by many others, the real children, the women, the sick and the elderly are left behind.

So you're campaigning for "the real children, the women, the sick and the elderly" bombed out of Syria to be given safe haven in the UK?

Or for family reunions where the family can join a member who has been legitimately granted asylum from the danger they all face (ie not as an economic migrant, but accepted as a refugee even by the UK govt) - the sort of family reunion a PP was shuddering over above?

Or are you actually quite keen that no refugees come to the UK, including "the real children, the women, the sick and the elderly"?

There are genuine challenges with accepting refugees, as thisisthereality so feeling describes above. And we have to do it properly, with suitable funding and support.

But lots of posts on this thread don't seem to be about that at all. It's full of absolute drivel. Can't flee bombing because aren't used to doing housework: WTAF? It's awful if men go first on a dangerous journey, but also awful if they send for their families after getting asylum?

And my personal favourite, a poster whom I've never seen show empathy for anyone, claiming her "empathy evaporated"... Honestly, why do people feel the need to post such posturing twaddle? That's the real virtual signalling.

Also strongly agree with TheresABluebirdOnMyShoulder at Thu 09-Feb-17 19:59:37.

Although unlike her, I have occasionally come across people spouting the "look after our own first" who are genuinely doing something "for their own". But they're a minority, and are usually not REFUSING to consider helping other people, just saying where they've prioritised their own activities.

There's another reason that often it is young males who are refugees. Often it is more dangerous than their female counterparts to stay. Often they are the ones who are conscripted or used in other unsavourable ways. They are the ones likely to get caught up in the fighting or accused of political treason. Women fly under the radar more often and tend therefore to have a greater chance of being safe staying.

You'll find that the little children and girls get help from other agencies and access to other resources along the way which mean they aren't ending up in Calais style camps.

Nothing in this situation is black and white. However I firmly believe that our affluent and stable country can and should do more to help.

Walking through my town center yesterday I was shocked again how many homeless people were sitting in doorways, the numbers have shot up in the past few years. My father is in hospital waiting for a life saving operation he was supposed to have six months ago but it was canceled again and again because there was no beds. A straightforward procedure has developed into a serious risk he wont survive to even have the op.

These are not vulnerable 8 years old in a war torn country. These are young men in a safe European country. They do not seem to want to integrate into a family and accept the rules of a foster family.

We do not have the resources to help our own sick and homeless and so should not have an open door policy for young men who can pay trafficers to transport themselves across Europe.

Totally agree non, I would be happier if we took people from the camps not the chancers we have ended up with.

It's not good hearing about the non compliance of some of the young people in the foster homes .

I'm sorry to hear your father is so unwell; I hope the op goes well for him.

The current government was elected on a manifesto openly promising £12 billion further cuts to direct welfare payments (for the disabled, elderly, unemployed, and underemployed). Having already slashed funding to local councils providing social care and housing support services.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-2015-conservatives-unveil-manifesto-that-showcases-right-to-buy-gets-tough-on-crime-10176820.html

This had a huge and entirely predictable knock on to the NHS. And eg Sunderland council has announced it has cut housing support to the homeless by 100%. www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/21/uk-council-cuts-more-people-sleeping-rough-charities-warn

The UK is not a poor country. Not paying for services is a choice we have made, not an act of god.

So its safe for women and children to stay because bombs won't drop on them?

Exactly sonlypuppyfat.

Why don't families go together?

Playing devil's advocate what is going to happen to the family dynaThe boys are sent to create a safe place, to start earning and to become educated so they can help their families.mics if all this conflicThe boys are sent to create a safe place, to start earning and to become educated so they can help their families.t is cleared up and the fathers return when the mothers and children have done without their master and managed to live being in the centre of a war zone.

Do these men think they will be able to return and resume their lives as head of their household after abandoning their families

Sorry should have read

exactly sonlypuppyfat.

Why don't families go together?

Playing devil's advocate what is going to happen to the family dynamics if all this conflict is cleared up and the fathers return when the mothers and children have done without their master and managed to live being in the centre of a war zone.

Do these men think they will be able to return and resume their lives as head of their household after abandoning their families

Of course it's not safe to stay. It's also not safe to go.

As we know very well because 2-yr-olds and their mothers are washing up on beaches.

In a war zone there's no safe "right answer."

www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2016/10/580f3e684/mediterranean-death-toll-soars-2016-deadliest-year.html

Thinking about some of my own friends who've been refugees.

One was packed onto public transport by his parents as a teenager during major political unrest before a war. His parents promised to follow but were killed - they were at high risk and would have suspected this would happen.

A married couple at high risk from political attacks during major civil unrest left very young children with a much lower-risk relative, and sent for them after they'd been granted asylum. In their case, the delays caused first by the asylum applications system and secondly waiting for reunification permission were damaging for the children. Many of their relatives who stayed died from the years of disruption, typically lack of basic medical care and long term food shortages (despite support from the couple who got out).

One came from a country with a civil war, and left with her siblings but not parents: the family prioritised getting out the boys of all ages who were at risk of being seized into the military of one side or another. Their ages ranged from about 20 to about 7; the parents paid people traffickers and they used a route where a lot of people died. This family all survived the journey and spent about a year in a camp before a resettlement country took them. The father survived the war but the mother died.

So there's no one pattern. People do what works in the circumstances.

BTW, life destinations of that lot?

Well, higher rate taxpayers, small business owners, teachers, healthcare workers...

A fair few have left the UK themselves or their children have left the UK - popular destinations being the US and Australia. I know one has ongoing health issues which might have been caused by their experiences.

*Well, I think the deafening silence in response to my first question says it all. It simply reinforces what others and I have come to realise: liberal luvvies are all about do as I say, not do as I do.

Is giving money to a charity, comparable to taking a child into your home to live with your family? I don't think so. Posters are saying it's wrong that we are not taking more children - if they are not prepared to give a home to a Syrian child who exactly do they think should? Just some other person as long as it's not them?*

This ^^ and

So, we in this country are putting our children into cells when they have mental health issues due to lack of facilities.....but we want to bring in thousands of traumatised 'children' when we can't help our own?
Why? They are in Europe, they are safe, there are places there to help them. We should concentrate on fixing our system, not putting ridiculous strains on it.

this^^. and why assume these posters (and myself for agreeing) are possibly DM readers/katy Hopkins/Nigel Farage? FFS.

and if Yvette simpering Cooper and her husband whos won a lot of dosh poncing about on dance shows/the Clooneys with their human rights pontificating and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lilly's and Benedicts etc....Anyone there opening their arms and houses to these ''children''?

that group of 30 somethings was beyond a joke. only one looked like he was under 20.

Europe has more land mass/resources to cope with these people. and again, they should be sheltered in the 1st safe place they get to.

as for 'families'already over here, how can they prove they are related then?

another soft touch nanny state UK to everyone but those here who need help and housing.

BTW I feel for genuine refugees, I really do, but I agree we have to get our own house in order first.

*Walking through my town center yesterday I was shocked again how many homeless people were sitting in doorways, the numbers have shot up in the past few years. My father is in hospital waiting for a life saving operation he was supposed to have six months ago but it was canceled again and again because there was no beds. A straightforward procedure has developed into a serious risk he wont survive to even have the op.

These are not vulnerable 8 years old in a war torn country. These are young men in a safe European country. They do not seem to want to integrate into a family and accept the rules of a foster family.

We do not have the resources to help our own sick and homeless and so should not have an open door policy for young men who can pay trafficers to transport themselves across Europe*

and this^^

The UK is not a poor country. Not paying for services is a choice we have made, not an act of god.

Totally agree with this. How do people think far less wealthy countries like Lebanon and Greece are paying for the many thousands of refugees they are looking after??

It makes me so angry that people have fallen for the "austerity" spiel hook, line and sinker. It's the same with foreign aid. Yet we can afford to offer the wealthiest people in the country tax cuts? It's just a convenient excuse for people to trot out so they don't feel guilty.

Me too, GraceGrape.

I'm fucked off with the people who have done this to my country. I'm fucked off with the assault on the poor and disabled - not merely reducing expenditure but actively setting out to punish even when that's more expensive. (Started under New Labour, for those who give a shit about party politics.)

I'm fucked off at the privatising of profit and socialising of risk. The NHS being "an opportunity for profit."

I'm fucked off that my country has got itself to the point that when the call comes and we're needed for a crisis actually on our own doorstep, which doesn't involve us playing the Big I Am and winning oil-rich territory - or expending the lives of our servicemen and women - we weasel off and say, "Sorry, we have the moral fibre of a peanut and our self-inflicted austerity lets us off the hook." It's now genuinely difficult politically for us to live up to our responsibilities in the world, because of the damage done within the UK by the austerity spiel.

And I'm fucked off with what this has done for our reputation in the world. At a time when we can least afford to trash it further.

I'm also fucked off with the security impact. In the long term we don't stay safe by having the biggest guns, but by having the best ideas - the ones people aspire to and want to join up to, and want to preserve. We invaded Iraq and Afghanistan on a proclaimed premise that it was sooo important to improve the lives of people there by freeing them from tyranny; if we now say, "Nah mate, fuck off and drown", to people having the temerity to flee the region we helped stuff up, that morality schtick becomes undeniably a cynical con.

Is that having the better ideas? Who's going to sign up to that?

Is saying "we look after our own" while manifestly failing (as described in detail on this thread) to look after our own, having the better ideas?

US national security advisors have said Trump's childlike "keep the bad hombres out" behaviour has made US national security worse, not better. Because it damages that country's claim to have moral leadership. And in the long term that really matters.

Sorry, that last section sounds like a tangent. But our abandonment of any kind of moral leadership is damaging us in ways that may take years to fully play out.

Where are you taking my country?

Agree with everything you have just said grace and pausing. I am also so sick of the faux concern being used to justify positions that are so often firmly routed in prejudice and a total absence of compassion. The said faux concern for Southern European countries when it suits to back up an anti EU agenda for example while steadfastly refusing to share the burden of the refugee crisis with Italy and Greece which would help both countries rather a lot at the moment! Both countries also need more money to go on their health services etc. It's not just the bloody UK who has "its own" to look after! The UK stop at 350 unaccompanied children while Italy is struggling to deal with thousands on a monthly basis. I am British, I live in Italy and I am ashamed of my country's reaction. I look at the relentless cuts being made in the U.K. in the name of austerity and it appalls me. As does the ease with which the narrative has been delivered and accepted that there is no other option and in many cases these people aren't worthy enough. The sick, the terminally ill, the poor, carers, the disabled all the way down to the current low of unaccompanied children. And then these people have the gall to identify public as Christians (Teresa May am looking at you). Well speaking as a practicing Catholic I would like to ask how the hell they reconcile their beliefs and their actions.

We aren't exactly wealthy though.
Our debt as a country is huge. £78,000 for every person, and growing.

We are one of the worlds largest economies - that we don't have money for public services is a choice, both of government and of the electorate. We would prefer to decimate our services than raise taxes to improve them. Which is absolutely the UKs choice to make but don't say it's because we are not a wealthy country because if as the 5th (or is it 6th now) largest economy in the world if we aren't, who is!

We are certainly not poor on the same scale as Greece but Greece have been bailed out financially by the EU in more than one occasion. What Greece does in terms of looking after refugees is also quite different to what is done in the UK. I would rather we didn't take more people than we can properly take care of without compromising those already living here. Looking after asylum seeking children can be very expensive, especially if they are unaccompanied and if they need mental health care?
Yes, there would be much more money if the govt closed tax loopholes and stopped wasting money on frivolous projects but that money is desperately needed in the NHS, social care, education and the welfare state.

And given the financial problems that Greece has I wouldn't use them as a shining example for anything.

You may earn lots of money, but if you in debt you are in debt.
I agree with six that we shouldn't compromise people already living here.