suprised there is no thread on this, french close down "jungle"

[2shoes]

suprised as this will affect us
wonder if they will all be allowed over here now.
can we keep taking all these people, considering the goverment is talking about cutting education due to lack of money. it isn't like they are fleeing a war torn country.

(Thanks, nbn )

asylum, marriage, post-graduate degrees, skilled workers...

If asylum, how did they manage it? & why can't any of them vouch for their under-age relatives in Calais?

It's terribly complicated

Probably by arriving on a lorry or with a fake passport, and going straight to a police station on arrival.
The vouching thing may be because nobody has much paperwork.

Headfiary - believe me Italian media has very little other than their so called 'immigration problem' and has done for many many years. It's a national obsession. They took more last year - well it's just that they've had a surge of people going to live there recently.

Problem is that if you get to your first safe country the UK wouldn't get any asylum seekers as we are a tiny little island at the edge of Europe. The reason why many people would rather come to the UK is that there are established communities from all over the world and the would be migrants often speak English.

I don't understand why genuine asylum seekers can't do it via the relevant embassy in their native country

Well, that would give repressive governments a pretty good idea of who wanted to leave the country. Also, the refugee has to fund and organise their own escape - a foreign country wont do it for them.

i do hate all the "we did this" and stuff like this, I haven't done anything, yet if we keep allowing people in here, I will suffer long term(as every one will) we already have a housing shortage, all these people will need homes and so on

2shoes, you are benefitting from the wealth that past generations brought to Britain by plundering other countries....

?? how

unfortunately night is right we do 'owe' these peopl We made these promises whilst on our jollies around the world and now its payback but I don't see how the UK can accomodate this as economically we are bankrupt

At least the whole world can see what bastards the french are. That must be worth something

See Noddy that is waht I don't get, why should we now pay for something thatw as not our doing?

What else should the French authorites have done though? They have been lumbered with all this purely because they are at the other end of our Channel crossing route.

Look around you and see how many buildings were built, and institutions and companies founded, during the years of the british empire. (it lasted until the 1960s, remember). The british empire provided raw materials and markets for the industrial revolution. Later, we imported cheaply made goods from places like Hong Kong and outsourced work to India. The whole british empire has always been about making Britain richer.
Why do you think the world speaks english, rather than Icelandic, or Gaelic? Now, we're reaping economic benefits from the language as well as from continuing business links with the former empire countries.

you said it nighby

i fail to understand people that don't get this.

But the rich landowners and people who made a lot of money from "pluundering the world" are not the people who live with or even mix with the average asylum seeker.
They are moved into social housing alongside largely working class communities who on the whole adapt and live peacefully side by side.
During the years of the Briitish Empire there was devestating illness, poverty and awful living conditions for the majority of the working class so I don't really understand where you get " we all owe them" from.

With regards to genuine asylum seekers applying via embassies in their own countries...I can't speak for others, but in MILs case they fled (literally) overnight. Various other family members stayed and died in "labour" camps within a few weeks.

There wasn't a lot of time for applying at an embassy.

And what nighbynight said.

Even in Australia, the ramifications on the Aboriginal people of British settlement/invasion is still ongoing.

I'm not criticising, potoroo - just don't understand how the system works or doesn't work.

English is the global language because the USA decided to adopt English rather than Dutch.

Think we can support aslylum seekers when some ridiculously high proportion of UK kids are bought never seeing any of the adults in their family work.

We can afford this.

quite, MrsR. The idea that we are all the descendants of toffs who exploited the natives is rubbish. Most people in this country were being exploited by a few rich gits, too. And there were some amazing examples of solidarity like the Lancashire cotton workers' strike, where people starved - genuinely starved and died - to support the American slaves over the cotton boycott.

Doesn't make the tragedy of Afghanistan, Iraq and too many other places to mention any less, of course. But it is far too simplistic to claim every British person is an evil imperialist.

oh god edam come on...surely you can see that the poverty in this country is relative and that we ALL exist in a state of relative affluence built on empire.

have you ever watched the mitchell and kenyon films? it is v interesting in showing the millworkers and child labour in this country's in edwardian times

don't know where the 's came from