The wonderful EU and Migration thread!

[thebish]

This is the positive, not winding-up, not nit-picking Vicar is it ? Or does that one not work on Fridays ?

as I said - stop being such a moany old woman...

I can't see what there is to moan about on this thread regarding my perfectly reasonable, and non-antagonistic post about migrants who have come to Britain... This is the EU and Migration thread.

seemingly - you can - so you choose to pick and carp and bitch as usual... your problem - not mine.

[bobo the clown]

^^

[Hoboh]

This is the positive, not winding-up, not nit-picking Vicar is it ? Or does that one not work on Fridays ?

as I said - stop being such a moany old woman...

I can't see what there is to moan about on this thread regarding my perfectly reasonable, and non-antagonistic post about migrants who have come to Britain... This is the EU and Migration thread.

seemingly - you can - so you choose to pick and carp and bitch as usual... your problem - not mine.

Yeah I kind of agree, a kick in the nuts to the Euro gestapo who claim we don't do enough for migrants

[Hoboh]

I think the table on the left more than tells it's own tale about just who is coming to Europe!

Smartphones/phones with SIM cards, wtf!

[Nicko58]

I think the table on the left more than tells it's own tale about just who is coming to Europe!

Smartphones/phones with SIM cards, wtf!

In times of need, I suspect that people look to donate things for those who they feel are the most vulnerable and that this is the reason that food, nappies and children's clothes are perhaps not as in demand as men's clothing. Note the wording of the appeal says that male only items are requested for now, not that those other items are needed at all.

[Hoboh]

I think the table on the left more than tells it's own tale about just who is coming to Europe!

Smartphones/phones with SIM cards, wtf!

In times of need, I suspect that people look to donate things for those who they feel are the most vulnerable and that this is the reason that food, nappies and children's clothes are perhaps not as in demand as men's clothing. Note the wording of the appeal says that male only items are requested for now, not that those other items are needed at all.

I suppose they need smartphones to call Mrs Blair then!

[Bijou Bob]

Taking off from Liverpool airport last week and landing at Manchester, it was quite startling to note that far from being full, the UK is actually very rural and very empty. 250k Syria would in effect, disappear given the physical space available. Given that in turn, those people would generate wealth, I'm all for inviting them in and helping them settle. The key to it would be investment in infrastructure projects across the UK.

[Hoboh]

Taking off from Liverpool airport last week and landing at Manchester, it was quite startling to note that far from being full, the UK is actually very rural and very empty. 250k Syria would in effect, disappear given the physical space available. Given that in turn, those people would generate wealth, I'm all for inviting them in and helping them settle. The key to it would be investment in infrastructure projects across the UK.

Why not, lets pinch all the farmers fields, grow now't, don't keep livestock and rely totally on imports, pay more tax, create half a million jobs (from where lord knows), cover up all our woman, shut pubs, ban alcohol and bacon because it upsets our fast growing guests, yeah good job!
'Kin hell flying from Liverpool to Manchester!! You want hs2 from Bolton to Manchester?

[Bijou Bob]

Farmers are being paid to grow nothing on 'Set aside' land, so why not build a couple of new towns? Increases in population generally result in economic growth in the Western world so no problem there. Beer and bacon? Not sure I'm too worried about their short term demise and as for covering up our women, I have rather a lot of female clients whose insanely insecure partners insist on it anyway. Some of the rest could frankly do with covering up a tad more.

My flight was out to Portugal, returning to a different airport. Interestingly, Lisbon is full of Mozambiqueans snd Angolans whom they invited in from their old colonies. It's a great, non racist society where tolerance shines through. No reason it can't be the same here as it largely is already.

[Bruce Rioja]

Just had my car mini-valeted by some polish lads on CNR. £10 for a splendid job. I gave them a few quid extra which is completely out of character for me. Bring a few more of them over if you like, I say. We can exchange them for our indigenous work-shy, feckless, racist wankers that feel some right of entitlement simply by being born here whilst contributing feck all.

[Worthy4England]

Just had my car mini-valeted by some polish lads on CNR. £10 for a splendid job. I gave them a few quid extra which is completely out of character for me. Bring a few more of them over if you like, I say. We can exchange them for our indigenous work-shy, feckless, racist wankers that feel some right of entitlement simply by being born here whilst contributing feck all.

That's the badger.

[Hoboh]

I give up!

[Bijou Bob]

I give up!

Now, THAT'S the badger!

[BWFC_Insane]

Just had my car mini-valeted by some polish lads on CNR. £10 for a splendid job. I gave them a few quid extra which is completely out of character for me. Bring a few more of them over if you like, I say. We can exchange them for our indigenous work-shy, feckless, racist wankers that feel some right of entitlement simply by being born here whilst contributing feck all.

Yes but how many will you have living in your house?

[bobo the clown]

^^ He's away a lot !


As an aside ... does anyone know the basis on which Natalie Bennett is in Britain. Just wondering.

[Montreal Wanderer]

^^ He's away a lot !


As an aside ... does anyone know the basis on which Natalie Bennett is in Britain. Just wondering.

She preferred it to Australia?

[Lord Kangana]

I had a good chuckle at this title thread, it reminded me of being in the supermarket the other day.

Quietly perusing the papers section to see what news is happening, we had The Time with a headline of, basically "terrible tragedy of children dying in the sea", and The Telegraph with, basically, "terrible tragedy of children dying in the sea". In fact, The Independent, The Mirror, The Sun (even the f* cking currant bun!) with, basically "terrible tragedy of children dying in the sea" but adding (broadly) "lets do something about it".

Then I chanced upon The Daily Mail. God bless The Daily f*cking Mail, but even they outdid themselves this time, not with "terrible tragedy of children dying at sea, lets do something about it" but..... "EU blamed for migrant crisis". I half expect next week that the EU will be blamed for the end of summer or something, but, you know, several million people rely on The Mail for their news and it really worries me that I have to share a planet with such a large collection of brain dead f*cknuggets.

I did expect this thread though. And I hold the EU wholly responsible for its content. Ask yourselves, if it didn't exist would this thread still be here? I think not.

[Gary the Enfield]

I overheard a conversation the other day whereby another feck* (nice word LK) said (and I paraphrase):

'' Of course, the Germans have got it sussed. They're taking the refugees and assessing them for what they can do. They're keeping the ones they want and sending the rest to France so they can come through the tunnel to Britain.''

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Someone linked me to this today - I found it interesting to reflect on how we feel about these refugees now - and how they were seen then...

There are occasions in the past when the UK has welcomed large numbers of refugees...

1) Around 50,000 Huguenots arrived in England in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. They were members of the French Protestant church fleeing persecution from Catholics, most notably after the St Bartholemew’s Day Massacre in 1572, when as many as 30,000 Protestants were killed and thousands more escaped to the Protestant nations of Europe, including England and Scotland. It remains one of the biggest ever movements of people into Britain. My own distant roots are in the Huguenot London refugee community.

2) By the outbreak of the war in September 1939, the UK had taken in around 70,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who were fleeing Nazi persecution.

This included around 10,000 children who were allowed in to the country without visas in what’s known as the Kindertransport, arranged in response to the Kristallnacht, which saw Jews murdered and their businesses and places of worship destroyed. The children were housed in foster homes, hotels, and hostels throughout the UK, with many contributing to the war effort at home. (The Daily Mail was outraged by their arrival.)

3) During the Spanish civil war, around 4,000 children were evacuated from the Basque region of northeast Spain. Following the bombing of Guernica in April 1937 – considered to be one of the first bombings of a civilian population – public sympathy lay with the children, and their rehousing was hastily arranged.

The children arrived in Britain on a ship called the Habana and were initially housed in an overcrowded temporary camp in Eastleigh set up by volunteers. Within a few months the children had been rehoused in foster home throughout the country, and 400 decided to stay in the UK after the end of the civil war.

4) In 1956, Hungarians rose up against Soviet rule but the uprising was quickly crushed when Russian tanks rolled over the border to Hungary. Around 200,000 people fled the country after it became clear Soviet rule would carry on, with around a tenth of them seeking refuge in the UK. In 2006, surviving refugee Peter Farago told The Guardian that he had been welcomed into the country but was concerned that things had now changed.

“People were incredibly friendly,” said Farago. “I think it must be horrible now but journalism was very different then and the press was very positive about migrants. No one made me feel I didn’t belong.”

and in my lifetime....

5) In 1972, dictator Idi Amin denounced Asian people in Uganda as “bloodsuckers” stealing the country’s wealth and ordered all of them to leave Uganda within 90 days. That was around 60,000 people, and the UK welcomed in around 25,000 of them.

It was met with opposition at the time – the crisis happened a few years after Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech had done much to politicise the issue of migration. Cabinet papers released in 2003 revealed that the then Conservative government wanted to house the refugees on a remote island rather than let them enter the UK.

6) Around 19,000 Vietnamese refugees, known as the “Boat People”, fled from the incoming communist government after the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 and ended up in the UK. They left via boats or ships destined for southeast Asian countries, including the territory of Hong Kong, then a British colony.

They arrived in such vast numbers that the British government came under pressure to rehouse some of them within UK, although papers released in 2009 showed that Margaret Thatcher had been reluctant to take them in, warning of “riots on the streets”.

7) The outbreak of war in Kosovo in 1998 led to a huge exodus of people affected by the conflict. An official humanitarian programme led to just over 4,000 refugees arriving in the UK, and another estimated 20,000 made their way to the UK independently as asylum-seekers.

One refugee, Avni Gosalci, arrived in the UK with his wife and baby daughter in 1999. At the time, he told the BBC: “We are very grateful for everything this country has done. Even in the camps, the British were very sensitive and helpful.”

And in contrast:
1. Thousands of Viet Cong fleeing the Ho Chi Minh trail bloodbath led to the setup of the Khmer Rouge after being welcomed with open arms by the friendly natives - we all know what befell the Cambodians after that little immigrant influx.
2. Hengist and Horsa, Stuf and Wihtgar - immigrants welcomed in by the native Romano-Britons to do a job the native levies were too bone idle to see to. Not exactly a roaring success as far as the Welsh look back on it.
3. Ostrogoths fleeing the rapacious Huns allowed into the Roman Empire. Two years later they abused their guest status and forever overturned the Pax Romana.

[Beefheart]

I've just got back from 10 days in Italy with limited internet access so haven't really kept up with this, but on returning home I had this inexplicable urge to see what Hoboh reckoned. He hasn't disappointed.