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I lived in an ex-uk colony for a few years. Everybody referred to themselves as Ex-pats and got rather upset when I said we were all immigrants!
I genuinely couldn’t understand their reaction.
🙂
The term ‘ex-pat’ should be reserved for foreigners who are somewhere for a specific purpose, and for a time-limited period. For example, for the year I spent in Japan as resident engineer on a steel fabrication project, I was such an ex-pat.
Anyone else is an immigrant.
Agreed
Do you think letting boat loads of economic migrants into the country each day is a good idea when there is already a housing shortage, rising unemployment and the NHS cant cope with the existing demands?
Do you understand migration and the UK’s legal obligations?
Why don’t you answer the question Richard?
And by the way, asylum seekers (the only people we do have a legal obligation to) are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.
Which means all the ones that travel through various safe countries to get here we don’t have an obligation to. They’re economic migrants, who we don’t have to accept.
But like I say, why don’t you answer a simple question about the million or so migrants who are currently claiming benefits here, or the massive increases in crime we have seen by migrants or any of the many other “wonderful” benefits mass migration has brought us.
Jon
There is no legal obligation for an asylum seekers to apply for asylum in the first country reach.
Only far right trolls say that.
As do only far right trolls make all the other claims you make.
Richard
Jon –
Why are you focussing on the minority of cases where migration has resulted in a net loss to the UK, either financially or culturally? Nobody wants that, clearly.
But why not focus on the significant majority of migrants into the UK that add to the overall good of the country? Those that work and pay tax, spend money and stimulate other economic activity, provide really welcome labour and skills (from fruit picking to literally running the NHS)… at the same time as enriching our already wonderfully diverse culture. I can live without the religion (that’s just me) but the food, clothes and dancing from all around the world – bring it on! What’s not to like?
I really wish people would focus on the positives of immigration, which demonstrably FAR outweigh the negatives. It’s like choosing to be miserable when you can equally easily choose to be happy.
I am making a video on this
It’s called the safe third country provision. Under UK law it means that an asylum seeker does not have an automatic right to claim if they have passed through another safe country first.
Now answer the questions.
Why do you want to encourage more low skilled immigrants to the UK when already a huge number are unemployed, over a million are claiming benefits and that statistics have shown that they are far more likely to commit serious crimes?
There is no legal obligation for an asylum seeker to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. International law, including the 1951 Refugee Convention and EU law, does not require this. While some countries may have agreements to return asylum seekers to the first safe country they entered, this is an administrative process and not a legal requirement for the individual.
And your claims on other so-called evidence are as false.
Let’s face it: you are just a nasty little racist.
David
Are you satisfied that your government since 2010 has underfunded the NHS to the point where it cannot cope with demand?
Are you satisfied that your governments have been colluding with the private sector and deliberately under building housing of all tenures for years to excuse putting up rents and prices?
Are you satisfied that the stupid Labour government has effectively put a tax on employment when austerity policies are reducing money in the economy, suppressing demand? And not raising taxes on those whose income has risen to record highs and who employ next to nobody?
Finally, Are you like Jon – satisfied with being a willing idiot?
None of the above are created by immigrants. They’re created by moistly stupid, ignorant white people.
@Jon Can you not see the system would collapse if refugees were only allowed to stay in the first safe country, where all refugees would just amass in the countries on the border of Europe?
As many have pointed out here international law conventions allow refugees to apply for refugee status, and if they are successful they will be allowed to stay.
What you hear in opinions from the far right will not change that legal reality. People voting for the far right thinking leaving the ECHR will not change that as there are other legal obligations that allow refugees to seek asylum.
Farage and his idiots have lied ever since he first appeared, and he has damaged this country in many ways.
Much to agree with
Every single person on these islands is either an immigrant or the descendant of one. I suggest that your trolls watch “Human” on BBC2, or read David Reich: “Who we are and how we got here.” But they won’t, because they don’t believe in science-based evidence.
Great programme – strongly recommended
I’d like to see the West stop interfering in other countries, so that wars are less frequent.
I’d like to see the West help other countries to build and prosper.
This would encourage people to invest in their own countries and future.
Is this realistic? The Government can’t even invest in the future of Britain, because neoliberalism steals from everyone everywhere. Read:
“The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)” by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison. https://amzn.eu/d/czj6icR
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Ed. by John Perkins. https://amzn.eu/d/fiXzi2x
For Jon and David.
To clarify:
Richard is correct as far as the UK’s obligations under the UN Conventions are concerned.
As there is no safe and legal route for anyone to claim asylum in the UK, those who want to do so are forced to use a highly unsafe route. They do have the right to claim asylum in the UK, and are not required to stop in the first safe country they reach.
The last Government passed a very questionable law making it illegal for anyone seeking asylum to enter the UK. That is, actually, contrary to international law and the UN Conventions. That, combined with an absence of safe and legal routes, forces asylum seekers (or economic migrants) to break our laws – not international law.
The shambles of our useless asylum system is responsible and has been for years. The total lack of any plan or provision, and the seeming inability of successive Governments to process asylum seekers speedily and effectively, have resulted in huge backlogs and, I’m afraid, fuelled the fire of anti-migrant hate. I completely understand people being angry, as it must appear that huge numbers of foreigners are getting better treatment than UK citizens. That is not the case, but successive Governments have allowed, indeed encouraged, that to be the prevailing narrative. It is shameful that Starmer’s Government has perpetuated and actually inflamed the situation.
It is impossible to distinguish between genuine asylum seekers, economic migrants and sheer bad apples unless there is a functioning and speedy system of processing. That does not exist.
In my opinion, the most effective way of dealing with this is as follows:
The UK should set up British Consulates or outposts in or near the countries which have the highest number of people seeking asylum in the UK. Safe (tented?) accommodation should be provided, and the necessary staffing to process claims. Everyone should have the right to apply. Asylum claimants who are accepted should be given safe and legal passage to the UK; the Government should make appropriate provision for those people.
Those whose claims are not accepted should be treated just as humanely and if possible, given advice and assistance to find other safe places.
Then, not only will the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats reduce drastically, but also those who do attempt it are more likely to be trying to enter for reasons other than seeking asylum.
Happy to take questions…..
We could just also, of course, give people tickets on ferries.
That would end the boats, immediately.
I’m not sure I agree, Richard. Brexit means that we have taken back control of our borders……
So, given that we have borders, and given that it is usual for citizens of any country to have some sort of document which proves their demonstrable right to be in that country, just handing ferry tickets out wouldn’t work. At least, not unless everywhere worked like that.
My suggestion is one that would work in our current circumstances, rather than in circumstances we might desire but are out of sight.
Everyone, without exception, has a legal right to claim asylum here. Why make them risk their lives for a legal right? What is the justification?
Am I correct in assuming, given the post, that this is supporting the idea that economic migrants are beneficial to an economy? I only ask because David seemed to touch on the economics and Richard response with the “legal obligations” which to me seems like deflection.
I very firmly believe that economic migrants are of value to the economy.
And watch the numbers quadruple overnight. I take from your perspective that there is limit to the pace or magnitude you would allow economic migrants to enter the country?
We have a visa system for a reason.
We have an asylum n system for a reason.
Neither require that we require that people risk their lives.
That is a political choice.
Why do you want to support that choice?
Do you hate people?
Three of my great-grandfathers were born in Scotland, they walked to England in the 1880’s looking for work. Guess that makes me from a family of economic migrants too. My Mum and Dad, and I were born in London. Of course I look just like everybody else in England. I wonder, if Scots had black, brown, yellow or even blue and white striped skin, so I stood out as ‘not being of English heritage’ if these people would resent me being here too?
Yes
The Irish are still resented
From the age of 3 months until 21 I moved around the world following dad’s work. He was a Glaswegian but in a different take from @Richard Banner his side of the family moved to Scotland from Staffordshire to work firstly as Iron Bridge builders they then moved to Glasgow. Dad was a chief engineer who went to sea for the first half of his career and then took those skills into a shore job.
The postings were Sri Lanka, London, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Kobe and then finally Hamburg (by which time I was a student. So I am also the child of ex pats or economic migrants which I felt very keenly during the brexshit debate and debacle.
Thanks
It seems to me those whose families have – they think – always lived here, but haven’t, of course, never get to ask the essential questions of ‘who am I?’ and ‘Why?’