Migrant watch (merged topic)

[biffvernon]

If you are going to compare Uganda and the UK for support for refugees you should also look at what financial support is provided.

Yes that's an interesting question but tricky to answer as we're comparing apples and pears. UK is obviously much richer and I guess the cost of living in Uganda is much less. The significant thing seems to be that Uganda is providing the immigrants with enough to allow them to live in a Ugandan sort of way of life. The immigrants are enabled to integrate into the host community.

The UNHCR flagged Uganda as a model with the line I quoted alredy:

Uganda is widely recognized as having progressive and forward-thinking refugee and asylum policies. Upon receiving refugee status, refugees are provided with small areas of land in villages integrated within the local host community; a pioneering approach that enhances social cohesion and allows both refugees and host communities to live together peacefully.

That seems worth flagging up. What's not to like? I know from very recent experience that my own local County Council attitude to the tiny number (200) asylum seekers it is hosting would not be described by the words used by that UNHCR writer, "praised Uganda for its 'outstanding generosity and hospitality' shown towards refugees and asylum-seekers.

In some motions at the Lincolnshire County Council that had included, at the behest of the Labour group, the word 'welcome' this word was removed by the majority Tory group.

[Little John]

You are still continually arguing or implying that the UK should be accepting unlimited numbers of migrants, and suggesting that by not doing so, we are not being "progressive" or "forward thinking".

No, I didn't. Yet another strawman. I linked to a UNHCR article and added a line with a phrase picked from the article which I thought worth thinking about.

Just let me know when you are prepared to discuss things politely. Till then...

Utter bullshit, as usual (and no, I couldn't give a toss about any response from an irredeemable hypocrite and dissembler such as yourself).

If you choose to link to an article that makes a particular argument and you choose to cite words from that article in a way that implies that anyone who disagrees with it is backwards thinking and not progressive, indeed citing at least one of the posters on here to that effect, then you have absolutely no right whatsoever to expect anything other than a demand for you to back that implication up with sound argument or retract it. But, as per usual, you hide behind the pathetic, mealy-mouthed universal excuse of saying you were just linking to the article, further implying that its contents are not in any way a mirror of your own opinions. You employ this strategy all of the time and it is as slimy and pathetic as it is predictable

[UndercoverElephant]

Just let me know when you are prepared to discuss things politely.

OK, let's try again.

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy even if there was 500 million people crammed onto these islands?

I am trying to establish what "realism" means, for you, in this context.

The reason I am trying to establish this is because without realism, all talk of ethics - right and wrong, should and shouldn't - is worthless.

We all understand idealism. It is about how we should behave, or what should happen, in a perfect world. It's about the world we'd like to create. Unfortunately we have to deal with the real world.

[johnhemming2]

There is a further practical point that supporting refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan is cheaper on a percapita basis than here. Hence why don't we do that.

[biffvernon]

OK, let's try again.

Last chance.

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy.

500 million people crammed onto these islands doesn't seem to be in the realm of realism. Uganda, as we have just seen, has recently accepted almost 600,000, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, I'd have to look up the figures but they are in the order of one million.

As I've often said (and often been ignored) I don't want to see Britain's population rise at all, but I don't think we should achieve that by erecting walls. We should work much, much harder to remove the push factors. That could well mean a drastic levelling of global wealth distribution. It would also require much greater effort in preventing, rather than promoting, wars.

I do want to see Britain, and every other nation on the planet, have an open borders policy. When we have that and we find that net migration is still positive it will suggest that we have not achieved the necessary peace and wealth redistribution required and will have to redouble our efforts.

In the meantime, in the short term, given the world as it is not as we might want it, being, as you say, 'realistic', I think the UK should be at least as generous towards would-be immigrants as Germany, if not Jordan, Lebanon and Uganda.

[UndercoverElephant]

OK, let's try again.

Last chance.

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy.

500 million people crammed onto these islands doesn't seem to be in the realm of realism. Uganda, as we have just seen, has recently accepted almost 600,000, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, I'd have to look up the figures but they are in the order of one million.

You dodged the question, Biff. It was a simple question, and you evaded it instead of answering it.

As I've often said (and often been ignored) I don't want to see Britain's population rise at all, but I don't think we should achieve that by erecting walls. We should work much, much harder to remove the push factors. That could well mean a drastic levelling of global wealth distribution. It would also require much greater effort in preventing, rather than promoting, wars.

This is idealism. I am asking you about realism. Do you understand the difference?

I also don't want to see Britain's population rise, and would also prefer if we could find "nice" ways to avoid it rather than being forced to make very difficult moral choices. But the discussion I'm having with you right now isn't about what you or I would prefer in an ideal world. It's about how we are going to respond in the real world, which is very far from ideal.

Nobody wants to live in a world torn apart by wars, religious extremism and environmental destruction. But that is the world we actually live in, and there's no reason to believe this is going to change, and every reason to fear that it is going to get much worse.

I do want to see Britain, and every other nation on the planet, have an open borders policy.

Again, I'm asking you to have a discussion with me about the real world, not some ideal world we'd like to create. Do you understand the difference?

When we have that and we find that net migration is still positive it will suggest that we have not achieved the necessary peace and wealth redistribution required and will have to redouble our efforts.

Right. So if we enact a strategy and that strategy doesn't work, we continue with the same strategy, but redoubled?

In the meantime, in the short term, given the world as it is not as we might want it, being, as you say, 'realistic', I think the UK should be at least as generous towards would-be immigrants as Germany, if not Jordan, Lebanon and Uganda.

We know you think that. What we need to discuss is whether or not you can provide reasons for why you think that, and whether those reasons are based on reality or not. Because if you are basing your notions of what should happen on things that aren't real, then we have a problem.

This was the question I asked you, which you dodged. Please try to answer it:

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy whatever.

NOTE: I am not asking you about what you think should happen now. I am asking you under what circumstances, if any, you would agree that we should stop letting more people in.

When asked about this before, you've said "not that many people would want to come here." But Germany's open door policy has led to a TWENTY FIVE TIMES increase in migrant numbers arriving in Europe, so that argument has been conclusively shown to be fallacious. It is very clear that very large numbers of people would like to come here.

Let me repeat that. In January and February this year, 25 times as many migrants arrived in Europe than did during January and February last year. 100,000 instead of 4,000. That is the reality we are dealing with.

[jonny2mad]

Maybe I am making a mistake to read your posts again.

Your really quite sad aren't you. as a teenager I was a morman and I remember finding a 19th century anti morman book and not reading it but buying it and putting it in the attic .

My reasoning was this if I do this someone else wont find the book and be fooled by satan that mormanism is untrue .

I didnt destroy the book because on some level I like old books and don't like burning them .

I grew up rejected the church, now I can see my actions were pretty normal for someone in a cult . I find muslims really act like this when you give them information that challenges their core beliefs

your doing the same thing but with anyone that has a different view to you

[biffvernon]

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy.

I really thought I had not dodged the question. Let me repeat,
"In the meantime, in the short term, given the world as it is not as we might want it, being, as you say, 'realistic', I think the UK should be at least as generous towards would-be immigrants as Germany, if not Jordan, Lebanon and Uganda."

So I don't think we should limit immigration at least until we have had as generous a policy as those four countries. If we did have such a policy I suspect that other countries would behave similarly and, combined by world-wide efforts to reduce push factors, the problem would be diluted. We may then not need to impose limits at all.

You used the word 'continue' but that is rather like the Mad Hatter telling Alice to have some more when she had not yet had any. I have never said that the UK should have an open border policy while most other countries continued to block migration. It must be a multilateral affair with most, if not all, nations acting together.

So, realism today, the UK should allow as many immigrants as Jordan. I pick Jordan because I happen to know a senior engineer who works for a firm that makes conveyor belts. They are tasked with shifting grain from ships to Jordanian refugee camps. He said the job would be much easier if the camps were in England!

Let's now return to Utopian dreaming as a valuable means for setting direction of policy travel. Imagine that the the UN were to adopt into it's Charter of Human Rights, the right to travel and stay where the mood took the individual. Just suspend disbelief for a moment and consider what the global consequences of that would be.

[UndercoverElephant]

Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy.

I really thought I had not dodged the question. Let me repeat,
"In the meantime, in the short term, given the world as it is not as we might want it, being, as you say, 'realistic', I think the UK should be at least as generous towards would-be immigrants as Germany, if not Jordan, Lebanon and Uganda."

And you think that is answer to the question? That's answering the question politician-style, Biff. In other words, your "answer" is to some other question I didn't actually ask, in this case "What should we do now?" They are two completely different questions.

The question I am asking you is in quotes above. Please try to answer THAT question.

You used the word 'continue' but that is rather like the Mad Hatter telling Alice to have some more when she had not yet had any. I have never said that the UK should have an open border policy while most other countries continued to block migration. It must be a multilateral affair with most, if not all, nations acting together.

In which case it has nothing to do with realism, because

(a) most European countries (and it is Europe these migrants want to come to) are moving in the other direction - away from an open border policy towards ever greater restrictions

and

(b) the underlying problems causing migration are getting worse

Please can we stick to reality. I am not interested in talking about what you or I would "like to see happen".

So, realism today, the UK should allow as many immigrants as Jordan. I pick Jordan because I happen to know a senior engineer who works for a firm that makes conveyor belts. They are tasked with shifting grain from ships to Jordanian refugee camps. He said the job would be much easier if the camps were in England!

That's not realism, Biff. It's more idealism. You are just making pronouncements about what "should" happen, without any examination of the facts on the ground.

Let's now return to Utopian dreaming as a valuable means for setting direction of policy travel. Imagine that the the UN were to adopt into it's Charter of Human Rights, the right to travel and stay where the mood took the individual. Just suspend disbelief for a moment and consider what the global consequences of that would be.

My best guess is that the consequences would be a huge influx of people into Europe and North America, followed by massive civil unrest and the rise of the far right.

Now, I answered your question. Please show me equal respect and actually answer mine, instead of dodging it. I am being polite. Please stop being evasive and pretending you do not understand what you are being asked.

[johnhemming2]

So, realism today, the UK should allow as many immigrants as Jordan. I pick Jordan because I happen to know a senior engineer who works for a firm that makes conveyor belts. They are tasked with shifting grain from ships to Jordanian refugee camps. He said the job would be much easier if the camps were in England!

Actually we do allow unlimited migration from the EEA. The Jordan migration is from neighbouring countries. The issue of finance remains key as people unsurprisingly try to go where they think they will get the best deal.

[UndercoverElephant]

Biff

I just want to make a point about dodging questions, because you still don't seem to understand why this is causing so much bad feeling.

I remember watching Newsnight the night Jeremy Paxman asked Michael Howard the same question ("Did you threaten to over-rule him?) 12 times. Howard remained perfectly polite at all times, but every time he responded to Paxman he failed to answer the question he was actually being asked.

The reason he did this was because he did not want to explore the truth - had he admitted that he'd threatened to over-rule the government's prison chief then he'd have been in serious trouble because it wasn't his place to do so, but if he'd denied it he would have been lying and it was possible this could be proved.

That was on TV and it helped destroy Howard's career, as well as re-inforcing the public's hatred of politicians.

You are using precisely the same tactics in this discussion. I ask you question X, but you don't want to answer question X so you politely answer question Y, which you weren't asked, instead.

And using this tactic in the context of an internet forum where you are talking to somebody you have known online for several years, and are being watched by many others you've known for just as long, is even worse than doing it on TV. It's worse because you have a direct relationship with the people whose questions you are evading, and because your dishonest tactics (and that's what they are) cause serious bad feeling that does not go away.

In short, I am playing fair and you are cheating. I always answer questions - yours and everybody else's - as honestly and openly as possible. I never pretend I don't understand things and I never dodge questions.

I am asking you to do the same.

UE

[clv101]

In short, I am playing fair and you are cheating. I always answer questions - yours and everybody else's - as honestly and openly as possible. I never pretend I don't understand things and I never dodge questions.

This is a good point, to fully engage in the discussion (and of course anyone is free to disengage whenever they want) we really should make every effort to answer questions straight. However, it's quite possible that the straight answer is 'I don't know', or 'I can't imagine a situation where I would'. Those kind of answers need to be respected.

In terms of biffvernon's answer when to limit immigration, whilst he hasn't answered straight, the implication I take from what he has said is that he'd consider limits when the UK had taken in as many as some other countries already have. So that could be read as around a million or around 20% of the UK population depending whether he's talking about absolutes or relative comparisons.

[UndercoverElephant]

In short, I am playing fair and you are cheating. I always answer questions - yours and everybody else's - as honestly and openly as possible. I never pretend I don't understand things and I never dodge questions.

This is a good point, to fully engage in the discussion (and of course anyone is free to disengage whenever they want) we really should make every effort to answer questions straight. However, it's quite possible that the straight answer is 'I don't know', or 'I can't imagine a situation where I would'. Those kind of answers need to be respected.

There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" if you genuinely don't know, or "I can't imagine a situation where I would". Biff didn't do that.

I asked "Under what circumstances would you agree to limiting immigration into the UK? Are there any circumstances at all, or would you continue to advocate an open door policy."

He replied: "I think the UK should be at least as generous towards would-be immigrants as Germany, if not Jordan, Lebanon and Uganda."

That is no better than Howard's "answers" to Paxman.

In terms of biffvernon's answer when to limit immigration, whilst he hasn't answered straight, the implication I take from what he has said is that he'd consider limits when the UK had taken in as many as some other countries already have.

Well, if he'd say that then that would at least be a start - we could take the discussion forwards.

[UndercoverElephant]

the implication I take from what he has said is that he'd consider limits when the UK had taken in as many as some other countries already have. So that could be read as around a million or around 20% of the UK population depending whether he's talking about absolutes or relative comparisons.

An absolute comparison is not appropriate. Different countries are different sizes - even the plan Germany is trying to impose on other EU countries for "migrant quotas" recognises that an absolute comparison isn't appropriate.

And relative comparisons based on a ratio to the current population isn't appropriate either, because some countries start out with much lower population densities. Why should the UK take in any migrants at all when Poland and Germany both have much lower population densities?

Regardless of any of that, we have to look at the reality of what is happening in Europe right now, not just make comparisons of what other countries have taken. This isn't really about who takes more migrants than who else. It is about how and when the process of taking migrants comes to an end. It cannot be endless, because an open-ended process leads to precisely the outcome that the Jonny2Mad's of this world are warning about. And the PM of Hungary. It ends up with the cultural and religious identity of Europe being overwhelmed and fatally compromised, and that's before we start talking about the devastating effects on sustainability and quality of life for the native population.

Does the native population of Europe not have rights too?

We ignore those rights at our peril. As has been pointed out far too many times already, the end result of following this path is the empowerment of the Far Right. This is not some theoretical warning. Look at Donald Trump. It is happening right now.

[johnhemming2]

I remember watching Newsnight the night Jeremy Paxman asked Michael Howard the same question ("Did you threaten to over-rule him?) 12 times. Howard remained perfectly polite at all times, but every time he responded to Paxman he failed to answer the question he was actually being asked.

The reason he did this was because he did not want to explore the truth - had he admitted that he'd threatened to over-rule the government's prison chief then he'd have been in serious trouble because it wasn't his place to do so, but if he'd denied it he would have been lying and it was possible this could be proved.

That was on TV and it helped destroy Howard's career, as well as re-inforcing the public's hatred of politicians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Paxman

Later, during a 20th anniversary edition of Newsnight, Paxman told Howard that he had simply been trying to prolong the interview since the next item in the running order wasn't ready.[16]

I suppose you don't want the truth to get in the way of a good story.