Migrant watch (merged topic)

[biffvernon]

I didn't know that we manufactured Kalashnikovs

That depends on who you define as "we". I certainly don't make any but my fellow EU citizens in Bulgaria and Hungary are now the chief manufacturers.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... 9UwU&hl=en

That would be a good reason to disconnect from the evil arms dealer, Europe, then.

I thought you'd say something like that. The UK is Europe's biggest arms seller, most of the sales going to the Middle East. I'm not entirely clear how the UK is to disconnect from itself.

[clv101]

The UK is Europe's biggest arms seller, most of the sales going to the Middle East.

Yes, we make a lot of arms, much of which do a lot of harm in other parts of the world whist enriching us. How does one balance those two things? Harm to others against local/personal benefit? It's a decision that we all, everyone one from regular people right up to the largest corporations, make every day.

[UndercoverElephant]

This is a giant red herring, just like everything else Biff Vernon posts on this topic. Yes, the UK is involved in the arms industry. And it's not great. But, as Alan Clark once rightly pointed out, if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will.

Sorry, but it's just more irrelevant air-headed self-flaggelating fantasy. In the real world, given the way the real world works, even if the UK stopped all manufacture and export of arms absolutely NOTHING would change. All that would happen is that somebody else would make and sell those arms and a load of British people would lose their jobs. It would not help to solve the migration crisis. Not even a little bit.

[AutomaticEarth]

This is a giant red herring, just like everything else Biff Vernon posts on this topic. Yes, the UK is involved in the arms industry. And it's not great. But, as Alan Clark once rightly pointed out, if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will.

Sorry, but it's just more irrelevant air-headed self-flaggelating fantasy. In the real world, given the way the real world works, even if the UK stopped all manufacture and export of arms absolutely NOTHING would change. All that would happen is that somebody else would make and sell those arms and a load of British people would lose their jobs. It would not help to solve the migration crisis. Not even a little bit.

Absolutely. As someone who's previously worked in the defence industry, I couldn't agree more.

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

I'm surprised to see Sweden down in 12th place. They used to be very prolific.

As you can imagine, Saudi is the top importer.....

[biffvernon]

How does one balance those two things? Harm to others against local/personal benefit? It's a decision that we all, everyone one from regular people right up to the largest corporations, make every day.

Is there a false dichotomy in there? An arms factory may benefit local employees, but it might do the same, and more in the long run, if it were converted into a factory that made stuff for the common good rather than for foreign harm.

The rifle factory could be re-tooled to make smart meters, the submarine shipyard to build wind turbines.

[UndercoverElephant]

How does one balance those two things? Harm to others against local/personal benefit? It's a decision that we all, everyone one from regular people right up to the largest corporations, make every day.

Is there a false dichotomy in there? An arms factory may benefit local employees, but it might do the same, and more in the long run, if it were converted into a factory that made stuff for the common good rather than for foreign harm.

The rifle factory could be re-tooled to make smart meters, the submarine shipyard to build wind turbines.

It's a red herring, Biff. It has nothing to do with the migrant crisis. You're implying there's a possible world where all the arms manufacturers stop making weapons and selling them to people.

I have some news for you: Human beings have been making weapons for the last 3 million years. Look at your hands. They evolved to make weapons out of flints.

There is never going to be a world where people don't make weapons and sell them to other people. There is never going to be a world where humans stop fighting each other in wars.

Nearly everybody on this forum wants to talk about reality - the real world, what is happening in it, and what we can and should do to make things better or just to survive. But not you. Nope, all you are interested in doing is derailing rational debate with endless nonsense about some ideal world that will never exist.

Let's eliminate war and poverty! Let's go to sleep with the fluffy bunnies in fluffy bunnyland and all be lovely and fluffy together in f*cking fluffyworld.

[biffvernon]

We've talked about high-skilled immigrants, now let's talk about low-skilled immigrants.
"Of the 13 million low-skilled jobs, 84% are held by UK born workers and 16% (some 2 million) by migrants. These 2 million low-skilled jobs held by migrants split 60:40 non-EU:EU." (Migration Advisory Committee Report, July 2014)
So only 6.4% of the low-skilled jobs in this country belong to these EU migrants (that also includes the Irish). It's important to understand these numbers relative to the claims of mass immigration flooding the low skilled market.
A study by UCL found that, overall, EU immigrants run a public services to tax surplus -- they contribute to our economy £1.34 for every £1 they cost. This is higher than non-EU immigrants and us UK natives who run a large deficit.
Leaving the EU to cancel our freedom of movement arrangement means that if we want to restrict immigration beyond the trivial amounts, we'll have to cut heavily into skilled migration, likely from both EU and non-EU routes. Our high-skill economy will want to grow and take new jobs - and we'll be saying no. As we detailed in our post from March 16th, just adding visa requirements for EU immigrants will be enough to impede hiring for small innovative businesses. Such restrictions on hiring mean that companies wanting high-skill workers will see incentives to move out of the UK into the remaining EU to draw easily from that 450m talent pool. All this because of our current drive to restrict a very small slice of "low-skilled" EU immigrants?
Finally, let's remember that getting a job and residence in this country is hard work. Anyone who can pull that off likely has very robust work ethic. When these new employees work hard, their employers do well and can likely hire new people sooner. It's not a zero sum game... it's a virtuous cycle. The only thing that needs to be protected is fundamental wages and living standards - and that's a national investment issue. Which brings us back to the point of having a stronger economy so that you have more funds to invest in training and improved quality of life for the many, not the few.
We control our island's borders rigorously as 43.3 million tourists per annum move through. When it comes to those that stay and work, we are lucky that our economy attracts the talent that it does. By shutting that down, we're ensuring that we have less money per person with which to invest in national infrastructure.
Here's the reference for the MAC report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... t_2014.pdf

[clv101]

This is a giant red herring, just like everything else Biff Vernon posts on this topic. Yes, the UK is involved in the arms industry. And it's not great. But, as Alan Clark once rightly pointed out, if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will.

Indeed, but this is a weak argument. A world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is certainly possible.

[UndercoverElephant]

This is a giant red herring, just like everything else Biff Vernon posts on this topic. Yes, the UK is involved in the arms industry. And it's not great. But, as Alan Clark once rightly pointed out, if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will.

Indeed, but this is a weak argument. A world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is certainly possible.

Is it a weak argument?

Such a world is only possible in the sense that it is physically possible. As is the elimination of war and poverty.

Meanwhile, back in reality, none of these things are actually going to happen, especially given the context of the current predicament of the human race.

If Biff's views could just be laughed at - "good old harmless Biff and his idealism, never harmed anyone...." then I don't think it would make people quite so angry. But as the situation in the real world deteriorates - as the threats get bigger, people's lives get ever more insecure and the sh*t really starts hitting the fan - then people like Biff become a serious liability. Applying fluffy idealism to real world decisions leads to "unexpected" and unwanted real world outcomes, and as we've seen recently with the migrant crisis, some of these real world outcomes are very bad. This is why Biff's continued refusal to temper his idealism with a dose of realism is causing ever more bad feeling and serious arguments on this forum. He's not harmless. Or rather, people who think like him are not harmless. And as the long emergency emerges, they will become more and more harmful.

[clv101]

It's a red herring, Biff. It has nothing to do with the migrant crisis. You're implying there's a possible world where all the arms manufacturers stop making weapons and selling them to people.

I don't think it's a red herring. It's clear that 'our' military involvement in the Middle East has contributed to deterioration in the region. It's also clear that 'our' weapons, sold to (and in case of ISIS captured/acquired by) many different actors in the region are exacerbating the conflict. This regional deterioration and conflict are closely linked to the migrant crisis.

Obviously if we stop selling weapons next week it's not any magic cure - but had we stopped manufacturing and exporting significant volumes of arms to the region 30 years ago, I think there's a good chance the situation today wouldn't be as bad. Now, you might say equal and equivalent arms would be been acquired from the US, Russia etc. Maybe, who knows.

Should we cut UK CO2 emissions even though it might allow other countries to burn those same fossil fuels?

To justify the UK arms export industry by saying "if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will" is a weak argument - we can do better than that!

[clv101]

This is a giant red herring, just like everything else Biff Vernon posts on this topic. Yes, the UK is involved in the arms industry. And it's not great. But, as Alan Clark once rightly pointed out, if we don't sell weapons to those people, somebody else will.

Indeed, but this is a weak argument. A world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is certainly possible.

Is it a weak argument?

Such a world is only possible in the sense that it is physically possible. As is the elimination of war and poverty.

Meanwhile, back in reality, none of these things are actually going to happen, especially given the context of the current predicament of the human race.

If Biff's views could just be laughed at - "good old harmless Biff and his idealism, never harmed anyone...." then I don't think it would make people quite so angry. But as the situation in the real world deteriorates - as the threats get bigger, people's lives get ever more insecure and the sh*t really starts hitting the fan - then people like Biff become a serious liability. Applying fluffy idealism to real world decisions leads to "unexpected" and unwanted real world outcomes, and as we've seen recently with the migrant crisis, some of these real world outcomes are very bad. This is why Biff's continued refusal to temper his idealism with a dose of realism is causing ever more bad feeling and serious arguments on this forum. He's not harmless. Or rather, people who think like him are not harmless. And as the long emergency emerges, they will become more and more harmful.

I think you're leaning way too heavily on your view of reality here. Of course world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is possible. Look at the demilitarisation following the end of the cold war for example.

[jonny2mad]

My first job from leaving school was in the arms trade, and I remember a company that got a lot of heat because it sold electric shock devices and shackles.

And I remember talking to the companys CEO and basically he said well we have political problems having the company in the uk, so what we are doing is moving operations to the far east and china .

Theres a high demand for our stuff they stuff wont stop being made only thing is it wont be made in the uk .

Regarding small arms you can make them with hand tools, you could export just the machinary and raw materials and make them in country.

It doesnt matter that the uk makes arms . if countrys want arms they can get them, and if they can't buy them because of embargos they can make them

[biffvernon]

Some are moved to poetry.

http://www.uhrsn.org/respond-award-winn ... -20152016/

[UndercoverElephant]

Indeed, but this is a weak argument. A world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is certainly possible.

Is it a weak argument?

Such a world is only possible in the sense that it is physically possible. As is the elimination of war and poverty.

Meanwhile, back in reality, none of these things are actually going to happen, especially given the context of the current predicament of the human race.

If Biff's views could just be laughed at - "good old harmless Biff and his idealism, never harmed anyone...." then I don't think it would make people quite so angry. But as the situation in the real world deteriorates - as the threats get bigger, people's lives get ever more insecure and the sh*t really starts hitting the fan - then people like Biff become a serious liability. Applying fluffy idealism to real world decisions leads to "unexpected" and unwanted real world outcomes, and as we've seen recently with the migrant crisis, some of these real world outcomes are very bad. This is why Biff's continued refusal to temper his idealism with a dose of realism is causing ever more bad feeling and serious arguments on this forum. He's not harmless. Or rather, people who think like him are not harmless. And as the long emergency emerges, they will become more and more harmful.

I think you're leaning way too heavily on your view of reality here. Of course world with signifincantly less arms manufacture is possible. Look at the demilitarisation following the end of the cold war for example.

There was a period during the 20th century when the amount of weaponry in existence had itself become completely detached from reality, especially nuclear warheads. Having 30,000 warheads was just stupid, because a quarter of that number would have been more than enough to destroy every target you might want to destroy. It became a purely symbolic arms race - the Russians and Americans both wanted to say they had more than the other. It was truly pointless and a criminal waste of resources. They both now have about 5000, which is still enough to completely anihilate each other. Is this actually a meaningful reduction? I don't think so. It's a reduction, but it's meaningless. It makes no actual difference.

What I'm saying is not possible or not realistic is to expect that any one country choosing not to manufacture arms is going to make the slightest bit of difference to the amount of arms being manufactured, because this is a demand-led business. In other words, if somebody wants to buy a weapon then somebody else will sell it to them (with the exception of nuclear weapons). The only way to reduce the level of militarisation is to reduce the demand, but it is very hard to see that happening for the very simple reason that any country that isn't capable of defending itself will be toast as soon there is any trouble.

[Lord Beria3]

I think the focus on Biff is a bit boring, to be honest.

Biff represents a very small portion of the populace and the viewpoint he represents simply doesn't reflect what the great majority of people think.

Focusing on him all the time gets in the way of the debate.

Much more productive would be to discuss what we think is likely to happen going forward and how best to adapt (individually and collectively) to these challenges.