http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-33110575



I think less of Oz every day because of it's current government.

We need to stop talking about taking in refugees or sending them back and actually do something about the problem of why there are refugees in the first place...

That's easier said than done. And even if you sort out the source of refugees, you'll still have a source of economic migrants (which is a whole different issue).

And in the decades / centuries that it will take for all the nasty aspects of all the countries in the world to get fixed ... just [LIFTED] 'em and let them drown?

+1 to that and amen ...

I seem to have worded that poorly. The key word is talking here.

We need to stop complaining about taking in refugees (in the news in politics) and start talking about how we can stem the flow by helping improve conditions in the countries where they are coming from.

I wasn't trying to suggest that we just close our borders and send them all back. Just that this is the wrong end of the argument to be concentrating on.

Quite so. The best way to deal with migrants is to set things so they don't want to migrate in the first place.

are you suggesting a major military operation in that area ?
the only way to stop this is turn the boats back or never let them leave
or total war and i mean total war as they are invading and IS give no quarter, your choice you choose ...

That's what caused the problems a big chunk of them are fleeing. The only thing that will solve the problem is making the places they are running away from safe and moderately prosperous so they feel like staying. Anything else is just putting your proverbial finger over the burst pipe.


You want to turn the whole of the Northern African coast into some sort of prison camp? I hope you're willing to pay the tremendous increase in taxes such a massive military operation would require. We'd need to significantly increase the size of the navy and buy a good few more AWACS style aircraft for a start. That's a few billion pounds a year and we haven't even got into manpower or logistic costs. Unless you expect someone else (e.g. the Italians) to actually do all the work, which they're certainly not going to just because we ask them nicely.


Got no problem with fighting IS. These people in general aren't them though.

Jon

I don't know what the solution is but just letting them flood into European and other better off countries isn't it.

All wealthy countries should accept far more asylum seekers, even those who do only fear bullying and poverty rather than torture and dismemberment.

We should be less dickish about it too. Let them get jobs and remit money to their homelands. That's often a very good form of international development aid.

We aren't too crowded to take them, and we aren't too poor to help. We're just selfish areseholes who won't.

I still wonder why they all come to Europe which everybody in the world knows is dying on its feet rather than Asia or Middle East?

And we are rich how?


Suggest you go live in a country you are happier with then.

To be fair, the cost of housing a few thousand immigrants would be a proverbial drop in the ocean to our national debt. The cost issues aren't on that scale at all. There are legitimate questions to ask about how many asylum seekers we can afford to take in, but the fact it might raise the level of our national debt by 0.0001% isn't really a relevant question.

There's no shame in saying 'We can afford to spend this much money on supporting asylum seekers, that means we can accept this many'. That's a perfectly fair thing. The question is how we decide how much that number is. The fact is these people are in the main desperate - if they weren't, they wouldn't be crowing onto unsafe boats and risking being drowned at sea - and therefore deserve our help but there are also many people already in the UK who need help also and there's only a finite amount of money to go round. This is not a black or white 'take all or take none' decision and anyone standing on either of those soapboxes is not looking at the problem at all realistically.

Sorry but I think it is. The UK infrastructure is falling apart ( Roads, Rail, water, power generation etc ) , The UK social infrastructure is collapsing ( NHS , Police, pensions etc ) Lets get those things sorted out and our debt reduced first and accept the fact that we are no longer a world power but a struggling second class country. </rant>


Not fundamentally disagreeing with you but lets sort our own house out first.