Refugees

Spot on ethelbags, far too many houses standing empty

there are thousands of houses standing empty, they are kept for situations like and the public never get to hear of them. I know one house near me, a perfectly solid council house empty for 2 years now and the council have not let it. Also many private landlords keep houses as investments but do not let them, just selling them on when the prices go up. They should be made to sell or rent them . A friend of mine has an empty house as she lives with her partner and hasn't sold the last house she had, no one lives in it and she keeps it in a state of needing repair. Houses such as this could be used.

Britain has money. Do you know how many millionaires and billionaires there are living here.
If we brought in Corbyn's PQE there would be jobs for people building more houses, paying more taxes, etc.
In Denmark, the top rate of tax is 55%. Why is it only 45% here?
Lots of rich people say they are willing to pay more tax. There's only so much money anyone can spend.
Is it right that some people earn more in interest even now, than many get in wages?

I just wonder what those who are desperate for housing will think if it suddenly miraculously becomes available?

I don't know how I would feel.

Is easy for the middle classes to be generous, they can afford it but try living on under £10,000 a year as many of us do and not be eligible for help. It is hard and even harder to imagine the immigrants who have nothing get houses and new stuff while the rest of us have to scrimp. I have worked for 40 years and never had much 'new' furniture or electrical items, clothes etc. to pay my way I have to buy second hand.

Britain should put tis house in order first.

I understand how you feel etheltbags, the north east is not as affluent as the south.

While I sympathise with these people having now researched the situation on line, I feel that ordinary people like me will feel that they are being treated unfairly if they bring many more immigrants to the uk.

We are just out of a recession, many people are living from foodbanks, debt is more of a problem than ever. Unemployment is starting to rise again and benefits have been cut. How do they expect British people to welcome immigrants when we are all worse off.

My DD has to pay for DGD nursery, she doesn't mind but feels that its unfair that her neighbours on benefits get more hours for free. I am on sick pay at the moment being starved back to work if I am fit or not as I just cant pay all my bills on sick pay. I see people of all nationalities filling up their trolleys in the supermarket (they may or may not be immigrants)and I wonder what I did wrong by working 40 odd years and facing poverty in my 60s. Britain needs to attend to their own populations inequalities before helping other nations.

If Britain has no money so that they had to cut back on benefits can anyone tell me how they can find money to support 20,000 or so immigrants.

Can someone explain to me why Germany never offered their "guest" workers full citizenship?

soontobe - As I understand it ISIS want to expand their caliphate to take in the whole of the Arab world. I have also read that they would be looking to seize back the European countries that were once part of the Ottoman Empire and El Andalus (southern Spain) which again they regard as rightly theirs and then presumably great swathes of sub Saharan Africa and the rest of Western Europe so we can all submit to their version of Islam.

This is an interesting article about Germany's attitude to refugees.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/refugee-crisis-germanys-welcoming-approach-towards-people-in-need-is-no-surprise-10488960.html?origin=internalSearch

Whilst I think we should all take a share of the refugees, no one can second guess whether their assimilation, especially after a period of time will go smoothly. I think one of German gns pointed out, if when weeks turn into months and there is very little for them to do and they are still living in barrack type accommodations their initial euphoria might not last. Time will tell and Germany will of course be the country that will be affected the most.

Someone, somewhere on the threads, asked the question whether IS would already have been able to come to Europe or the UK without the refugee crisis, and indeed whether they would want to anyway[something like that]

I left the point at the time, thinking that the poster was probably correct.

But I am not sure now.

I dont know what IS real point is. If it is for territory, then presumably they can now take over the whole of Syria[sorry, I dont know the whole background]

But if it is mayhem, and war and terror they are really after, then they will have come across with the Syrian refugees I would have thought[sorry dont know exactly which countries they are or were in].

They are not amounts. They are numbers. They come as individuals, not by weight.

Roses, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

CelticRose. That's been my problem all along with this knee jerk reaction to huge amount of people wanting to come to Europe: You don't know who they are. And I'll say it again: disease, TB is rife in Afganistan.

As in, "Are you a terrorist?"
"Definitely not."
"Okay, you can come to the UK."

I struggle to imagine how vetting can be done on such a large scale.

I imagine we will be vetting those in the camps too, before they come to Britain.

Just picking up on this post. Watching CNN this morning, the US intelligence say that the refugee migrants also consist of terrorists. Could that be why so many young men? Could some of them be hiding amongst women and children? US has been thoroughly vetting refugees and has limited entry on small numbers.

Baasher Assad is a Alawhite Muslim. They are a more relaxed arm of the religion. He personally hates the more conservative Muslims.
Gets very confusing.

Terribull yes, your post does quite rightly point to the fact that there is an error in the argument that this is 'a Europe-wide' problem.

I don't know if anyone tuned into Matthew Wright's programme this morning, his opening discussion was on the fact that Saudi and the oil rich Gulf States such as Kuwait, Qatar etc. have not taken in one single refugee, in spite of the fact that these places are Muslim countries. One of the reasons cited for this is that they don't want any terrorists. ISIS have stated that it is their intention to plant some among the mass exodus, well that of course is going to apply to any country giving these people refuge. There is of course an ambiguity as to whether some of these states are actually covertly funding ISIS, and if that's the case, then they are hardly going to be a target for terrorism from ISIS jihadis. I think many find the fact that we have a veneer of a close relationship for the sake of business with places such as Saudi quite abhorrent. The discussion did throw up the fact that human rights was an enormous issue and most of these places import a great number of migrant workers from the Far East who live in a state of servitude. Nevertheless, the consensus from the panelists was that they should definitely be stepping up to the plate on this occasion, particularly as they have such wealth and they are Muslim countries One of the five Pillars of Islam is "the giving of alms" Broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kholi also stated that he thought it was lamentable, that India, is not taking any refugees either. Matthew Wright also pointed out that the UK makes the 2nd largest contribution in the world to aid and whilst these oil states are giving some money the figures quoted were not that great considering their wealth. Another point Hardeen Singh Kholi also made, although I didn't quite catch what he said, but I think he inferred that more money is being thrown at the up and coming very controversial world cup in Qatar than funds going to refugees.

Joelsnan I have found your posts very interesting. There appears to be such a lot of sectarianism within the Islamic religion. It was only recently I think I found out how deep the schism is between Sunni and Shia is, so much so, I was surprised that some Sunnis hate Shias more than infidel westerners. The complexity of the different factions, even among the more populous Sunnis is quite hard to comprehend, far far more convoluted than the differences that exist between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

good posts, POGS and RQ.The Syrian people need our help, but the Syria 'situation' inside the country needs the UN to decide on a policy, if all countries can't agree [ and they won't] it needs to be the majority vote on action, do they assist Assad and wipe out IS and similar groups or....what?

margaretx if you don't know who she is I prefer to leave you in ignorant bliss.

POGS good posts

EmilyHarburn I think I put a list on earlier in this thread which gave a summary of some of the numbers of refugees this country has given sanctuary to over the years.
'Benevolent dictator' is a good term, but not many spring instantly to mind.

djen yes, it does need a united approach, but trying to get countries together to agree on this would take time, as is usual, and the present need is urgent. So better an offer of refuge than endless debate while people suffer.
joelsnan as far as I am aware, but I may be wrong, Assad is still decimating his own people which started in retaliation for their attempted uprising following the 'Arab Spring'. Other factions have also taken the opportunity to carry out their own murderous agendas.

As a spokesperson for the United Nations what does Gutteres say about the rest of the world do you know?

Merkel and Hollande have joined together in an interview and said the EU will take 120.000 refugees over the next two years...Junker will supposedly confirm this later today.

Germany has said it will take 31.000 refugees over the next two years. France will take 24.000 refugees over the next two years.

I am confused if those figures are true where does the supposed 800.000 refugees Germany will take enter it. If I have heard the figure correctly 130.000 people entered Germany last weekend alone

I asked before if this could be the break up of the EU but I believe this will prove to be the biggest problem the EU will undertake as I am not so sure all 28 countries will willingly abide by any ruling such as this , especially the eastern European countries.