The Great Debate on Immigration

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  • 7) A politically intelligent discussion about Theresa May? You seem to have gone a bit off subject here. But it’s quick & easy to cover. She’s nuts. Mentally incompetent. Unable to communicate. To whatever minimal extent she is able and willing to weigh up pros & cons, her default conclusion, ignoring memorised near-random platitudes, is fundamentally devious, immoral and despotic. So what it is you want to discuss about this walking, talking, living corpse?

    8) “Feeding pigeons” vs “milk & honey for immigrants”: you don’t appear to understand the connection. Or you understand but disagree with it. Or you’re just playing dumb. Pigeons give me the creeps and besides, which, they are vermin. I’ve pretty much come to the point where I don’t want to feed words to you any more than I want to feed bread to pigeons.

    9) Yes of course you’re right, I’m just guessing that we don’t have enough land space or resources for a never-ending flow of immigrants into Britain. Nothing to do with reality. Just a dream I had.

    10) Changing face of Britain/towns that are no longer recognisably British: yes, you got it in one, ethnic characterisation. I love your remark ….

    “as this is a relative statement (generally) it doesn't open up the possibility of any meaningful discussion”

    You should give this remark to Theresa May; she could use next time she’s being interviewed or answering a question in the house. No one will question it from her because they know she’s got screws loose

    11) As for your query about North versus Southern hemisphere inhabitation populations, while I’m just about prepared to believe you’re not suffering from a bi-polar condition, you do seem have your poles mixed up, You say 10% live in the Northern hemisphere, with the remaining 90% living in the Southern hemisphere. Wrong way around. The Northern Hemisphere is home to approximately 6.57 billion people which is around 90% of the earth's total human population of 7.3 billion people. Granted, the Northern hemisphere has 70% of the world’s total landmass and the Southern hemisphere 39%. But that still makes the Northern hemisphere twice as crowded as the Southern hemisphere. So why this mass migration to the crowded North? Because they’re lonely? They take long holidays, lasting a lifetime? Because white girls are easy (and easily groomed). Ran out of fly spray? Sunscreen too expensive? (What’s the point of getting a tan if you’re not white? Maybe we should all swap hemispheres?!). Admittedly the Northern hemisphere is more fertile and give or take a couple of Word Wars and a few acts of terrorism, we seem to be better at not completely dumping on our doorstep in so many ways, such as tribal wars, despots (give or take Theresa May!), democracy, anti-corruption, education, agriculture, exporting for a living, industriousness, treatment of women, disease control …… and so on and so forth

    By the way, when you say in your breathless unpunctuated stream of semi-consciousness “I must be missing the point if you could fill us all in I'm confused”, who is “us”? Who do you imagine you are speaking on behalf of? If it’s Forum Box, and that is with their knowledge and consent, then I’m outta here forthwith. I can live with and even sympathise with FB’s take-no-prisoners attitude to Brexit, but this is something else again and I find it very creepy

    Horizon: please tell me what’s in the above paragraph isn’t true!!

    12) Am I, as you believe, confusing a dislike of Muslims with my concerns about immigration? If you want to make it seem that simple, then I suppose my answer is a hesitant “yes”. And yet, I do take individual people as they come rather than stereotype them. So if I see a Jew walking along a British high street with a long black beard, long black gabardine coat, skullcap, and a prayer shawl sticking out of his trousers, I don’t think he and I are going to find much common ground and nor do I think assimilating with his host country is top of his list of things to do. Likewise, if I see a Muslim with his wife wearing a veil or a burka, walking behind him, I will judge that there is a much better than 50-50 chance that he will think that the Americans “had it coming” with 9/11 and that Sharia Law should be somehow included in British Law. We are all guilty of profiling but only if we are entirely and unthinkingly racist do we make up our minds on the basis of a profiled stereotype. If we are fair, we remain cautiously open-minded to exceptions to the rule, and with enough such exceptions we form a new and better rule. Why on earth wouldn’t I care about Britain curbing and carefully filtering immigration intake to exclude immigrants who, at best, don’t want to assimilate within their host country and, at worst, want to change or even conquer it to suit their own beliefs and values?

    13) In theory, you could be right that having negative views about Muslim immigration could aggravate rather than repel Islam extremism and radicalisation. Indeed, that’s the standard response from gutless politicians about letting sleeping dogs lie. It’s a sweet but sad Christian belief that that the meek shall inherit the earth. I veer towards those who believe the only way to extinguish an oil fire is to explode it. To the extent that you represent the Islam point of view that thieves should have their hands cut off and rapists should be executed (and so on and so forth) does not remotely offer a bridge of live & let live between Islam and Christianity.

    14) Muslims and terrorists: you say my view looks like being that all Muslims are immoral terrorists that we need to keep out. I guess you don’t recall my saying that about 70% of all terrorist attacks in the UK and probably Europe as a whole are by Muslims, or were Muslim inspired or Muslim radicalised. Do you not see the difference between that statistic and one that says all (or even most) Muslims are terrorists? Such a shame that 2000 or more years after the Arabs invented numbers they still don’t know WTF to make of them.

    15) I won’t comment on your last 3-4 paragraphs because, although you write pretty well. I get the feeling you are starting to foam at the mouth and, like an aeroplane, you seem to be gaining speed but losing altitude.

    In conclusion: it won’t surprise me in the least if you carry on arguing about my posts. However, do be aware that I won’t reply. I don’t want to explain why beyond saying that it has become ugly

    Edited once, last by Horizon: Deleted quote from me which was put into this thread by mistake. (January 19, 2019 at 9:48 PM).

  • 1 I can't stand Indian or Chinese takeaways, so couldn't care less about them. Interesting that you've honed in on takeaways, perhaps it's something I may have said previously

    2 Anyway (for now...) this is about new people coming to this country, not those already here.

    3 As it always used to be, they get refused benefits. The definition of unskilled labour as far as foreign immigration go, would be anybody without a degree or specific trade ie electrician, plumber etc

    4 but the fact that most foreign takeaways don't allow British people to work in them, I find utterly abhorrent. I would shit the lot of down in a second for employment discrimination and deport the owners.

    1 I meant restaurants too

    2 Tomorrows immigrants will replenish today's unskilled labour in today's ethnic/continental restaurants and takeaways

    3 Really? So an unemployed bricklayer or scaffolder or window cleaner would lose benefits if he turned down a job cleaning toilets?

    4 It's interesting where one draws the line. Rejecting a fat person behind the reception desk at a gym? A person who insists on wearing a massive crucifix around their neck to serve behind the counter in a Kosher Jewish Deli? And if it's a Kosher deli?! You see how we slide into the question of excluding people who contradict the values or images or credibility that a business is trying to project? So by reasonable extension would you consider it abhorrent or justifiably illegal for a quintessentially Italian restaurant to refuse an unemployed English waiter?

  • 3 Really? So an unemployed bricklayer or scaffolder or window cleaner would lose benefits if he turned down a job cleaning toilets?

    This is not the benefits thread, but yes.

    So by reasonable extension would you consider it abhorrent or justifiably illegal for a quintessentially Italian restaurant to refuse an unemployed English waiter?

    Absolutely and if the person is the most qualified, it's illegal now.

  • Bear in mind, once we leave the EU (if we ever do) we can deny benefits to immigrants until they have contributed for say ... 5 years, and demand they have health insurance.

    We could also introduce the Swiss style of citizenship qualifications which demands integration, instead of handing out UK citizenship like confetti to every Tom, Dick and Harry, including the jihadist and criminal immigrants.

    Then again, that would require our politicians to put UK safety, customs and traditions first, so there's very little chance of it!

    I did a gov survey the other day, and one of the questions was how much trust could be placed in the Commons. The results will be very interesting! I'll post the results once they are published.

    Just coming back to this post, but I overlooked something which I have talked about before on the NHS threads, which is a very easy and pragmatic way to control immigration and that is health insurance.

    Somebody like Michael Portillo or IDS suggested last year that anyone coming to this country must be required to have a certain level of health insurance. Apart from shielding the NHS of the costs of paying for migrants' heath costs, it acts as a screen to block out many who would never be able to afford it in the first place from coming to this country. Many countries already have such a policy, yet we don't.

    Another thing which many countries do, especially non-Western ones, and that is over citizenship. As you say, citizenship is handed over too easily. Try becoming a citizen in a "western" country like Japan.... Fat chance. But what the Japanese and others do is they also ensure that any migrants in their country who have children in Japan, are still considered migrants too and not Japanese, yet we hand out automatic citizenship for any tom, dick or harry who has kids here. Crazy.

  • This is not the benefits thread, but yes.

    Absolutely and if the person is the most qualified, it's illegal now.

    That's precisely why the Italian restaurant will say to the prospective employee who is not Italian "thank you, we'll let you know". It is also why the advertisement cannot say "Italian waiters wanted". It is also why advertising for such jobs, in order to sidestep this law, will often appear only in the country of origin of sought-after applicants (which ironically will increase immigration rather than targeting Italians already living in the UK.

    Two of my most hated phrases are "the law's the law" and rules are rules". These were popular German maxims in the late thirties ..... and probably still are

    Judges like Lord Denning understood the difference between a court decision based on "The Law" and one based on what is Right & Fair. Without people able to make that distinction this will become an ugly world.

  • With regard to Immigrants requiring medical insurance rather than automatically and immediately qualify for NHS, before anyone gets too "bleeding heart liberal" about that idea, bear in mind that Canada, who are a lot more kind hearted than us Brits, operate their citizen's free health scheme with near enough the eligibility distinction between citizen's and non-citizens.

  • With regard to Immigrants requiring medical insurance rather than automatically and immediately qualify for NHS, before anyone gets too "bleeding heart liberal" about that idea, bear in mind that Canada, who are a lot more kind hearted than us Brits, operate their citizen's free health scheme with near enough the eligibility distinction between citizen's and non-citizens.

    There was a story from somewhere like Greece last year where a little kid of a British family was denied medical help, because the family could not prove they had the medical insurance. They had the European health card, but either they couldn't find it at the time, or there was some other issue and so the ambulance left them to "get on with it." He died.

    I am not suggesting that A&E treatment ever be withheld to anyone in this country, but we have got to stop the Irish "abortion run", the Aussie "baby run" and deny treatments such as cancer care to those who have not paid into the system and are not entitled to it, as harsh as that may be.

  • That's precisely why the Italian restaurant will say to the prospective employee who is not Italian "thank you, we'll let you know". It is also why the advertisement cannot say "Italian waiters wanted". It is also why advertising for such jobs, in order to sidestep this law, will often appear only in the country of origin of sought-after applicants (which ironically will increase immigration rather than targeting Italians already living in the UK.

    Two of my most hated phrases are "the law's the law" and rules are rules". These were popular German maxims in the late thirties ..... and probably still are

    Judges like Lord Denning understood the difference between a court decision based on "The Law" and one based on what is Right & Fair. Without people able to make that distinction this will become an ugly world.

    Are you saying you think British people should be employed in these foreign owned restaurants, or not? I've lost your point, somewhere along the road.

    Agree about the jobs being advertised abroad, that's something that should be stopped.

  • 1 Are you saying you think British people should be employed in these foreign owned restaurants, or not? I've lost your point, somewhere along the road.

    2 Agree about the jobs being advertised abroad, that's something that should be stopped.

    1) Provided the employee applicant is not someone who has escaped from a prison or an asylum or the disease quarantined section of a hospital or an immigrant detention/processing centre or lacking identification papers that enable criminal checks to be made and which do not contradict the right to obtain paid work for a living and with no apparent danger to the employer's staff and customers AND the would-be employer is disposed to offer employment to that applicant, then by answer is yes, of course.

    2) Who are you agreeing with? Yourself? Certainly not me. Advertising abroad is the only way to circumvent the crazy law that you are so in favour of. Presumably, you would uphold a law that a suntanning can discriminate against employing a black person to be a customer adviser at Spec Savers. Would it be fair for me to presume that you never understood or appreciated the joke about Peter Cook refusing to employ Dudley Moore for the film part of Tarzan on the grounds that he only had one leg.

  • I am not suggesting that A&E treatment ever be withheld to anyone in this country,

    Nor me! Even in America you don't bleed to death in the hospital reception because you don't have a credit card.

    In Britain's NHS A&E you can die on a stretcher in a windswept corridor while waiting for someone to save your life

  • .....true.

    1) Provided the employee applicant is not someone who has escaped from a prison or an asylum or the disease quarantined section of a hospital or an immigrant detention/processing centre or lacking identification papers that enable criminal checks to be made and which do not contradict the right to obtain paid work for a living and with no apparent danger to the employer's staff and customers AND the would-be employer is disposed to offer employment to that applicant, then by answer is yes, of course.

    I disagree and this in a way goes to the heart of the immigration debate.

    Anyone can wait on tables, so why do we need to import labour from overseas to do it? I just do not agree that unskilled foreign labour should be allowed into this country, the only exception being is if unemployment fell to zero and we needed them. We don't need them, though.

  • .....true.

    I disagree and this in a way goes to the heart of the immigration debate.

    Anyone can wait on tables, so why do we need to import labour from overseas to do it? I just do not agree that unskilled foreign labour should be allowed into this country, the only exception being is if unemployment fell to zero and we needed them. We don't need them, though.

    I think your perspective here is that of a motorway or lorry drivers' cafe rather than a restaurant, something merely for removing hunger than offering an eating out experience on a higher plain.

    Presumably, your reaction to the Peter Cook Dudley Moore sketch on whether to hire a 1 legged Tarzan left you mystified or confused.

    Presumably if Ken Loach (yawn yawn) was casting for actors in his forthcoming film about Windrush victims and he turned down applications from white English people for victim part, he would, in your book, be acting illegally.

    You don't like changing your mind do you? It's just possible one day you'll get on a jury. Thank God capital punishment has been abolished! (Yeah yeah, I know, you wish it hadn't been!!)

  • Presumably, your reaction to the Peter Cook Dudley Moore sketch on whether to hire a 1 legged Tarzan left you mystified or confused.

    You're comparing apples and pears. A one-legged Tarzan wouldn't be capable of doing the job.

    I am in the middle here, I have no problem with 'selective' employment when there is a genuine reason for that criteria being applied, but I do object to advertising abroad and bringing in immigrants for jobs that can be done by the people already living here, regardless of their origins.

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

  • I am in the middle here, I have no problem with 'selective' employment when there is a genuine reason for that criteria being applied

    If we need to employ foreign plumbers, so be it, that is a skill, but the priority should be on identifying future skill shortages before they happen and train our own people up to do the required jobs. As for importing people to pick fruit etc, that should be zero.

  • The UK has begun returning migrants, who cross the Channel in small boats, to France in a bid to deter others from doing the same, the Home Office said.

    On Thursday, a small number of failed asylum seekers, who landed on UK shores in October, were sent back to France.

    The Home Office said it wanted to provide "a strong deterrent against the dangerous crossings".

    The move is part of a new plan agreed by France and the UK which will see the UK spend an extra £3m on security.

    It is understood fewer than five were returned to France on Thursday morning.

    In the first paragraph of that article, the BBC calls them migrants and in the second, it calls them failed asylum seekers. As already pointed out several times in this thread, if they were asylum seekers they should have applied for asylum at the first safe country they reached. The BBC's language is not helpful here.

    This is good news but it's only five, what about the others?

    And last week we had this:

    France and the UK have signed a treaty to speed up the processing of migrants in Calais, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on his first UK visit.

    After talks with UK PM Theresa May at Sandhurst military academy, he said the treaty would offer a "more humane approach" and be "more efficient".

    She said both leaders remained committed to the "Le Touquet" border agreement in Calais - the UK has announced an extra £44.5m to be spent on beefing up Channel border security.

    Mr Macron said the Sandhurst Treaty signed on Thursday - the first joint treaty on the Calais border in 15 years - would "enable us to improve the relationship and the management of the joint border" and reduce the time taken to process migrants.

    It would mean the time taken to process migrants hoping to come to the UK from Calais, would be reduced from six months to one month for adults and 25 days for children.

    I don't get this at all.

    The migrants are in France, not the UK, how is this our problem and why are we spending millions of pounds on extra security for Calais?

  • I don't get this at all. The migrants are in France, not the UK, how is this our problem and why are we spending millions of pounds on extra security for Calais?

    Of course you get it.

    1) Macron is holding a knife to Britain's throat, as co-partner with Germany, as one of the EU's 2 de facto leaders, arguably the one with greater impatience and animosity to the UK.

    2) Britain wants concessions on in its Brexit/BINO deal. To be more specific, Theresa May is adopting her usual autocratic bent-over begging ingratiating accommodating position. When the EU (if not by now, the whole world) treats you as an insignificant loser with that be-kind-to-cripples polite charm, it is surely inevitable that she will try to compensate by being Queen Bitch with those under her thumb. For her the line of least resistance are the bewildered self-loving eunuchs in what we imagine to be our very own cradle of democracy. This is a political version of the play "She stoops to conquer"

    ***

    Theresa May’s previous chief of staff (Nick Timothy) advised Theresa May to find her "Inner Bodicea"

    I read an article somewhere about Bodicea that said something like this:

    1 During Roman rule in Britain, Bodicea’s army was annihilated

    2 She flexed her muscles in London and it was burned to the ground and its inhabitants killed

    3 She destroyed the Colchester, the capital of Essex Essex

    4 She destroyed St Albans

    5 She was so confident she’d win that she encouraged Britons to be spectators to the battle victories and they were all killed

    6 Her army greatly outnumbered the Roman army but hopelessly ill-equipped

    7 She committed suicide after being defeated by the Romans

    8 After that Europe (aka the Romans) ruled Britain for 400 years

    So I reckon Theresa May did indeed find her "Inner Bodicea

    Who says history doesn’t repeat itself?! Under-resourced, under-prepared, over-confident, xenophobic, self-destructive

  • i never actually didn't link this issue to Brexit, but if May somehow thinks she will win concessions from Macron by pumping money into Macron's migrant problem, then she is totally inept. But hey, we get a bit of French rag to display in our museums in a few years time, at cost to ourselves...

  • if May somehow thinks she will win concessions from Macron by pumping money into Macron's migrant problem, then she is totally inept.

    You say "if (blah blah blah) then she is totally inept". Does that mean you think up until now she's been only partially inept? If she does something else that is even more inept stupider what adjective will you choose to put in front of inept?!

  • British IS schoolgirl 'wants to return home'

    One of three schoolgirls who left east London in 2015 to join the Islamic State group says she has no regrets, but wants to return to the UK.

    In an interview with the Times, Shamima Begum, now 19, talked about seeing "beheaded heads" in bins - but said that it "did not faze her".

    Speaking from a refugee camp in Syria, she said she was nine months pregnant and wanted to come home for her baby.

    I think we all remember when the three girls headed off to Syria, laughing as they went through airport security with holy jihad on their minds and the thought of being breeding stations to a new generation of blood thirsty killers.

    One of the girls is now dead, killed in a bombing and the fate of the other one is unclear, but this one wants to come "home." As far as I'm concerned she already is home, by her choice.

    She is unfazed by seeing people's cut-off heads in bins, most people would be sicked by such a site, but now she wants a place to bring up her baby and wants to return to the UK. Should we let her?

    I think she poses a significant security risk to this country and I don't give a damn about her, but I'm sure the human rights brigade will wrap her in warm blankets of love and compassion and do everything they can to bring her back here. Personally, a drone strike on her would be the best all round, for her and us.

  • I am two minds, as the girl was very young when she first went, but her attitude towards decapitated captives horrifies me. Why should we believe she cares about this child when she already let two children die before she requested to return? No, she is too high a risk and I would resent any UK money being spent on 're-integrating her'. She shows no remorse, only a desire for others to provide her ISIS offspring with care.

    Would her ISIS husband be allowed to follow her to the UK? It wouldn't surprise me.

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

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