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 Orlanth wrote:

Its a logical conclusion based on the facts. The EU and UK in particular is full, we cant cope with more

Bull.

 Orlanth wrote:

Stabilising Syria instead is hardly xenophobic.

That's not what's going on though, NATO is dropping bombs for domestic political reasons, to be able to tell the electorate in the respective countries that something is being done.

 Orlanth wrote:
Unless you somehow think rape culture is part of our heritage.

You know the absolutely staggering amount of German women who were raped at the conclusion of WWII (and I'm not talking about the Red Army's part here)? Yeah, those weren't Syrian refugees doing the raping. You haven't even gotten around to making rape by deceit or fraud illegal.

I'd also argue that blaming issues with sexual violence on immigrants is a textbook example of xenophobia, so there's that.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Its a logical conclusion based on the facts. The EU and UK in particular is full, we cant cope with more

Bull.

We are facing a 70m population in the UK, that is too many.

 Orlanth wrote:

Stabilising Syria instead is hardly xenophobic.

That's not what's going on though, NATO is dropping bombs for domestic political reasons, to be able to tell the electorate in the respective countries that something is being done.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I'd also argue that blaming issues with sexual violence on immigrants is a textbook example of xenophobia, so there's that.

But the mass surge in sexual assaults in Cologne were majorly from crowds of Arab or North African men, even left wing newspapers have reported that. It was the local german authorities that tried to bury that because it's politically inconvenient for anything to go against the pro-migration narrative.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In Germany there is some resistance to the idea that the government should lock up undesirable people in camps.

So they don't have prisons?

Illegal immigrants are not just undesirables, they're criminals by definition.

They're not illegal though as Germany took them in willingly and started asylum applications. They've not gained access illegally and I'm not against genuine asylum cases. But Germany took in over a million and has lost 13% of them, they could be anywhere in Germany or across Europe due to open borders and free movement policies. Countries in the Europe can't reasonably criticise us for wanting to strengthen our borders when they've been so careless.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Stabilising Syria instead is hardly xenophobic.

AlmightyWalrus wrote: That's not what's going on though, NATO is dropping bombs for domestic political reasons, to be able to tell the electorate in the respective countries that something is being done.

Evidence please.

There is plenty of evidence that NATO is bombing ISIS, and there are solid reasons to do this. ISIS are very naughty.
Where is your evidence that this is for 'domestic political reasons' and what reasons are those.

Bombing ISIS isn't going to stabilize Syria. Bombing ISIS isn't going to remove them from the region. There's plenty of reasons to fight ISIS indeed, but simply bombing them and hoping that they'll go away doesn't solve anything. It does make for a very good show of force to claim that one's doing something to stop ISIS though.

 Orlanth wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I'd also argue that blaming issues with sexual violence on immigrants is a textbook example of xenophobia, so there's that.

You come from Sweden, rape capital of Europe.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You haven't even gotten around to making rape by deceit or fraud illegal.

 Orlanth wrote:

Sweden is also the head-in-sand denial capital of Europe also.
Your press dare not look at the demographics of the rape epidemic because it will disrupt harmony and expose the failure of cultural integration.

Do you read Swedish press?

 Orlanth wrote:

Sweden is a long way off coming to terms with the same reality, and is still trying to hound those who speak the truth as racists and troublemakers.

I think you'll find that pretending that there's not a problem with sexual violence in society in general and blaming it all on immigrants is a pretty racist, troublemaking argument to make.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I'd also argue that blaming issues with sexual violence on immigrants is a textbook example of xenophobia, so there's that.

But the mass surge in sexual assaults in Cologne were majorly from crowds of Arab or North African men, even left wing newspapers have reported that. It was the local german authorities that tried to bury that because it's politically inconvenient for anything to go against the pro-migration narrative.

True, but I find it distasteful in the extreme that sexual violence is suddenly a problem when it's immigrants involved when there's been a concerted effort by conservative forces to fight feminist policies for decades.

We're getting massively off-topic, so I'll bow out on that note.

 Da Boss wrote:
To flip it on it's head, rather than criticizing Germany for doing it's best to help in the greatest humanitarian disaster in Europe's living memory, the UK could have shown some leadership and taken in a substantial chunk of the numbers and relieved the pressure somewhat.

Too xenophobic for that, though. Bombing Syria (creating more refugees) was the better option.

No one has clean hands here - most European countries have and still are very happy to sell vast amounts of goods (especially weapons) to Middle Eastern dictatorships from Saudi to Iraq.

Bombing was the only palatable thing for most of them as none of the countries involved with this considered (likely rightly) that sending ground troops and receiving the inevitable casualties would not be tolerated by the populations.

The issue is that no one has a solution to the ISIS problem without causing vast amounts of loss of life and occupying regions for decades. Causing revolutions with fanatical and power hungry and totally ruthless people was a major cause of such blights on humanity – bombing just makes people feel their government is doing something….

Sadly education is not going to help, many of those heading over to fight for ISIS are university educated. I think part of the issue is that people have little to “believe” in these days and those that have that need try to find something that means something.

The Russians seem to be following the “make a desert and call it peace” – which might work but so many are going to die. The West are floundering as they are backing the terrorists as much as the freedom fighter – always a tricky differential to make…… the new Cold War makes this even worse for those in Syria.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Bombing ISIS isn't going to stabilize Syria. Bombing ISIS isn't going to remove them from the region. There's plenty of reasons to fight ISIS indeed, but simply bombing them and hoping that they'll go away doesn't solve anything. It does make for a very good show of force to claim that one's doing something to stop ISIS though.

Bombing ISIS helps turn ther tide for local moderates to deal with the territory they hold on thr ground. ISIS needs to be burned out or capitulated to, there is no middle ground and noone wants to give in to those evil fethers.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Do you read Swedish press?

Not in Swedish, and only really keep up on this issue.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I think you'll find that pretending that there's not a problem with sexual violence in society in general and blaming it all on immigrants is a pretty racist, troublemaking argument to make.

Statistically a moslem immigrant is 24 times more likely to commit rape than a Swede.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

But the mass surge in sexual assaults in Cologne were majorly from crowds of Arab or North African men, even left wing newspapers have reported that. It was the local german authorities that tried to bury that because it's politically inconvenient for anything to go against the pro-migration narrative.

True, but I find it distasteful in the extreme that sexual violence is suddenly a problem when it's immigrants involved when there's been a concerted effort by conservative forces to fight feminist policies for decades.

So you see the reality, but cant draw the logical conclusons from it. Why?
Sexual violence is not in any way acceptable in Germany, but also it wasn't at epidemic levels until uncontrolled mass migration.
This is not about conservatives fighting feminism, for a start the conservatives are more likely to protest immigrant rape issue than liberals, even oddly enough feminist ones.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

We're getting massively off-topic, so I'll bow out on that note.

Immigration into Europe is not really off topic. Its not a problem that is directly solved by voting to stay or leave the EU, but it is connected, to European policy and of increasingly importance to the populace who had until recently been mostly asleep on the issue.

Also it is always important ands very relevant when Germany decides to abandon EU procedures on a common policy and gets away with it, as Merkel has done of late over its border controls. Would other nations including the UK been unchallenged?
Is the UK big enough in the EU to make those sorts of challenges, Germany certainly is, France also, but the UK is very similar to France in terms of economic and political clout globally.

On a lighter note - doesn't the Eurovision Song Contest sum up how we are seen and and see our place in Europe

I hope not.

Though to be fair whoever wins gets to host the next years contest and the BBC doesn't want to host it for solid economic reasons. The UK is one of the two world centres for popular music, we could ace it, but its better to create a shortlist of no hope bands so all they needed to do was send Terry Wogan (or whoever is set to replace him) over and hire broadcast footage for him to do a live talkover.
Very cheap TV.

Hosting the contest is far more expensive than just participating, and its largely unwatched in the UK since the 70's. the UK last took the contest in any way seriously in the early 80's and about that time stopped fielding decent candidates.

Didnt Israel want to ban their own entry as a national embarassment once?

Orlanth wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
To flip it on it's head, rather than criticizing Germany for doing it's best to help in the greatest humanitarian disaster in Europe's living memory, the UK could have shown some leadership and taken in a substantial chunk of the numbers and relieved the pressure somewhat.

You are completely deluded if you think that taking in refugees stems the tide. It only encourages more.

Much as I hate to agree with Orlanth on anything these days, I feel this point is worth highlighting. Migrants and refugees tend to decide where they want to try and go based on three things usually, personal links (do they speak the language, family relations, historic ties to their home region, etc), future prospects (jobs, stability in the country, access to support once they arrive, etc), and the ability to settle there (so how hard it is to get there, likelihood of being deported, geographical nearness, etc).

Personal links are probably the least relevant, and the ability to settle the most. Every migrant/refugee will be prepared to brave varying levels of difficulty each depending on their motivation for moving in the first place (economic issues, war, etc), but if there's no ability to settle whatsoever, migrants cease trying. So for example, it's impossible to reach America from Africa by boat, so nobody tries. Or in the case of Australia, since they took to immediately taking all migrants and dumping them in another third world country, the number of people attempting to get there has fallen to almost nothing. If you know there's no hope of settling somewhere, there's no point in trying to get there, and so you pick a different target destination.

Drawing full circle, if we took in every migrant sitting in Calais right now, I would place good money on there being five times that number replacing them there before the ink was dry on the first lot's papers. It's why Cameron insisted on taking refugees out of camps in the Middle East rather than Greece. If we throw our doors open to Syrian immigrants, every single immigrant will insist they are Syrian, and make their way here (because we have a better economy and more generous support schemes than most of the rest of the Europe). We would become the de facto destination for all of them.

Having said that, I'm not opposed to taking in a goodly chunk of Syrian refugees. They are people in need. As someone who came to this country as an effective refugee with nothing but the clothes on his back (even if I was lucky enough to be a British passport holder), I'm highly sympathetic to those in plight. But it would have to be done properly, with relocation schemes set up across the UK (not just in the South-East) and refugees taken from the camps surrounding Syria itself instead of the ones flooding through illegal immigration channels.

Doing some quick research now (after Orlanth's other statements), and looking at the figures on what nationalities have been charged with what sorts of crimes over a five year period, this is what I've found. From 2008-2013, Syrians were arrested for 16 sexual offences in Britain as compared to 308 from Afghanistan, 452 from Pakistan, 95 from Iraq, 300 from Bangladesh, 46 from Morocco, 174 from Ireland, 31 from Lebanon, and 995 from Poland (I'm including a wide range of nationalities for illustration sake). Now those figures aren't proportionate to population here (more people will equate more crimes, naturally), so breaking those figures down according to population:-

Afghanistan:- 60,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 194 Afgans.
Pakistan:- 465,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 1028 Pakistanis.
Iraq:- 63,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 663 Iraqis.
Bangladesh:- 234,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 780 Bangladeshis.
Poland:- 646,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 649 Poles.
Ireland:- 403,000 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 2,316 Irish.
Syria:- 8,848 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 553 Syrians
Morocco:- 21,246 in Britain equating to one sex crime for 461 Morroccans
Lebanon:-15,569 in Britain equating to one sex crime for every 501 Lebanese

(figures are from police arrests and the 2011 census)

I've included a wide range of immigrants there, and naturally the figures are quite rough (it doesn't take into account repeat offenders, and I'm assuming all arrests are crimes, for example) but they do give a good general idea of where some of those more inclined towards bad behaviour towards women might be from (Da Boss will pleased to see the Irish are the best of the lot in that list!). What we see is that the Syrians are far from the worst offenders on that list, but they don't rank too well. Altogether? Since we'd be taking refugees, I would expect the proportion of sex crimes per Syrian refugee to fall, purely on the basis that the more fundamentalist or sadistic types of people will be more inclined to be toting a gun somewhere in Syria, than sitting in a refugee camp.

So in conclusion, I have no issue with taking more Syrian refugees. It just has to be organised properly so as to not cause us more trouble than it solves.

Ketara one of Cameron's solutions, and one I agree with it to take our quote not only from refugee camps on site, but to highlight taking in orphans.

Orphaned children are the most vulnerable cases and least able to cope by themselves and by bringing them into the country and integrating them we don't store up a longer term problems.

It's good to see some Brits discussing our status in the European Union via Foreign policy in Syria and the middle East, rather than members of other nations calling us xenophobic, racists, for a change.

So, what were we talking about again, before Johnny foreigner stuck his oar in? ;-)

 Orlanth wrote:
Ketara one of Cameron's solutions, and one I agree with it to take our quote not only from refugee camps on site, but to highlight taking in orphans.

Orphaned children are the most vulnerable cases and least able to cope by themselves and by bringing them into the country and integrating them we don't store up a longer term problems.

But you still have the same problem. Grown adults will start trying to pass themselves off as orphaned children. Without verifying the age of refugees, its just going to exacerbate the problem.

How is one supposed to verify the age of asylum seekers (and I'm genuinely curious, not trying to snark for once)? X-raying of wrists are inaccurate at best, and IDs can be forged.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
How is one supposed to verify the age of asylum seekers (and I'm genuinely curious, not trying to snark for once)? X-raying of wrists are inaccurate at best, and IDs can be forged.

You're asking the wrong person. I'm just pointing out a self evident fact: by enacting a blanket policy to take in"orphan children", you are creating an incentive for people to misrepresent their age. There have been many accounts of this happening at asylum centres already.

 Da Boss wrote:
To flip it on it's head, rather than criticizing Germany for doing it's best to help in the greatest humanitarian disaster in Europe's living memory, the UK could have shown some leadership and taken in a substantial chunk of the numbers and relieved the pressure somewhat.

Germany and it's attitude towards refugees is responsible for destabilizing the entire European Union, for the political radicilisation that currently takes place and for increased crime rates and events in Germany itself. Germany encourages the problemetic situation some refugees flee from and work straight in favor of the people chasing them away. /Now/ they start thinking about a system to regulate the masses, which is way too late. On the upper side of things, even people with little to no interest in politics finally saw that the German government is absoluteley useless - and that it will cost billions of tax payer money to fix that mistake. Well done!

This is a very close race here.

At 9:03AM Cental Time in the USA, Yes had 73 votes, No had 72, and Don't know had 26.

Just sayin'

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
This is a very close race here.

At 9:03AM Cental Time in the USA, Yes had 73 votes, No had 72, and Don't know had 26.

Just sayin'

Polls on Dakka are open to everyone whatever their nationality, not just Brits. So its best to ignore it whatever the result.

Just saying.

I'm still firmly in the "Don't Know" camp. Hopefully there'll be more objective information available nearer the time. If I had to vote tomorrow, I'd struggle with what's currently out there and accessible without devoting hours to Google.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
I'm still firmly in the "Don't Know" camp. Hopefully there'll be more objective information available nearer the time. If I had to vote tomorrow, I'd struggle with what's currently out there and accessible without devoting hours to Google.

I've spent the last decade making up my mind since I was a teenager, and am firmly in the Leave camp.

I'm also firmly in the leave camp, have been for quite some time but I finally turned when I went to University.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
I'm still firmly in the "Don't Know" camp. Hopefully there'll be more objective information available nearer the time. ....

Sadly that is very unlikely.

For example Farage has already come out and said the G20 finance ministers have worned of economic disruption on Brexit because they're all part of a club for mutual back-scratching.

This of course is demonstrably bollocks.

He ignores the fact that there has already been economic disruption with a significant fall in the strength of the GBP simply from Cameron announcing the date of the referundum.

I don't see why trade will be that much problem if we leave.


We leave, we then enter a trade agreement with the EU, then we can trade again.

 welshhoppo wrote:
I don't see why trade will be that much problem if we leave.


We leave, we then enter a trade agreement with the EU, then we can trade again.

Supposedly, according to some fearmongers, they'll screw us over on any deal to make our exit appear as difficult as possible to prevent us suceeding on our own, just to keep other EU countries in line in case they were thinking of leaving too.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I don't see why trade will be that much problem if we leave.


We leave, we then enter a trade agreement with the EU, then we can trade again.

Supposedly, according to some fearmongers, they'll screw us over on any deal to make our exit appear as difficult as possible to prevent us suceeding on our own, just to keep other EU countries in line in case they were thinking of leaving too.

I would not be too surprised if that happened,


More for Sweden I guess.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I don't see why trade will be that much problem if we leave.


We leave, we then enter a trade agreement with the EU, then we can trade again.

Supposedly, according to some fearmongers, they'll screw us over on any deal to make our exit appear as difficult as possible to prevent us suceeding on our own, just to keep other EU countries in line in case they were thinking of leaving too.

That would be cutting off the nose to spite the face. They export more to the UK than we export to them, so trying punish us with unfavorable trade terms will give us an excuse to enact protectionist policies for British business (e.g. British steel? Fisheries? Agriculture) and barriers that obstruct EU businesses. And of course, I'm sure there are plenty of non-EU countries like China and India who'd love to take over the EU's market share.

Well, by leaving you are damaging the EU project, so I would prefer if you were not rewarded with favorable trade terms. Why should we give you any benefits when you don't pay in to the club?

I would imagine customs charges and so on would come back, hurting UK exporters.

I think that's fair enough- you get what you vote for.

It also amuses me that you guys think you know more about this than business leaders, who are overwhelmingly anti-Brexit.

'Business leaders' frequently back suggestions like holding down minimum wages and legislation against unions. There's a reason people don't feel they have anyone's interests but their own at heart.

Aye, they're not my favourite people, but I can't see the angle here. They're just saying it'll be bad for trade and business. Surely if it would be better, they'd be for it? They only care about money, after all.

 Da Boss wrote:
Well, by leaving you are damaging the EU project, so I would prefer if you were not rewarded with favorable trade terms. Why should we give you any benefits when you don't pay in to the club?

So you're more concerned with spitting your dummy out and getting petty revenge then?

I would imagine customs charges and so on would come back, hurting UK exporters.

I think that's fair enough- you get what you vote for.

Then we'll respond in kind, hurting EU exporters, boosting domestic British manufacturers and non-EU exporters like India and China. You really want to play that game of brinkmanship?

It also amuses me that you guys think you know more about this than business leaders, who are overwhelmingly anti-Brexit.

Business leaders who are overwhelming self interested. I care more about democracy and national self determination than the profit margins of big corporations and the salaries of CEO's. They could cry me a river about their share prices, and I'll bathe in their tears.

If my country has to endure economic hardship in the short term to win back political independence and sovereignty in the long term, I can live with that.

Well if you listen to the news you'd think that Britain would be better off if it stopped importing so much stuff. Tata steel for example.