I have to disagree with you there. The only people who are getting agitated are the ones who are reacting emotionally and not thinking things through. (Most remember that for a small island we took in 300,000 from across Europe last year and the year before. Not bad going since we have nowhere to put them all.) Part of that has been fuelled by the media campaigns which are playing on people's emotions because it increases their viewing figures. Sky's coverage has been particularly bad and embarrassingly overly emotional and the BBC's coverage is not much better.
I never thought I'd be on here praising Cameron but here I am.
The EU was not caught off guard by this at all either, it's been moving towards this for a year or two now.
To my mind the government of a country has a responsibility to keep the land and the people of that country as safe and secure as possible. In places like the EU the member states also have that same responsibility to other member states. Over the last year or two, with the increased terrorist threat, the security services in the UK have been working flat out to keep us as safe as possible and they have done a good job. Hopefully the security forces of the other member states have done the same.
We want them to keep on working hard to keep us safe but it's an impossible job if Europe carries on behaving the way it is doing right now. You can't allow masses of people from the Arab lands (terrorist areas) into Europe countries, most claiming to be refugees desperately in need of a safe haven, without suitable checks. We already know that most of them are not refugees in need of a safe place to live because they had already escaped Syria and had a safe place to live before they set off for Europe. Since they landed in Europe they have refused offers of a safe place to live so there's nothing desperate about their situation. One of them actually refused to accept asylum when they landed in Europe and risked the life of his his 9-month pregnant wife and unborn child by dragging them across Europe purely because it fitted his agenda? What sort of person does something like that? Now they are talking of sending the women and children off on foot if they do not get their own way in Hungary. Don't you think it's sickening that they are being so cruel to their own wives and children?
Can't believe you have the audacity to call Cameron a "vindictive cnut" when people are behaving like that towards their own supposedly "desperate" families. Those poor wives and kids have had it bad enough as it is by being dragged around Europe unnecessarily.
People really need to stop, think and look at the bigger picture here because it will reveal so much.
Anyway back to Cameron. Today he has announced that the UK will take in more refugees - but from the refugee camps. Brilliant decision. These are the people who are genuinely in need of temporary resettlement. The genuine refugees from war. Also he's given another £100m in aid to those camps.
So, while we are talking about money how much have the rich gulf states given in aid? Anyone know? When are they going to take in some refugees? Anyone know that? How many refugees from the camps has Russia taken in? China? Japan? America? The rest of the world? Anyone know? Time to stop blaming Europe for the rest of the world's failures Blame them instead.
So NIMBY, it's all Turkey's problem, or Lebanon's, or Jordan's. Let's ignore the fact that Jordan's taken in nearly a 3rd of its population in refugees, or Turkey 2 million (also I think its somewhat suspicious that Turkey has effectively stopped the transit of migrants for effectively two years but suddenly they're coming over but thats a different argument for a different thread), because thats where they got first. It's only fair that those countries go to shite. Why can't Greece take them all anyway, thats the first European country they get to, I'm sure Greece is fine. Won't struggle with the burden at all. Why shouldn't they all indefinitely live in refugee camps, thats clearly the solution.
And on Cameron I think 'cnut' sums it up, in fact, its probably too generous. The only 'brilliant solution' he's offered has come when public opinion has irrevocably swung away from 'feck them' to 'help them'. It's a calculated move by one of the countries worst career politicians. The fact Labour, as always, were as equally cold at the start of the crisis (in fact, Harman was probably worse than Cameron) would be shocking if not for its predictability. How you've decided that that minimises the risk of terrorists coming over (or Arabs as you seemed to use the term interchangeably) I don't know.
I also think your distinction between 'economic migrant' and 'refugee' is at best tenuous. Yes, there's some economic migrants among them but the fact that you're including Aylan Kurdi and his family amongst the number is unbelievable. This is a boy who's family fled Damascus to Kobani, fled Kobani when fighting broke out there and has lived most of his life in a Turkish refugee camp. They wanted to go to Canada, to live with members of their family, away from fighting and away from war. A family thats been semi-permanently displaced by war and had no solution in front of them. If that's economic migration then there's no point, we're not even going to come close to an agreement on the matter.
If you generally think they're not desperate because they've travelled this far already then I'd love to know your definition of desperate. These are people who's homes, lives, and families have been torn apart by war. Families who have had to make the terrible decision to risk everything crossing to Europe. You only have to look at the example of Yarmouk to understand why people can't or won't stay in the area.
But all that, apparently, is the 'emotional' response. Because the cold hard facts, are more important, its more important to dehumanise these people and make it easier to justify our lack of activity. Thousands of people being tricked by the Hungarians into going to a refugee camp because they believed they were being given transit to Austria is fine, so long as you don't see pictures, because that humanises it. I suspect thats why you're so keen to paint Aylan's family as 'economic migrants' too, because its much easier to persuade yourself that it's their fault if you do. I believe it was you that was praising Hungary's solution earlier, which is just bizarre. Because Hungary's solution is the biggest lack of a solution in the whole of Europe. Build a big fence, register them, send them to Germany. Their PM is on record saying its Germany's problem not theirs.
As for your last point, yes, political pressure needs to be applied to the Gulf States to do their bit, too. Thats part of the solution, as it tackling the poisonous ideology and spread of ISIS, and solving the problem in Syria too. If you remember correctly Britain declined to involve itself in the Syrian conflict and, as a result of that decision (and similar ones across the world) we have this crisis which we must live with (I fundamentally believe that was the correct decision at the time, though). There are no easy solutions, but whilst we strive as a global community to find a workable long term one we simply can not let innocent people die. Its as simple as that.
