odysseus2000 wrote:Such interesting replies.
Anyone quoting official numbers of refugees is missing the point, there are a large number of illegals in the UK who are not in the official figures.
Are there? How many? Is there an estimate? How reliable is it? How do you know?
odysseus2000 wrote:If, as everyone suggests, most of the folk seeking refuge are genuine refugees why are many choosing to pay large sums to gangsters who are getting them ashore here illegally, some are detained, others disappear. Why would such folk move through Europe and come here?
Because here is where they have decided to come, in the interests of their future? Likely because of some existing connection to the UK.
odysseus2000 wrote:Additionally, if many of these are refugees why is the demographic of the illegals young: Where are the older people?
Could be several explanations: They are pathfinders for their family to get established in the UK; it is only the younger and fitter (and male) who are able to undertake such a hazardous journey; they have older relatives already living in the UK.
odysseus2000 wrote:Why would someone travel across Europe pay gangsters a serious amount of money and then risk their lives on a channel crossing?
Why indeed? There must be serious motivation to do so. Perhaps they want a future for themselves and their family?
odysseus2000 wrote:The whole idea that Brexit is the fault of the UK and that the EU has behaved honourably in all of this is a regular fallacy that is trotted out all the time.
Err... The whole idea of "Brexit" IS "the fault" of the UK! Remember? It was entirely a UK 'project', or at least the project of some political actors in the UK.
BTW. We can now see clearly that the UK - in the guise of this Brexit government - is not acting honourably in this matter.
odysseus2000 wrote:The UK made a democratic decision to leave, the EU then plotted with Prime Minister May to create a system that was EU membership in everything but name and the current PM went along with it leading to the mess that we now have. There are two ways forwards: Re-join or decisively break the UK away from the EU. A regular comment to this is that a break would destroy the UK economy whereas the far bigger break of the retreat from Dunkirk didn't. In 1945 the UK was in a far poorer position than it would be in after a break with the EU and yet in 15 years we had the swinging sixties.
I really cannot make any sense of your Dunkirk 'analogy' on the economic front, however it seems to fit perfectly with some Brexiteers' apparent ideation of the EU being our enemy and we are still fighting the second world war against them!
odysseus2000 wrote:Anyhow it is a fascinating situation that looks like it will drag on through this parliament and then at the next election potentially put in politicians with a claimed mandate to re-join making for at best another parliament of stagnation and a re-opening of the 2016 wounds that are still far from healed.
So Brexit is not yet "
Done!" ? Um...
odysseus2000 wrote:There is clearly a sizeable group within the UK who are intent of sabotaging Brexit with the idea of re-joining Europe in the by and by.
Or the chosen Brexitis is itself proving self-sabotaging?
odysseus2000 wrote: Whether Europe would accept a re-join is unclear but it hardly matters as the rate of growth of the US, China and India are leaving Europe behind and "big-money" clearly sees that marking down both the Euro and the £ against the $. While Europe fights its internal fault lines the whole continent slips into a steep secular decline.
Not like here in the UK then?
odysseus2000 wrote:Brexit could have taken the UK out of this, but for now the UK is being dragged down by the myopia of the European project.
The UK is certainly being dragged down by myopia...