Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
I don't know why people feel compelled to drop into one of two rather extreme camps on this.

Obviously, basic compassion shows that these are pretty desperate people who in most cases are just trying to improve their lives and probably want to get to the UK because they know people here.

However, equally, you can't just have 1000 people (paying thousands to criminal gangs) crossing the channel every day and deny it's an issue. Where will they go? Where will they sleep? How will we transport them? What will it cost? What of the people living near where they are processed and housed? How do we check their health or criminal records? Are there any people exploiting the crossings? Are we happy that it basically means we are co-operating with international people traffickers?

You can't just sit in some nice house somewhere and say it's no issue. There are issues created by this kind of migration. At the very least don't be blasé about the numbers. If you shrug your shoulders at 1000 a day, why not 2000? Why not 5000? At what point do you recognise something is amiss? All the while recognising that these people aren't fleeing an oppressive regime, they are in France.

This article draws an interesting parallel between the EU's rhetoric on the Belarus border and on the French channel.
https://order-order.com/2021/11/11/l...cron-playbook/

If anyone here used the language against Macron that the EU uses against Lukashenko they would be deemed some far-right extremist within minutes.

I just don't get it. It's a problem, lets try and solve it compassionately, but let's not have our heads in the sand and pretend there is no issue here. That helps no one.
Order-order, that politically neutral website...... If that's one of your sources of "information" then it explains a lot!