BID0 wrote:Grumpy David wrote:Karl wrote:Cal wrote:People living in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, etc are not 'my neighbour'.
Crikey.
They're not though? The UK is an island on the fringes of Western Europe. Those countries are either in Asia or Africa. And there are plenty of safe countries in Asia and Africa they have to pass through to get to the UK.
Far too far away to argue those countries are neighbours. It's not like we're talking about Australia or New Zealand which is basically just sunburnt British people with upside down seasons. They may be more remote but there is a shared culture, history, language etc that connects the two. Aussies coming to the UK is just returning to their ancestral home.
Migrants coming from the third world and ignoring all the other safe countries they have to pass through are just asylum shopping. On the scale at which it's happening, it's just not in the UK's interests to accept abandoning the Dublin agreement.
They're not though, they are mostly stopping at countries like Greece and it's at the point that these neighbouring countries are being overwhelmed. The UK contribution (while great) isn't as significant as these other countries. It makes sense that everyone shares the burden, does it not?
If 'everyone' is given a democratic vote and votes for it, then yes, it would make sense.
BID0 wrote:After all we are happy to meddle with the politics of these countries, destabilising parts when it's beneficial for us, but turn our back on the side affects.
Our 'meddling' was subject to the democratic process here in the UK. Parliament debated and voted on military intervention in Syria.
BID0 wrote:Let's put this the other way around... What if the large majority of Iceland, Greenland, Ireland were in a similar situation and had to flee their countries from war/natural disaster or something else and we were seeing many people arrive in the UK. Would you still expect the UK to take on all of these extra people at once? I appreciate that the countries I've mentioned have small populations compared to their land mass, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.
It's not the same thing. It's a false equivalence. Iceland, Greenland and Ireland all share (as Grumpy David has pointed out already) a cultural similarity to the UK. I don't think there are too many who would object to providing asylum to their peoples as integration would be relatively simple and painless.