UK rejects opening borders to Ukraine refugees
reuters.com
reuters.com
That our, vastly richer, nation is so miserly in this regard should be a source of national shame for a long time to come. Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of the British press will continue to parrot the government's lines about "leading the way" on sanctions and aid, and a British public unaccustomed to introspection will happily eat it up.
Where I differ is that I don't think countries like UK/other should be shamed for taking a different approach at all.It's never charity if it's forced.Yes, the first & second "waves" of people who flee during wartime are upper-middle class citizens, which we've seen here.They are financially secure most of the time, they are not as desperate.If they don't stay here they will go to Germany/other countries where they think it's best for them. The lower-middle & lower class can't do that,flee lastly and those are the people we need to support and help them unconditionally(and are the most grateful).At the same time some in WE & NA don't realize these are people legitimately fleeing conflict and are not migrating for,frankly, welfare benefits.They usually don't want to go in far distant lands because there's no economic motive.I don't want to sound like an ignorant but frankly UK is kind of a big stretch for fleeing as a wartime refugee person, though i'm not one to judge.Not to mention we've repeatedly seen refugee crises being abused for this reason, especially when getting a visa or being allowed through the border does not happen under normal conditions.(Here i would also like to say that Romania isn't in Schengen,still has border checks for both EU&non-EU, and there's nothing "discriminatory" if the border officer determines you're not fleeing conflict and rejects you, especially if there's no special case being stated by the gov. regarding certain criteria like nationality [exception which now exists for Ukrainians -- though more exceptionally this was decided at an EU level])
Those of us that did not vote for this Conservative government may feel shame (I certainly do) but the UK is a democracy and the government in power reflects, to a large degree, the sentiments of the general public when it comes to migration and charity to refugees. The latter of which is often in short supply.
In terms of the practicality of fleeing Ukraine for the UK, I take your point about distance, and wouldn't imagine that we would be a more popular destination that countries in central Europe. At the same time, the fact that only 50 visas had been issued by Britain to refugees from Ukraine (at the last count I saw) is pretty embarrassing if you ask me. We should do more and better, but we get the government (and by extension, the policies and laws) that we deserve.
Do you care to list those sources? It sounds exactly like a successful work of Kremlin propaganda.
Please, ask anyone, any foreign citizen who lived in Ukraine, if they ever saw people like that in person and if it was anything but a short "demonstration"/provocation happening once a year.
Banderites (followers of Nazi Stepan Bandera) are all over Ukraine in significant numbers. The current President Zelenskyy constantly talked about them and their growing support over the last decade in his comedic performances and as a politician.
Western media is suddenly reluctant to discuss this history (possibly because of state objectives) but the articles and other news media produced from ~2014-2016 on this topic are easy to find.
>The current President Zelenskyy constantly talked about them...
I was impressed about the way his silly rethoric has changed in the last 2 weeks (or really last one year). He is a different person now. Go and ask him about any of that nonsense now.
We are all Slavs, we can cope. The language barrier is low, we share similar culture and history. But some financial or logistical aid would be handy.
Having to apply for a visa is the literal contradiciton to this.
The church/community group sponsoring to place with a volunteer family option seems novel too.
Otherwise as a refugee fleeing a war in Ukraine, I'm not really sure why the UK is a great option - there seem better, easier European choices, and as per up-thread we might do better to support that (even more).
With all the love and support, we need to be frank with ourselves. Just sending some aid won't cut it.
Visegrad countries have refused for years to help with the inflows from the Southern border. Excuse me if I take out the tiniest violin I have, now.
Maybe it's the time for everyone to grow up and accept that we need a new set of agreements on cross-continent refugee handling and resettlement, because it's in everyone's interest that the matter is addressed in a scalable way where everyone shares the burden.
People have this incorrect perception that governments are all powerful. The government in Poland did agree to take in refugees, but they lost the election a few months later.
The war on terror politics were amplified by misinformation campaigns. It was impossible for politicians to solve this problem.
> Maybe it's the time for everyone to grow up and accept that we need a new set of agreements on cross-continent
Sure, but how? People cannot even agree who is a refugee. Is it a person from Ukraine in Romania? What about next country? Is it still a refugee or a migrant?
It's extremely complex problem to solve with a lot of moral dilemmas (helping people in Mediterranean Sea means more people will try to cross, which results in more death)
Where there is a will, there is a way. The current arrangements don't work, as you're going to experience now and as Southern countries have known for 15 years. It's not just Poland, eh - as I said, the Visegrad bloc is collectively responsible for failing to partake in European solidarność (pun intended) when it comes to refugees and migrants. But now the shoe is on the other foot, and I can assure you that the schadenfreude will abound from Berlin to Athens. Maybe it's time to end the tit-for-tat and agree that everyone has to give an inch so that we can all move forward a metre (again pun intended).
> Sure, but how? People cannot even agree who is a refugee.
The separation between refugee and "economic migrant" is an arbitrary division meant to make the subject intractable. There should be no such division. If someone shows up at our door and wants to work to make a better life for themselves, they should be allowed to, and that's it. In exchange, they should agree to be settled where the Union decides they should be, for a certain period of time; the receiving areas should be decided with fair criteria (density, size, economic demand - probably in this order), and the national authorities should implement such decisions or face severe sanctions. Simple, fair, sustainable for everyone - except for people hiding behind technicalities to defend misguided ideals of racial or cultural purity.
> with a lot of moral dilemmas
The moral dilemmas are only in the minds of people who don't want to face the actual problem. There is no moral dilemma in Lampedusa or in Lesbo, only people trying desperately to help their fellow man and getting overwhelmed by the historic tides. You will find out very soon what that means, and rightly so.
This should unpeel that Brexit voting demographic, after all there should be a limit in their reasons for refusing immigration into the country.
I voted the other way, but ultimately you have to respect the vote to an extent.
Perhaps if we are willing to supply armaments to Ukraine to defend their way of life (and by proxy ours), the least we can do is accept an appreciable % of people fleeing Ukraine. Purely IMO.
Disagree here. A 52% majority is no basis for far-reaching, long-term constitutional change (even if the 52% _hadn't_ been systematically lied to, and the change in question _didn't_ represent pure national self-harm).
it's a direct consequence of parliamentary sovereignty
parliament can make any law except those which bind parliament (which a legally binding referendum would do)
The great benefit doing it that way is the voters will be clear about what's being voted on.
if parliament didn't want to implement it: it could have passed another act that repealed the first
personally, I find the "it wasn't legally binding" argument to be sophistry of the worst kind
which is why stating "it wasn't legally binding" like it's abnormal or some sort of important insight is disingenuous
They're both done now so I'm not saying this because I think the outcomes should be revisited, but I hope we can learn from them for any future referendums.
separately: the EU refused to negotiate at all until Article 50 was triggered, so what you're asking for was essentially impossible
All said, I think the UK should be more aligned with the EU here and play its part in securing the well-being of Ukrainian citizens. We (I think, as in the West and/or democracy) are united in recognising Ukrainians rights to self-determination
Brexit is certainly national self-harm, but that’s the right of voters. If they don’t want to use their brains, or to prioritise ends alien to people like me, that’s also entirely within their rights. There is no national consensus that we should move to any other constitutional régime, and in the absence of one, absurd as they are, our Diceyan notions are not so beyond the pale that simply in themselves they are illegitimate. If I am prepared to recognise the Thatcher ministry as having a legitimate democratic basis—and I certainly am—then the far more limited damage of Brexit certainly doesn’t make me inclined to question these aspects of the British democratic setup. (I do have some sympathy to attempts to smuggle in a constitution through the backdoor via the Act of Union and Scots law though.)
Are people really not aware that the brexit referendum and last two US presidential elections were heavily manipulated by Putin to weaken NATO and the EU so he could do exactly what he's doing right now?
Halting immigration would do more for nationalism and unity, not weaken it. These might sound bad but you need them badly if you're planning on any real wars.
I wouldn't exactly give Trump credit for that, but I think we need to be honest about the timeline here..
if victory in a direct plebiscite isn't a legitimate basis for long-term constitutional change: what about all the EU treaties that made long-term constitutional changes without any sort of referendum (e.g. Maastricht, Nice, Lisbon)?
did those have a legitimate basis?
the same cannot be said for the subsequent treaty changes, especially if one considers the 2016 referendum to be an illegitimate basis for reversing the changes
(and the EEC of 1975 was very, very different to the EU of 2016)
The question is not whether a referendum outcome should legitimize change. The question is whether using the threshold of simple majority (50%) makes sense. Many constitutional changes throughout the world require a supermajority:
but then I'd counter with the fact that a super-majority wasn't required to join the EU (EEC in 1975), so why is it fair that a supermajority would then be required to leave it?
stacking the odds in Remain's favour in this way would definitely have been seen as illegitimate
(I'm also certain that the majority of people stating that the UK leaving the EU should have required a super-majority would be against requiring a super-majority to rejoin, in the unlikely event that ever happens...)
Especially one with a bunch of negotiations and interpretations and unknowns and fantasies and dire consequences attached to it. Referendum-driven democracy of this sort is a disaster area. People shouldn't have been allowed to vote directly on this kind of a proposition until it had been negotiated in detail.
The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship from millions of people who were not allowed to vote on their own future.
My take on democracy is that the people most affected by a major decision must be allowed to contribute to the decision. If they are excluded at scale, then it's not democracy, it's just a vote by one group of people to control another.
changing the franchise in this way you have suggested would have been seen as the Remain campaign changing the rules to benefit itself, and would not have been accepted
> The Brexit outcome (not just the vote but political decisions afterwards rejecting all "soft" versions) has literally stripped citizenship rights and rights akin to citizenship
this is a (yet another) common misconception: EU "citizenship" is really quite limited, and is not at all the same as national citizenship
I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes "EU citizenship" has simply been renamed for those present in the UK prior to leaving
I agree with you, letting the people most affected have a say wouldn't have been accepted, and that's usually how these things go. I argue that it's still unethical and fails the basic principle of democracy, though. I personally do not respect the result as honouring the civic principles underlying democracy, but I respect that most people take a cruder "my team won" view, and if the 51% foxes vote to eat the 49% hens for dinner, that's democracy to them.
> I think without exception: every right has been grandfathered in for those that were living in the UK at the time, for all intents and purposes
We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say. They don't have anything like the rights they used to have.
I've found it interesting for years that when rights are mentioned, most people focus entirely on non-UK citizens in the UK, not the lost rights of UK citizens. But a huge section of the UK population used to travel freely and work, and are deeply unhappy at losing their personal EU rights and seeing access to jobs they used to do closed, and (in my experience) even more distressed that their children won't grow up able to exercise those freedoms to travel, study and work abroad in the way that they themselves were. I guess people who didn't exercise those rights tend not to think about them, and people who did are on the losing side of the result.
this is the very much the norm for democracies
off the top of my head: Ireland won't let EU citizens vote in referendums (or for president), France won't let EU citizens vote for president (and so-on)
> We were talking about the vote being denied to UK citizens abroad too - UK citizens affected by Brexit who had no say.
the franchise is still quite generous (you can vote for 15 years without being resident)
(anecdotally... everyone I know that voted from abroad voted Leave)
Giving a random person off the street the ability to vote leads you to these results. No surprises honestly.
If the Leave campaign knew that they were going to deliver something other than what they campaigned for, and it's reasonable to suggest they did, then that's fraud, and the whole thing should be declared void.
Campaigning while knowing that you plan to do something else is different. The important thing is that you should campaign believing that you will make every effort to implement your plans, else you are defrauding voters. For example, I have no doubt whatsoever that Boris had absolutely no intention of trying to increase NHS funding despite repeated saying he would if people voted leave. That's the difference. He wasn't just wrong or incompetent or unlucky, but instead he was telling people something he knew wouldn't happen.
the government did increase NHS funding by more than the bus number (£350 million/week)
see NHS Funding Act 2020: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/5/pdfs/ukpga_20200...
(148MM-127MM) / 52 = £390M increase / week
that was pretty difficult when none of them were in positions of power
I was sure that they would make arrangements to stay in the VAT MOSS system, but no, they did not. So we had to switch to using Ireland for VAT MOSS and register separately with the UK to deal with UK VAT.
Dealing with Ireland was a breeze. It took something like 10-20 minutes online to get all set up. (Orders of magnitude easier than when we had signed up for UK VAT MOSS years earlier. Filing is also way easier with Ireland).
For the UK we've applied to be able to collect and remit VAT. We finished all the paperwork and submitted it at least 18 months ago and they still haven't processed it. They say they are busy and can't even give an estimate of when they will actually deal with it.
They say that in the meantime we should collect UK VAT and just hold on to it until they get around to giving is permission to remit it.
I'm not aware of any institutions that were left that didn't match that description, perhaps you know of some?
Support is 67% for implementing some refugee scheme in the 'Leave' population; 91% in the 'Remain.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/nag7zbuivl/YouGov%20-%20Ukraine%...
Though the submitted article is the most pessimistic take I've seen (others are more positive about the two introduced visa schemes: family & church/community group-sponsored placement with an 'adopting' family) so what that poll doesn't show is whether there's a difference on opinion of whether this is the right level of support etc. - the question wasn't about visa-less open borders.
> research suggests that areas that saw significant influx of migration from Eastern Europe following the accession of 12 mainly Eastern European countries to the European Union in 2004 saw significant growth in support for UKIP and more likely to vote to leave the European Union.
The number of polish residents in the UK had doubled in the time span from 2008 to 2016 [2]! The number has went down since, but poles still make up the second largest non UK nationality of the UK population [3].
Given that Ukrainians are slavs too, maybe that's the reason why the UK isn't opening its borders to them. I don't think the Ukrainian refugees are running out of countries to escape to though, so it shouldn't be a problem, especially given how receptive eastern europe is to them. Still I'm glad that my home country Germany is open to receiving Ukrainians.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_vote_in_favour_o...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_the_United_Kingdom#De...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-born_population_of_the...
Why?
I mean, we can all accept the results of the referendum, but why would anyone have any respect whatsoever, for the results of a political campaign largely based on lies?
Are you new to politics? This is pretty much standard about all elections/referendums.
Even the remain campaign was full of half truths and manipulations. (Running out of food and medicines for example... When the opposite happened when we needed to vaccinate the entire population).
No, but unlike you I don’t default to cynicism.
Also, who the fuck gives a shit about “the remain campaign”…? The “remainers” lost years ago…
The reality is that post-brexit UK is worse off in most sensible measures.
She is literally unaware of her own fortune is a direct consequence of immigration, or is that sinister and entitled she thinks nobody else should have that access.
The simple truth is we don't have anywhere for them to go.
We have a near permanent homeless population, with people living on the streets for years before a social housing vacancy becomes available.
Accepting an infinite number of immigrants would turn the entire country into a slum. We're in the middle of a massive housing crisis.
What are we supposed to do with them?
I mean, this sounds pretty immigrant-phobic to me. When you picture "war refugees" do you only think of people who cannot get a job? There are doctors and software engineers fleeing war right now too.
UK unemployment rate is only 4%. That's considered "full employment" in the US. It seems like you could use the extra workers.
So, I'm pretty sure that a country with 68 million inhabitants, could easily house and feed a couple of 100k people. It does cost money, though. So...
I think the UK's anti-immigration sentiment is basically driven by chronic overpopulation in the South East. House prices won't come down despite near-constant development and congestion gets worse and worse. This is why the Scottish (for example), just don't get it. They simply don't have these problems in other parts of the union.
Young professional couples are stuck in an extortionate rental market or, if they're lucky, can spend most of their income on a mortgage on a fraction of the box they live in and still pay rent on the rest.
All that said, as a resident of the SE, the door should be open to Ukrainians. They're fighting a war on The West on behalf of all of us at this point and our problems are comparitively trivial.
I recognise the issue with congestion, although I would contend that's a national issue. Oxford is probably as bad/worse as anywhere else. The cost of housing is a huge issue, but that's mostly supply/demand because we're not building anything like enough homes.
"Not xenophobic in the slightest" doesn't match my experience. Most English people don't even like Scots/Welsh/Irish, you don't have to go far overseas to find people we have a nationally visceral reaction to. I'm not sure anyone objective could see our English media / watch our sports / look at the workforce statistics / look at political leaflets in this country and judge us "not xenophobic". London is literally the only place I would consider that not being a huge issue.
Interesting that you mention Oxford - Oxfordshire's towns and villages are being transformed by soulless new housing estates with no corresponding increase in public service provision; you can drive for miles from here and into neighbouring counties and not stop seeing them. I don't recognise this area at all compared to growing up.
Genuinely can't speak to the xenophobia, rarely encounter it and don't let it go unchallenged when I do.
No, it isn't.
1. Be welcoming to oligarchs who buy land to build mansions and raise house prices. 2. Get housing crisis. 3. Sorry war refugees, it's too expensive to house you here.
Unfortunately, many other countries are in the same position.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukraine-refug...
The UK is 51st (277/km2) on the list of countries by population density, greatest to least. It trails EU countries Belgium at 35th (376/km2) and The Netherlands (457/km2). Belgium is removing visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees [0]. The Netherlands is preparing space for 50,000 [1].
> We have a near permanent homeless population, with people living on the streets for years before a social housing vacancy becomes available.
Homelessness is not a function of population density (e.g. compare rates between the UK and Japan).
[0]: https://www.thebulletin.be/belgium-provide-ukrainian-refugee...
[1]: https://nltimes.nl/2022/03/04/netherlands-readying-50000-pla...
This average masks huge variance across the islands.
You can't dump the refugees into some Scottish wilderness, where, theoretically, another 10 million nation could fit.
They will likely arrive in London etc., one of the biggest agglomerations in the rich world.
Is your argument "we don't have space in high density areas, and obviously we can't put them in low density areas"? Why can't you put refugees in suburbs and rural areas? The US spreads them out all over [0].
[0]: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/states-wi...
I have a sibling comment, but wanted to single this bit out as well. There's a common conception that immigrants are harmful for communities, but the opposite is true [0]. Here's the good part:
> Studies conducted by Global Detroit—an organization looking to improve Michigan’s economy by working with immigrants—show that refugees and immigrants are almost twice as likely as the U.S.-born population to have a four-year college degree. Refugees are also more likely to be self-employed—a common metric for entrepreneurship—and many are educated in STEM fields. According to the Migration Policy Institute, two-thirds of refugee men are employed, compared to 60 percent of U.S.-born men.
> Cleveland, Ohio, has seen an influx of refugees from Somalia and Iraq, which brought short-term costs like food and shelter. But locals found that the refugees were not a long-term burden on the community and that instead, the economy had improved. Likewise, refugee-settlement agencies in Columbus, Ohio, estimate that refugees contribute $1.6 billion annually to the central Ohio economy.
[0]: https://archive.curbed.com/2017/1/30/14440160/refugees-unite...
Housing is definitely a problem; short-term plan will be dependent on hotels and army facilities. But it is _doable_.
Many Ukrainians are going to end up permanently resettling.
It's weird though, Europe is a massive place. The UK is a massive place. A push for more housing would benefit everyone.
I'd love for plans to be drawn up to build say, 1 million new housing units in Poland as a start.
Instead of saying, oh no! They're going to take our pie, let's bake a much bigger one.
As horrific as this all is, I'd love to see those who decide to resettle revitalize Europe's smaller declining towns. In 10 years we'll have fantastic Ukrainian/Italian , Ukrainian/French, etc, restaurants fusion restaurants.
The Rise of popular sentiment, and realisation that it was possible to blame poor services on immigration(from 2010 onwards) meant that this was a logical outcome.
Before that the UK was off and on reasonably good. (before the 70s anyone in the "empire" could live and work in the UK, something that the home secretary's parents used to escape persecution)
The UK Home Office hostile environment policy is a set of administrative and legislative measures designed to make staying in the United Kingdom as difficult as possible for people without leave to remain, in the hope that they may "voluntarily leave".[1][2][3][4][5] The Home Office policy was first announced in 2012 under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.[6] The policy was widely seen as being part of a strategy of reducing UK immigration figures to the levels promised in the 2010 Conservative Party Election Manifesto.[7][8][9]
The policy has been cited as one of the harshest immigration policies in the history of the United Kingdom, and has been widely criticised as inhumane, ineffective, and unlawful.[10][11] The United Nations Human Rights Council has stated that the policy has fostered xenophobia within the UK, while the Equality and Human Rights Commission has found that the policy broke equalities law.[12][13]
It has notably led to significant issues with the Windrush generation and other Commonwealth citizens being deported after not being able to prove their right to remain in the UK, despite being guaranteed that right.[14] The resulting Windrush scandal led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary, on 29 April 2018, and the appointment of Sajid Javid as her successor.[15][16][17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office_hostile_environmen...
The issue of immigration has been a controversial political issue since the late 1990s. Both the Labour Party and the Conservatives have suggested policies perceived as being "tough on asylum"[88] (although the Conservatives have dropped a previous pledge to limit the number of people who could claim asylum in the UK, which would likely have breached the UN Refugee Convention)[89] and the tabloid media frequently print headlines about an "immigration crisis".[90]
This is denounced, by those seeking to ensure that the UK upholds its international obligations, as disproportionate. Concern is also raised about the treatment of those held in detention and the practice of dawn raiding families, and holding young children in immigration detention centres for long periods of time.[91][92] The policy of detaining asylum-seeking children was to be abandoned as part of the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, who formed a government in May 2010.[93] However, in July 2010 the government was accused of back-tracking on this promise after the Immigration Minister Damian Green announced that the plan was to minimise, rather than end, child detention.[94]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...
In May 2018 under the tenure of Sajid Javid, it was the view of a significant minority that the Home Office was misusing section 322(5) of the Immigration Rules.[66][67] The section was designed to combat terrorism, but the Home Office had been wrongly applying it to hundreds of settled, highly skilled workers.[66][68][69][70] The hardship faced by the workers was compared to the Windrush scandal, which occurred around the same time.[66][71][72][70] By early 2019, approximately 90 people had been deported from the UK due to section 322(5).[73]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...
In September 2020 Patel asked officials to look at asylum policies which had been successful in other countries. It was suggested that Ascension Island, more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from the UK, could be used to build an asylum processing centre. Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: "This ludicrous idea is inhumane, completely impractical and wildly expensive - so it seems entirely plausible this Tory government came up with it."[88]
In March 2021, Patel published a New Plan for Immigration Policy Statement, which included proposals to reform the immigration system, including the possibility of offshore processing of undocumented immigrants.[89] In April 2021, 192 refugee, human rights, legal and faith groups signed a letter which condemned a six-week consultation, organised by the Home Office, on these proposals. Signatories of the letter described the consultation as "vague, unworkable, cruel and potentially unlawful".[90][91]
In May 2021, a high court judge criticised Patel in court and said he found it "extremely troubling" that one of her officials admitted the Home Office may have acted unlawfully in changing its asylum accommodation policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the judge's comments, a solicitor representing Patel apologised on her behalf.[92]
In June 2021, a High Court judge ruled that the Home Office acted unlawfully by housing asylum seekers in an "unsafe" and "squalid" former army barracks. The judge found that the Home Office failed to look after vulnerable people and noted that a lack of safety measures had contributed to a "significant" risk of injury and death from fires or from coronavirus.[93][94]
And all the Slavic EU countries are going above and beyond to help anyway.
People really need to understand what a refugee actually IS, according to law. Also, non-Ukrainians in Ukraine (foreign students for example) aren't refugees. They have a safe country to go back to.
Anyhow, the UK can choose whether or not it wants to accept displaced people but it's not under some sort of obligation to, under all the treaties I know of relating to refugee status.
frankly that's not the point. Absorbing that number of people is destabilising, and we really don't want to add more obstacles to cohesion when we are about to bump into a economic oopsey.
The british government are outdooing themselves to appear tough on vulnerable people. having cut off (or tried to) all legal means of claiming asylum, we are now looking at the results: horrific risks by people traffickers, slavery to pay off debts and drownings in the sea.
This is incorrect, see: https://fullfact.org/immigration/refugees-first-safe-country...
> not under some sort of obligation to
There is a massive difference between legal and moral obligation.
And moral obligations don't exist in the real world... See no one actually defending Ukraine...
Not saying the UK shouldn't accept them, only saying that the viewpoint that they're not required to is probably correct, legally.
Just discussing legality, not my opinions. My opinion, as someone who's half Ukrainian living in Canada, is that they should come here (we have a historic Ukrainian community here in Alberta for example) or another country they're truly welcome. I know for a fact there's also large, established Ukrainian communities in the Czech Republic and Poland as well. They integrate easily there.
The UK has already suggested they don't want East European migrants (part of the impetus for Brexit) so why force em?
There's been a lot said about Poland since the start of the crisis comparing 2015 to today. I always think that such whatabboutism doesn't serve any purpose.
The fact that and how Poland is stepping up to the challenge is an inspiration for other countries for sure.
I am not Polish myself, just my opinion.
Same goes for Romania, Hungary and Moldova.
0: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-a-ukraine-family-schem...
Flights in Ukraine have been suspended, you will have to travel through one of these cities anyway.
I respect the UK's immigration policy, and very much appreciate the chance to pursue an exciting job opportunity in the UK that I took a year ago. And yet it saddens me that I cannot help my family in the period of uncertainty by offering a certain path to safety.
For UK citizens wanting to bring a family member from Ukraine, I hope it's not like the regular, draconian family scheme where approximately 50% of UK citizens with a foreign spouse cannot meet the eligibility criteria to bring in even their own spouse, so they have to move abroad to be together. (I was astonished when I first learned that, as I'd grown up imagining that genuine marriage conferred the right to live together.)
The UK Home Office strongly rejected what is a high-level human right in the EU, that is "right to family life". Even UK-born UK citizens don't have it.
That astonishes me too! Which condition (https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/partner-spouse) do most people fail? Presumably poor knowledge of English (https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/knowledge-of-english) or too low income (https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income)?
Perhaps recent wage inflation might change the proportions. It was about 50% of people last time I looked who couldn't meet the income requirement. Even if the foreign spouse earns a lot and can clearly support themselves, that can't be considered if they are abroad. Nor would a cash gift from parents or friends be accepted. So it is somewhat political.
I've occasionally seen people who earn a lot, i.e. software engineers, who clearly exceed the income but have their application rejected because it's not paid in the exact form the Home Office is looking for when they examine a personal bank statement. Self-employed and contractors fall into this problem if they haven't received advice and planned for it, because they wouldn't normally pay themselves a monthly PAYE salary in the expected form and above the threshold.
The whole point of a schema to support genuine refugees (and I'm pretty sure people fleeing a war zone are those) is that the state supports them while they are forced out of their homeland.
This seems obvious. The EU may be willing to accept absolutely anybody who shows up, but this is just basic border control. Just ask Germany how accepting over a million Syrian refugees without checks is going. That is an ongoing mess that gets very little publicity.
> The British government has been condemned by charities, opposition lawmakers and France after its insistence that refugees first acquire a visa meant some Ukrainians have been stuck in the French city of Calais, unable to enter Britain, and provoking a diplomatic row.
Interesting, because Calais has been an awful mess the French are still yet to deal with. It's not a sudden issue, it's an ongoing crisis. The EU rules are that they must apply for refugee status in the first safe EU Country, and the last time I checked, France does not border Ukraine.
> Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Britain was not doing nearly enough. It should let refugees in and deal with the paperwork later, she said.
Scotland gets very little immigration comparatively and ultimately doesn't have to deal with the enormous mess that large amounts of uncontrolled immigration creates.
What cowards… I hope we can secede from them in Australia.
Once they reach the UK and claim asylum no-one is going to deport them in the current circumstances.
I bet last years Putin exercise of pushing Iraqi and Afghanistan male refugees over Belarus border somehow made him think Poland would do the same to Ukrainian women and children.
This puts them in a predicament...
They won this majority primarily because of their tough bullsh^W stance on Brexit, and (not so implicitly) on immigration (spoiler: "stopping it".)
If they were to open our borders to allow UKR refugees in, they probably think they would instantly lose a huge chunk of their support.
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EDIT: fixed grammar
However in this instance the public have great empathy with Ukrainians fleeing to safety.
The issue here is that the present government is never actually any good at predicting problems before they get bad, and are always reacting far to late.
"Record-breaking 28,381 people made perilous journey across the world’s busiest shipping lane this year"
If Ukrainians are scattered around the world, they will vanish as a people.
The entire nation of Ukraine will eventually be resettled unless they wish to be citizens of Russia living in rubble.
Bring them to central Canada or Texas or some other wide open place as a nation. The UK isn't big enough.
If you scatter them, you destroy them.
But that hasn't happened, right? And we don't hear very much about that in the news...
So the least the UK could do is to take in refugees :/
Still the USA applied sanctions against Belarus, therefore breaching the memorandum.
That’s also something you don’t hear very much in the news!
If anything, highlighting Belarus's involvement in the invasion serves to demonstrate that Russia's meddling in Belarus's elections was to install a puppet government and is a violation of their independence (and subsequently the memorandum).
It amazes me that only some breaches of the Budapest memorandum are mentioned often, while others are somehow forgotten!
That's not to say it shouldn't take in refugees...
In exchange for giving up their nuclear arms, "the memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan."
The "Content" section of the Wikipedia article (which I referred to in my post) actually matches the memorandum pretty closely and, as I said before, it seems that the UK is complying. Can you point out which part of the memorandum the UK is not complying with?
This is from the actual text
But in any case, the only required response is "to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine," which certainly has happened.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170312052208/http://www.cfr.or...
Edit: This piece from Brookings seems pretty useful and (as far as I know) accurate, as well. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/w...
Now, of course the sea border is very poorly secured so my guess is simply that we'll see more Ukrainians in Calais attempting to cross by sea. As soon as they reach the English coast they'll be happy to be welcomed by the police and to claim asylum, and will never be deported in the current situation.