Ok, I'll take that on. It is a humanitarian and moral necessity given the current state of the world and the horrors within it to do what we can to help. Mostly, that will involve giving help in theatre as we have done. Occasionally, it means giving refuge to those who have escaped, come here and are in need. We cannot return them if their lives or safety would be at risk. We have moral and legal obligations to grant asylum. It would be unacceptably selfish to simply focus on those who are lucky enough to be British or here right now.
You may not agree but where we are in agreement, I think, is that our aid or refuge is not unconditional. At the risk of being accused of being racist again I remain of the view that our values right now are about as good as the world has produced and superior to any of the alternatives, especially alternatives based on religious codes drafted in radically different and inferior societies. We have learned and come to acknowledge over my life time that discriminating against people on account of their gender, sexual orientation, colour or religious beliefs is simply and absolutely wrong. It is not acceptable in this country.
Those to whom we offer refuge have to accept our view of these things. If they fundamentally disagree they should not take our offer of refuge or choose to be part of our society. We should not tolerate such discrimination under the guise of multiculturalism or any other guise. We absolutely should not accept the sexual abuse of children or a secondary role for women on such a basis. This betrays the human rights of UK citizens who are entitled to the opportunities our society gives to all. So every offer of asylum or indeed the right to remain as an immigrant is conditional upon accepting our view of what is right and what is wrong in relation to these matters. We need to be much, much more explicit about this.
The thing is that over my lifetime, the authorities have moved on from regarding anti-discrimination as being about stopping spiteful behaviour towards people, to being all about promoting equal outcomes between groups, and (paradoxically) promoting diversity as being a good and worthwhile aim in itself. If one takes the view that British society is, by its very nature, discriminatory, then it becomes unfair discrimination to expect immigrants to adhere to our values.
I am not sure I recognise what you are describing (despite being a pretty similar age, I suspect). Care to elaborate? At a superficial level the right to be treated equally, for example equal pay, is simply the flip side of a right not to be discriminated against.
Mr. Herdson, can it be considered a battle, given that longevity? Not my period, of course, so I know sod all about it.
Well it involved the intentional concentration of force in a particular place with the intention of destroying the opposing forces there. That meets some sort of definition of battle, I think. Also, there were tactical developments, attempts to take strongpoints and such. It was just very long and drawn out, an excruciating ordeal for the French.
Battle is an interesting word in that we can apply it to such different events as Edge Hill and Midway and no one finds it confusing.
Mr. Herdson, can it be considered a battle, given that longevity? Not my period, of course, so I know sod all about it.
Mr. Urquhart, Merkel's pronouncement (both the original 'come hither' idiocy and now) shows she's thinking with her heart, making her brain redundant.
Yes, I think it can. It's one of the biggest battles in history. Unlike sieges, for example, which might go on years with longish periods of stalemate, Verdun saw constant action day after day, week after week; the village of Fleury changed hands sixteen times from 23 June to 17 August. The intensity might have varied but the essential feature of a 'battle' - two (or more) sides engaged against each other in constant or near-constant high-intensity fighting, featuring tightly coordinated command structures within a limited geographic area - is met.
Mr. Palmer, I don't think we do have a duty to accept rapists into this country because their own is going to Hell (worth noting a majority of the migrants aren't Syrian anyway).
As I understand it, the basic position is that we cannot under current law - which is almost universally accepted - send back people to places where we expect them to be tortured, executed, etc., and this is an absolute requirement, irrespective of whether we believe that they may be rapists, murderers, terrorists, or anything else. That was the reason for the long struggle over whether we could send the chap who expressed pro-terrorist sentiment to Jordan, who wanted to try him on similar charges.
This is not only wet liberalism, because there is a practical problem. Suppose we did decide to deport someone who we believe to be a criminal, and suppose that nobody agrees to let them in. What, specifically, do we do with them? The absence of a clear answer to that is one reason why I don't think the law will change.
Naturally we can prosecute anyone against whom we have evidence of any crimes, and more controversially we can monitor anyone whom we suspect closely - study their emails, bug their phones, follow them around, etc. We can even detain them without trial under certain circumstances. The compromise that I signed up to as an MP was that we could detain terrorist suspects forever without trial, so long as we gave them the *option* to leave Britain at any time. If the only place they could go was somewhere that would kill them, the option wasn't very attractive, but it seemed to me on balance the least evil - perhaps one day their home country would no longer be so murderous. Labour was, as you'll recall, much criticised at the time (perhaps even by you?) for this breach of civil liberties, but the alternative was to let people we believed were terrorists walk around freely.
My grandfather was an infantry private at the battle of the Somme and died in the 1960s. It doesn't mean that there was no risk at the Somme, just as some people are lucky enough to get away with it!
Speaking of the Somme, it's 100th anniversary this year may be a political event of some significance.
Cameron and Corbyn will mark it very different ways, I suspect. The Somme is at the heart of a certain strand of British pacifism which Corbyn might tap into, but I expect he'll manage to strike the wrong note (going out on a limb here).
Getting the wrong note will be quite easy once you go beyond 'what a bloody waste' and 'what brave men'.
Questions of leadership, strategy and effect remain hugely contentious.
What many in Britain forget is that elsewhere, France and Germany were fighting an even bigger battle (and Germany still had spare resources to bail Austria out against the Russians).
Indeed. Actually Verdun 100 is next month isn't it. I wonder how the French will mark it.
Yes. 21 February. It lasted almost until Christmas. By the time it was finished, 300000 men were dead and perhaps a million overall were casualties. In one battle.
One of the reasons the Somme offensive began in the first place was to relieve German pressure on the French.
I wonder if it is still politically charged, in France, to talk about Pétain in connection with Verdun. We will see, I suppose.
I rather suspect that his role will be glossed over. It's hard enough in Britain to talk about Haig.
Good post. The point is that the obligation to accept refugees is not predicated on "if you think they are nice". We have an absolute legally-binding obligation to accept genuine refugees even if we think some are nasty characters with unpleasant habits and disgusting opinions. However, the converse is also true: the fact that someone is a refugee should not make us think they are therefore splendid people whose behaviour should not be challenged. Any large-scale migration is going to have a mixed bag of people - some wonderful, some nasty - and that's true even if we try to screen them in some way.
We need to specify clearly what they can and can't do, just as we do for everyone else. There is a good article on this, linking to the handling of the child gang abuse issue, here:
We don't have to take someone who is guilty of a serious criminal offence, for example war crimes where they have come from. We don't have any obligation to let people deemed on a proper basis a risk to wander around our society freely. But we do have an obligation not to discriminate against people as a class.
And we can and should make it clear that compliance with our countries' principles (starting with the Equality Act, for example) is a condition on their right to remain.
Interesting also is the dramatic no doubt GFC-related drop in road deaths in 2008 and the years following.
Bloody nanny state, interferingly giving advice on safe driving. The EU is a big culprit in this, disgracefully forcing manufacturers to make cars safer.
'We have an absolute legally-binding obligation to accept genuine refugees even if we think some are nasty characters with unpleasant habits and disgusting opinions.'
UK / Europe has NO legally-binding obligation to accept 'refugees' that have reached safety in Turkey.
I would say the a period of silence from you about Scotland and flooding would be the wise course of action. I does seem that you were intent on making very silly political points out of other people's misery.
So was Dair, which is the point.
He did not make the point in that way , he was gloating over people's misery due to his political bent and disregard of Scotland.
I would say the a period of silence from you about Scotland and flooding would be the wise course of action. I does seem that you were intent on making very silly political points out of other people's misery.
So was Dair, which is the point.
He did not make the point in that way , he was gloating over people's misery due to his political bent and disregard of Scotland.
Dair was gloating over flooded English people's misery because he perceived England to be inferior to Scotland.
JJ was gloating over Dair's discomfort at discovering that it turned out that Scotland was no better off than England.
Comments
Battle is an interesting word in that we can apply it to such different events as Edge Hill and Midway and no one finds it confusing.
As there is no "safe limit" for drinking surely all bars in the palace of westminster should be closed. #Drinkuary #alcoholguidelines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees
and a much longer one with copious detail here:
http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/15/5/399.pdf
As I understand it, the basic position is that we cannot under current law - which is almost universally accepted - send back people to places where we expect them to be tortured, executed, etc., and this is an absolute requirement, irrespective of whether we believe that they may be rapists, murderers, terrorists, or anything else. That was the reason for the long struggle over whether we could send the chap who expressed pro-terrorist sentiment to Jordan, who wanted to try him on similar charges.
This is not only wet liberalism, because there is a practical problem. Suppose we did decide to deport someone who we believe to be a criminal, and suppose that nobody agrees to let them in. What, specifically, do we do with them? The absence of a clear answer to that is one reason why I don't think the law will change.
Naturally we can prosecute anyone against whom we have evidence of any crimes, and more controversially we can monitor anyone whom we suspect closely - study their emails, bug their phones, follow them around, etc. We can even detain them without trial under certain circumstances. The compromise that I signed up to as an MP was that we could detain terrorist suspects forever without trial, so long as we gave them the *option* to leave Britain at any time. If the only place they could go was somewhere that would kill them, the option wasn't very attractive, but it seemed to me on balance the least evil - perhaps one day their home country would no longer be so murderous. Labour was, as you'll recall, much criticised at the time (perhaps even by you?) for this breach of civil liberties, but the alternative was to let people we believed were terrorists walk around freely.
This is your brain when you inject 4 #Feminism's
https://t.co/WwFuI4dtbh https://t.co/oW9qn93xZd
And we can and should make it clear that compliance with our countries' principles (starting with the Equality Act, for example) is a condition on their right to remain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_O'Clock_Live
'We have an absolute legally-binding obligation to accept genuine refugees even if we think some are nasty characters with unpleasant habits and disgusting opinions.'
UK / Europe has NO legally-binding obligation to accept 'refugees' that have reached safety in Turkey.