Nationalism

Probably "DM bollocks".

“The idea that council homes are going to immigrants is a myth,” he said. “When people say to me that all the houses are going to Poles, I send them a spreadsheet showing that almost every house has gone to a UK resident. It is an urban myth.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/9d210ab4-9537-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582

The Government's own website states that asylum seekers will get:

Housing

You’ll be given somewhere to live if you need it. This could be in a flat, house, hostel or bed and breakfast.

You cannot choose where you live. It’s unlikely you’ll get to live in London or south-east England.

Cash support

You’ll get £37.75 for each person in your household. This will help you pay for things you need like food, clothing and toiletries.

Your allowance will be loaded onto a debit card (ASPEN card) each week. You’ll be able to use the card to get cash from a cash machine.

One thing I did read though was that socisl housing is only available if settled status is granted. People can't just turn up and get a house.

"Special arrangements for asylum seekers

If you applied for asylum but have not yet received a final decision or you are waiting for the result of an appeal against a refusal of asylum, you cannot get an allocation of housing from the council, or get help if you are homeless.  You can't get universal credit or housing benefit to pay your rent.  You can apply direct to a housing association or for private rented accommodation, but in England where immigration checks apply you will not have the ’right to rent’ and landlords cannot accept you as a tenant. You can however stay with friends or family."


In terms of why people come here, that is due to many factors such as English language, jobs are available, the ability to work without papers and 'disappear', friends and family already being here, historical reputation for openness, tolerance and freedom.

The truth is though, we aren't particularly that popular a destination anyway.

fullfact.org/immigration/why-do-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-want-come-uk/

This article suggests that what an asylum seeker gets is dependent on the local authority they end up in.

If you're looking for the best deal you can get then Manchester or Scotland is likely to be far more generous:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43826163

I also see there is a BBC article corroborating that, at least for the Vietnamese, the attraction of the UK is the ability to work off the books and also the access to a support network via the existing Vietnamese community. So housing is not the be all and end all. But it does beg the question: if people want immigration to be cut how do you make the UK an unattractive place to come seeing as part of the attraction is that you practically don't exist in the first place?

I agree with this (one for Hugo perhaps?) but as usual the devil is in the detail, is it even feasible? I guess with increased border checks post Brexit it’s actually going to be possible to have the time to fully inspect vehicles too so perhaps it will get seriously harder to smuggle illegal migrants. It’s just that like a lot of things with Brexit I wonder if cracking down on non-EU migrants is possible given how easy it seems to be for them to go off the grid and the support networks they have. And thus we find ourselves in 5+ years time still suffering from the same issues

Yep, that as well. Blocking migrants from your Vietnam’s and your Syria’s seems like catching the rain- you can’t block the borders and once they are here you can’t keep them out of the system. Plus there are a number of industries that thrive on these potential workers that have a vested interest in keeping them coming in.

With respect to all, and I realise I will be inviting a maelstrom of invective...perhaps we should look at the reasons people are leaving their country of birth...and our part (as part of a greater whole) in those reasons?

There was a thread opened for sensible discussion and ideas on key issues. It started off quite well with respect from both sides before the usual suspect made a barbed, generalisation comment against “the right”. 

No invective from me- undoubtedly there is blood on our hands, but is it automatically our right to be the sole resolution to any resettlement? Maybe we could contribute significant aid and resources to other countries who are prepared to resettle these people closer to their country of origin? We should be doing something significant no doubt. But we are disadvantaged ourselves by the fact we are an island that can only sustain so many people upon it and we are reaching a point where country is creaking.

On a wider point we should definitely be picking our battles abroad a lot more wisely.

It’s hardly Tommy Robinson is it? I don’t hate anyone of a different ethnicity and I am all for immigration to this country. However resources are finite and we should only take on as many as we can afford. When the country is in the grip of a housing crisis we should also be ensuring that housing goes to our own homeless first ahead of migrants. Is that really that radically right wing an idea? The radical right wing wouldn’t even water on our own homeless let alone migrant homeless.

How well migrants are treated does not seem to be down to national government policy. If you look up thread you will see that it’s the local authority that decides which migrants are likely to be given housing and it’s notable that London/south east and east anglia do the least for them.

And what are the Tories doing for British homelessness, apart from making it worse? What did they pledge to do as part of their election campaign?