Help me out here.
Thousands of ‘migrants’ are congregating around ugly Calais, apparently destitute but equipped with wire-cutters and determined to get into the Tunnel to Blighty.
OK so far?
Why? What’s wrong with Spain, Italy, France (etcetera ad nausem) where they entered the fabled EU?
Send answers please to a jobsworth in Brussels who will reply after les vacances, peut-etre.
Boadicea's Chariot 
They are promised better benefits in the UK than they are in Italy, France or Spain. Conditions in Italy have deteriorated to the point that they face real physical violence there. Spain has no money, nor does Greece. France also doesn’t exactly give them an easy go of it. Much like Belgium, they prefer to turn a blind eye and let them become Blighty’s problem. Time to send in the tanks, me thinks.
Time for us pull up the Drawbridge and cut ourselves loose from the floundering EU wreck …….to mix a couple of metaphors.
I don’t think people realise what a dangerous situation we’re in.
I saw a blog in the other place that made me laugh Janus. A blogger had heard on BBC that many of the migrants in Calais said that they were fleeing from war and dictatorship. Hm…I didn’t know that Hollande was a dictator and which war is it? š
Christopher. I don’t believe that they are coming for the benefits. That is a populist story put about by those with an agenda, I believe that they see the potential to work and settle here long term. This is why they are prepared to risk everything. No-one drags their small kids over a 3 metre wire fence to get better benefits.
The only ones who had it right were UKIP.
Pull up the drawbridge!
I really cannot believe the limp wristed reaction of ‘Our Dave’ a few dogs and a bit of fencing!!!!!
Send in the bloody army, incarcerate any wogs in military camps and deport immediately. It is painfully obvious that they are young men who are economic migrants and the UK is a soft touch known throughout the world. It has to stop, there are insufficient services for the existing UK population let alone any more. Of course they try for the UK, a known Eldorado compared with mainland Europe!
The only silver lining to the whole shebang is that it will make more people likely to vote us out of the EU which can’t be bad!
Gazoopi: They see the potential, perhaps, but why is it that the countries that suffer the largest influx are also the countries with the best social services? Germany is at the point of facing the collapse of its social system because of it, Sweden isn’t far behind. The UK’s is creaking as well. They claim to be refugees — so why do they travel to particular countries en masse while passing through stable, calm countries where they legally would have to go? That they climb 11-foot-tall fences is utterly irrelevant. It’s illegal and they should not be rewarded for that behaviour. All it does is encourage more human trafficking.
CO: I have two relatives who work with the lot in Germany and know a third woman, an immigrant herself who does the same. There are some true cases of need mixed in with the lot. Iraqi and Syrian Christians fleeing ISIS who were sent north by the Italians for want of space, etc. Most, however, come with chips on their shoulders and an incredible sense of entitlement. In Trier-Nord they are having to build a new development to house them and shops in the area are closing because more is being stolen than sold. In many parts of Africa, especially West Africa, there is a sort of industry in pooling together resources and sending young men north to Europe to work. The intention is to maximise the amount of money they make and send back in remittances. At the moment the German government is using any legal pretence it can find to house the lot — including tossing families living in council housing on the street or closing long-term care facilities on short-notice with no concern for the well-being of those affected. It’s ironic that I was buggered so badly that I had to move to China by the German government but any illiterate who shows up is set for life. Let’s not even start with the question of driving licences.
Of course, the Shengen open borders mean we never hear about all those who turn up to settle in other countries.
Christina has hit the nail on the head. All of this carry-on will encourage the British electorate to vote to get out of the EU. And then the French formers really will have something to cry about when there’s no British cheque to pay for the CAP.
Isn’t it time for another air traffic control dispute too?
Sheona: don’t forget that the EU refuses to make even cosmetic concessions to keep the UK in. At this point many continental leaders appear to want the UK to simply leave to get it out of their hair. They’ve even offered the UK exactly what Boy George Osborne has said the UK should have — trade-only ties.
Boy George Osborne! You’re not suggesting…….he’s a chameleon!?
‘I’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go….’
Read more: Boy George – Karma Chameleon Lyrics | MetroLyrics
He’s only a chameleon of the Karma-variety, Janus.
I like your phrase “cosmetic concessions”, Christopher. We all recognise that Cameron is wasting his time with the EU. There is no guarantee that any promises will be kept. Remember the idiot Blair and his foolish dream that the CAP would be reformed after he’d given up part of the UK rebate.
Right! Can we just stop beating about the bush here? Economic migrants, students and suchlike can apply for entry to the UK in a legal manner to the appropriate authorities. The mob in Calais, whether coming for an illegal, black economy (no pun intended) job or to claim immediate and substantial State benefits are queue-jumping illegal immigrants, no more, no less, if they make it across the Channel and should be treated as such by way of internment and immediate deportation back whence they came. France, presumably.
Despite what the bleeding hearts, liberal fifth-columnists and others whose lives are or will be totally unaffected by the influx may bleat from their ivory towers, IT AIN’T OUR PROBLEM unless Wavy Davy and the Boy George fail to get a grip pronto. Controlled immigration is one thing – attempted mob rule is a totally unacceptable other.
Rant over. Pass me the FrizzEase.
OZ
It seems to be getting worse by the day, certainly more violent.
Live bullets and razor wire time, but with our politicians? Not a chance.
disgusting.
Who are the libertarians here? The migrants, the froggies or our Dave hisself? š
Janus: the Kangaroos.
š±
The Danish government has officially advised migrants not to come here but this good citizen disagrees:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/03/denmark-refugees-immigrants-welcome-asylum
I’m struck dumb. Is this naivete or wha’?
This is the Grauniad, a dying lefty tabloid that is best ignored. My Danish-type chum, incidentally, advised me against Denmark because it, like other Nordic countries, is achingly provincial once one gets past the reserved politeness. He also said that it’s an infamously difficult society to find a niche in.
Indeed, C. In fact Denmark is one-dimensional – there are no niches, conformity being the only rule. Danes wish to boast about an open society welcoming migrants but in private they deplore the dilution of the nordic strain. Hence the popular (anonymous) support for the Danish People’s Party whhich has much wider acceptance than UKIP.
But isn’t that almost inevitable, Janus? Once the PC order breaks the backlash can be far nastier than anyone expected — all the result of poor planning and conceptualisation by the so-called “great and good”. In Germany there is widespread, albeit quiet, sympathy for Putin that has only somewhat been dampened following the EU’s Ukraine folly. Many long for someone who seems to be putting national interest first.
I think I would advise Michala Bendixen not to go back to Denmark for her holidays. As for the language, I remember a former colleague whose mother was Danish describing it as “not so much a language, more a throat disease”.
Yes, Danish is all glottal stops and swallowed endings. Not as bad as Dutch though.
I won’t criticise Danish. After all, German has proven conveniently scary on more than one occasion.
Danish is of course the Welsh of Europe, an endangered species; reflecting its insignificance for communications, business and most noticeably entertainment. Interestingly, a mixed group of Scandinavians will always use English these days, exploding the myth that they understand each other.
I very much doubt Danish is endangered, Janus. I see it as being increasingly like Dutch — something that is reserved for the “in-group”.
It may be some comfort to know that a bunch of illegal immigrants has taken over a disused school in Paris and the socialist mayor of that city is refusing to have them removed. Already some illegals from Calais have arrived there and more are expected.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/08/04/01016-20150804ARTFIG00283-migrants-le-debat-s-envenime-a-paris.php?m_i=dHGdGUGIlRFPIeRhoJhp5lP%2BPGh1G49ilCi3FRFVKbmQsPntQLcpa9pEwNYv1BJ38Sr4Oy27WpK1vbWDROhrb4jaUisc3XvmC2WU8UJg&a2=20150805154244&a3=763-6276505-880069
Sounds promising. Can they get an EU grant? š