General Chat

From watching the footage , I can also see the Hungarian point of view, 20 Hungarian police were injured. Very sad situation :-(

The Schengen Agreement gives citizens of each EU country the right to work in another EU state and to travel freely between states. The UK has opted out of the agreement.
Migrants and refugees/asylum seekers are not EU citizens unless and until their case has been assessed and they have been granted EU citizenship or residency. EU rules dictate that this must be carried out in the first "safe country" that they come to.
Therefore prima facie migrants and asylum seekers do not have the right to free travel.
But since the current situation was not envisaged and border controls within the Schengen area have been dismantled, it would follow that migrants etc. passing from one country to the next have the status of illegal immigrants and for the second country to try to prevent them entering would seem the better option than to try to find and return them once they are in, however harsh that would seem on indivuals.
There is a disparity betwen individual countries which retain a semblence of sovereignity and Brussels which treats the entire EU as a superstate with individual parliaments of no consequence.
As far as the UK is concerned, if we located and threw out the three quarters of a million or more illegal immigrants that are here we would be able to offer places to a decent number of genuine refugees rather than a pitiful twenty thousand over five years.

I was watching this live on Sky News yesterday. Initially it was a peaceful protest, which was why there were women and children right up at the front. Total nonsense to say they were being used as "human shields". The reporter (who got tear-gassed) said that one young man was trying to urge the others to stay calm but when the water cannons started other young men started throwing rocks.

Heart breaking to see children tear-gassed and a pregnant woman taken away on a stretcher.

It's time the EU got its act together and had a coherent strategy.

Now there is trouble on the Serbian/Croatian border. Police seemed to holding back crowds for safety near the railway station and letting the children & women through - not acceptable to the crowd :-P

Question: In the 1960's we referred to those who didn't want to be called up to fight in their countries armed forces as 'Draft Dodgers' - so why are all these Syrian men, who it has been said, don't want to be called on to fight for and in their own country , called refugees?

Who are they going to fight for? The murderous Assad?

As I understand it - they don't want to fight FULL STOP.
Either for or against Assad.

To fight, first you have to know your enemy.

Secondly you have to know what you are fighting for.

Thirdly you have to have confidence that your fighting will bring about a resolution that is good for your country.

It's just not as simple as you would like to think it is. So please do not condemn these men.

I think that is a bit of a simplistic view. Would you rather they fought for IS or al Qaeda? Or how about Ba'ath or Hezbollah? Then of course there is the Free Syrian Army or Al Nusra? And not forgetting Syrian Resistance or the Army of Mujahedeen?

Just because they are fleeing a war zone does not make them "draft dodgers".

A great many of these people earned good money in Syria, they were engineers, dentists, doctors, architects, mechanics ....

Before what was called "the Arab Spring" life under Assad and his Ba'ath dictatorship was ok so long as you kept out of politics. Syria then was most def. not Afganistan 2 but a fairly modern country with about the same standard of living as Greece, Portugal or Turkey. Damascus and Aleppo were quite flash.

Most who decamped to Jordan, Lebanon etc thought they would be able to return after a few months. Now they are still there and destitute. Those with the most to lose have been the last to leave hence the evidence of past prosperity - mobile phones and designer jeans and trainers.

What has been happening in Syria is nothing like the London blitz its a a street by street total destruction like some video game nightmare where if the tanks and barrel bombs don't get you then the de'esh will rape your women and cut of your head. The only rational response is to flee and if David Cameron thinks otherwise then he should try a weekend in Iblib.

It is no use quoting Dublin conventions and other such guff. Nobody admits to foreseeing the turn of events ( why not? it was fairly obvious ) and there is nothing in the EU treaties to deal with it except basic morality which looks to be in very short supply.

The only solution to this mess is for NATO to do what it should have done three years ago. Send in a sizable force of ground troops backed up by air power and wipe out the de'esh. Russia is part of the problem and should be told that their naval base will be left alone but otherwise not to interfere. Forget UN votes it is a hollow organisation which only represents and finances itself.

The alternative is not hundreds of thousands wending their way into Europe but millions.

Sure many people want neither. Not an option. Tough.
My guess is that until the next US President is in power nothing much will happen except for more refugees, barrel bombs and al de'esh outrages.

After that it depends on the US facing down a Russia which will be on the edge of going bust by the end of next year. Don't rule out a putsch in Moscow.

So here we are 75 years after the Battle of Britain with the RAF still taking to the skies against mad jihadists. W E Johns would be in his element.

:-0

For once I must agree with Rollo: The United Nations, which should be the place where international disputes and civil wars are sorted out, is as useless as a chocolate fireguard!

Now Croatia has closed 7 out of 8 it's borders with Serbia. Slovenia says it will return migrants.
It's a disaster. if Germany hadn't publicised it would accept all Syrians, fewer migrants might have tried to get there. they'd have still come to Europe but would have headed in different directions.

Never thought I would agree with Rollo but he is spot on. There is now only one way of resolving this. If the UN can't get a grip then someone else will have to.

Things are looking very bleak now aren't they, Croatia has said it cannot cope, and watching the news you can see why, one little village consisting of a row of houses, has 1,000 of people pass through. The refugees/migrants are frightened, but so to must the residents of the village be. I see that fighting broke out between the refugees/migrants, and rocks again were thrown, not a good sign.

Germany is worried that they have 1,000's of refugees making there way there, and are now worried about Oktoberfest, there are too many people already, without the tourist.

II try to imagine what it would be like if the town I live in, suddenly had an influx of 1000's of people, I doubt it could cope either.

Worrying times for all :-(

If we could try to imagine say half the population of Wales or Scotland heading to a border town with England, we might get a better idea of what its like.
If that’s to ‘English’ imagine the population of say Birmingham or Liverpool heading the other way.

Too many, too quickly. An unstoppable flood and humanitarian disaster.

It does seem as if it's too many too quickly, it's just not a copable amount, and it seems that more and more are coming.
Perhaps Germany, by saying they will welcome migrants, has given the green light to people who aren't refugees, who just want a better life? Maybe they think there are jobs and houses awaiting them, and that has to be a false hope.

I think people are missing the point.

There is nothing very "copable" about Syria today which is why people are fleeing. Would you advise people to make a death defying visit to Damascus, find a functioning EU consul, fill in an application for refugee status, wait three months for a reply and hope that you were not killed or arrested by Assad's security police in the meanwhile ? Leaving Syria without an exit visa is a criminal offense in Syria.

nah, of course not you pick up your sticks and go. If the west finds it inconvenient it should have thought more carefully about doing nowt about Assad two years ago.

ISIL/Nusrah are currently shelling the main road from Damascus to Aleppo. If they breach this road then Assad's army may collapse and for sure would find it v difficult to defend Aleppo. If the Alawites find themselves with nowhere safe on top of the (mostly) Sunni who have left then the present flood of refugees will become a deluge not to mention some very nasty stuff on the evening news. Hence the Russians considering intervention.

Fairly obviously ISL have powerful friends in the region and are able to export oil. They have a vast stock of modern weapons taken from the Iraqi and Syrian armies. They have no plans to go away.

Cameron will get nowhere with his pre-referendum negotiations if he persists in his current line with the refugee crisis. The EU wants the UK to take 2.300 people. What is so difficult about that?

I don't think I'm missing any point Rollo, I'm just trying to see things from all points of view, taking out the political aspects.

I think it frightening for small villages to see 1000's of people passing through. Of course it Is frightening for those fleeing, I completely understand that.

But when frightened people are in confined spaces and different languages are spoken, I'd say it's a very bad situation for all.

Ok, I've just skim read Rollo's post. It's all very well suggesting solutions in stopping the cause, or reiterating why people are migrating from the region.

What is happening now, this moment, not 6 weeks time when politicians have had their heads knocked together.
Various Balkan states were not expecting the numbers of people arriving within 24/48 hours. Their infrastructure/economies/resources just can't provide the humanitarian aid they are expected to give.

Let's put it another way. 3000 people arrive unexpectedly at Bournemouth rail station. They expect to be given food, water and a train to take them to Hexham. It's not going to happen in a couple of hours, is it?
Austria had to set up a centre under their main railway station because they couldn't process/move on the migrants. They were organised!

Detective is on the button that the problem is now and not something that can be kicked down the road with a series of meetings and good lunches. As the weather is worsening and the fighting intensifying the situation can only deteriorate,

The Balkan states can and have managed extremely well to facilitate the progress of refugees northwards. The Greeks and Italians have both moved mountains with scant help form the rest of the EU. Greece has its own problems but nevertheless has done what it could.

For those unaware of it Hungary has been drifting towards being an authoritarian fascist state for the last several years so much so that Frau Merkel has warned Budapest that its EU membership could be suspended.

The current problem is largely being caused by out and out racism on the part of Hungary. None of these people want to settle in Hungary and just need 24 hrs transit which the regime refuses to the extent of resurrecting the iron curtain.

Frau Merkel is miffed and is considering action against Hungary most likely the freezing of billions of €uros of structural finding.

He who pays the piper ...

fwiw it may be disturbing for a quiet village to experience a flood of refugees for a day or so. The Serbs have for the most part been very helpful. Imagine then a quiet village in Syria and the sudden arrival of half a dozen barrel bombs or a detachment of de'esh.

The UK has managed to deal with large numbers of refugees several times since ww2 without any major problem. Why is there is so much angst now?

Bournemouth is putting up with around 3 000 marauding football fans (and up) arriving by every which way on alternate Saturdays, something it is very unused to. The "Cherries" have never been in the PL before.

There is no budget for the policing problems, South West Trains have no capacity and the main road into the town is half shut for reconstruction.

As the football fans (as they call themselves) have serious money and muscle their impact on the town is rather greater than knackered refugees would be.

All the same life goes on.