Time for a zero refugee policy? - *Read OP for mod warnings and threadbans - updated 11/5/24*

There is a difference between people from the EU availing of freedom of movement to take up employment (and not sit on the dole claiming housing benefits) and all others - and there is a legal path for the others who want to come here for employment.

Having said that, employers are abusing the system (50 coming from Philippines for NCT). We don't need non-EU workers for Supermacs or to stack shelves in Tesco.

Whoever in the research team of Katie Hannons show decided to bring him and the South African lad on to try and show how hard migrants are having it here made a bad choice because instead of changing peoples mind about the issue its just annoyed them even more.

Probably not the result Katie and her lib friends in the D4 media wanted.

So having a large ethnic minority population by itself makes a town a sheethole? Is that you Donald?

As an immigrant yourself, were your neighbours wary about you moving into their midst?

"I have found @BlueSkyDreams to be reasonable to see another opinion and agree that regular people who are concerned about large numbers of refugees need to distance themselves from the extreme views and actions of right wing activists , to be listened to and believed"

But don't you see that part of the current problem is that it's the state and mainstream media who are lumping together "regular people who are concerned about large numbers of refugees" with "right wing activists". They are creating this connection. And possibly it will be self fulfilling if they are not careful.

Yes, Luton - visited 40 years ago as a young lad as I had family who emigrated there, but now an awful spot with massive issues, look at the recent riots in Leicester as well; meanwhile, I get called Donald (trump or duck, not sure) for pointing out the issues our neighbours have with this topic; the idea that Ireland can manage integration better than any other country is fantasy and it should not be right to denigrate and insult those who have their doubts about what is happening

Would Luton or any other UK city have these problems if the "blow ins" were economically integrated to the same standards as the locals? That is achieved by equal education opportunities and equal access to the same jobs. For me, that's always the key. Difficult to achieve and often takes decades but it solves a lot of problems.

Because we have done such a great job of integrating our own domestic population over the last 50 years of economic growth since joining the EU, clearly we have no socially deprived areas and all our kids leave school with a decent education and are able to take up the employment opportunities offered by our strong economy

EU citizens are allowed to work here but have no right to remain here on benefit if not in employment;

Neither "asylum seekers" or "refugees" should have the right to work here, we are just encouraging economic migrants

Well of course they should have the right to work, or maybe you would prefer that they can only get benefits, because it allows you to argue they should not be here?

I'm well aware of the rights of EU workers, how many EU citizens in benefits in this country?

What's your point?

Perfectly entitled to live, work and claim welfare there the same as British people who choose to live here.