Twenty's Plenty.........

This is what we are told is enough to "fulfill our moral responsibility". Twenty thousand refugees spread over just 5 years is enough for everyone to get a good nights sleep, safe in the knowledge that Mr Cameron has done his sums and this is as much as we morally need to do. Well here at LeftHub we have been looking at the sums.

The BBC reported in this article that for the year ending September 2014 that net migration to the UK was 298,000. This works out at around 816 people a day. If we take that 20,000 over 5 years means 4,000 a year then this is equivalent to 5 days worth of net migration to the UK, an increase of 1.34% a year.

David Cameron has claimed that the resettlement scheme the UK would adopt would make a priority of vulnerable children such as orphans. But it has emerged that all those within the scheme will only have the right to remain in the UK for five years. As former leader of the Liberal Democrats Lord Ashdown suggested on Twitter, this could mean people aged 18 being deported from Britain, having integrated into society.



Perhaps this is the sensible approach using both our "hearts and our heads" which was a phrase uttered countless times by the Prime Minister yesterday. He said we must both tackle the refugee crisis and the source of the problem, Isis and the Assad regime, hinting at more military intervention in Syria. This would be fine if were to completely ignore the fact that our intervention in the middle east has helped promote the rise of Isis. We also supply millions upon millions worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and other surrounding areas. Surely its conceivable that this could also be fueling and indirectly arming Isis. We must wonder why David Cameron seems reluctant to bring this up as a possible contributory factor. The UK has after all granted 37 export licenses for military goods for Saudi Arabia since 25 March 2015.

So is the UK doing enough? Is this the best we can do?  The mood and generosity of the British public certainly doesn't seem to be reflected by that of the government. Perhaps we can squeeze more than 5 days of extra migration to the UK out, to help those in desperate need?








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