Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[gentlegreen]

Yes. And only in 3 of 27 of those countries do the citizens care less about immigration than in the UK

Yes, I had to look at it several times to confirm.

Who conducted the survey ?

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I though it was usually the case that anti immigration sentiment in the U.K. tended to be comparitively lower than many parts of Europe. Not news?

 

[Raheem]

Two posters have explicitly denied the racism and anti-immigration nature of the EU's border policies, others have disregarded it with empty words about how things 'could/will be worse'. Time and again in U75 the EU has been posited, in contrast to the UK, as non-racist, as progressive, the champion of 'freedom of movement' and the removal/weakening of borders.
How about you read the piece. But that would involve you actually having to challenge your blindness.

I don't think it's about blindness. It's about focus. You're concentrating on the easy and emotive part of a much bigger picture, and not, or so it would seem, thinking about the structures and politics involved. Fundamentally, decisions about accepting or not accepting refugee flows are made by individual governments. The EU institutions can try, with varying degrees of success and failure, to coordinate and act as a forum for discussion. But they are not really able to formulate or drive policy, only to respond to and act as an agent of national governments. So, the story doesn't start with Junker or whoever watching columns of migrants on banks of screens and stroking a white cat.

 

[redsquirrel]

Fundamentally, decisions about accepting or not accepting refugee flows are made by individual governments. The EU institutions can try, with varying degrees of success and failure, to coordinate and act as a forum for discussion. But they are not really able to formulate or drive policy, only to respond to and act as an agent of national governments.

Absolute rubbish, as you'd know if you'd read the Kouvelakis piece.

 

[Supine]

Well for a start how about not paying huge sums of money to Turkey and Libya so that they can set up concentration camps. But I forgot those camps don't exist. They're nothing to do with the EU.

I really don't think you should be using the term concentration camp in this way.

 

[DotCommunist]

Shall we just call them 'not-prisons but you can't leave funtime centres' then?

 

[redsquirrel]

I really don't think you should be using the term concentration camp in this way.

What are they if they are not concentration camps? How are they not analogous to the concentration camps Britain and other European powers used in their colonies? Their specific purpose is to concentrate migrants into camps.

 

[Raheem]

Absolute rubbish, as you'd know if you'd read the Kouvelakis piece.

Of course I've read it, it's just that I'm not content to make do with that and engage no further.

 

[redsquirrel]

Of course I've read it, it's just that I'm not content to make do with that and engage no further.

Really then why make that claim that

The EU institutions can try, with varying degrees of success and failure, to coordinate and act as a forum for discussion. But they are not really able to formulate or drive policy, only to respond to and act as an agent of national governments.

which Kouvelakis shows is quite clearly false. The piece emphasises that while there are competing factions the EU is a political entity with it's own policies.

EDIT: As Kouvelakis discusses one of the major purposes of the EU has been to remove political power from nation states, where parliamentary democracy can interfere with capital, to technocratic institutions that are not burdened with having to respond to voters.

Humiliating as it is, the procedure is not merely symbolic. What was at stake was the dismantling of any appearance of national and popular sovereignty. The two qualifiers matter: in order to impose a course of ‘shock therapy’, overwhelmingly and consistently rejected by the Greek public, it was necessary to destroy democratic accountability, even in its limited, class-loaded and highly problematic representative form.

 

[Raheem]

Really then why make that claim that
which Kouvelakis shows is quite clearly false. The piece emphasises that while there are competing factions the EU is a political entity with it's own policies.

You're quoting me out of context. Obviously, the EU is a political entity, but it is not able, broadly, to create policy on refugees, or to override the policies of national governments on the same.

 

[Poi E]

Can someone enlighten me as to why Estonians are so worried about immigration and terrorism?

Their thoughts perhaps turn east.

 

[redsquirrel]

You're quoting me out of context. Obviously, the EU is a political entity, but it is not able, broadly, to create policy on refugees, or to override the policies of national governments on the same.

Why does it need to when it usually shares the same anti-migrant politics as the national governments. But you're wrong anyway, see the examples of the Mare Nostrum operation and the relocation of migrants within the EU, Italy and Greece quickly told where they stand. There has been a outsourcing of migration policies to the EU

The episode illuminates a characteristic aspect of the European scheme of ‘live or let die’, of which ‘humanity and security’ are the two complementary faces, with coercive functions transferred from the nation states to the supranational bodies of the eu.

(while at the same time national governments are still happy to blame immigration on the 'weak' EU, leading to the EU expropriating more powers so that it can adopt even harsher measures).

 

[Supine]

What are they if they are not concentration camps? How are they not analogous to the concentration camps Britain and other European powers used in their colonies? Their specific purpose is to concentrate migrants into camps.

There is a big difference between camps that are used to imprison / confine / exterminate and camps that are used to give aid and to help process people regarding their right to enter Europe.

 

[redsquirrel]

There is a big difference between camps that are used to imprison / confine / exterminate and camps that are used to give aid and to help process people regarding their right to enter Europe.

Fucking amazing. You think that's what these camps are for.

The situation in the islands, particularly in the Moria camp in Lesbos, widely known as an ‘open-air prison’, deteriorated to such an extent that some of the ngos left as an expression of protest,

Amnesty International would issue a devastating report of conditions inside these centres, where officials regularly beat and tortured captive migrants to extort ransoms from their families, securing release from arbitrary, indefinite deten- tion.14 Funding for the ‘authorities’ managing the dcim centres, as well as generous support for the Libyan Coast Guard’s efforts to ram or scare off migrants’ boats and deals with the warlords presiding over Libya’s southern borders, were agreed at the eu’s Valletta Summit on Migration in 2015, which aimed at preventing refugees and migrants crossing the central Mediterranean and arriving in Europe at any cost.

Not a single one willing to read even the short Mailk piece DC and BA linked to, instead deliberate blindness to the actions of the EU. And it's the Brexit voters that are the racists. Sickening.

 

[NoXion]

There is a big difference between camps that are used to imprison / confine / exterminate and camps that are used to give aid and to help process people regarding their right to enter Europe.

Are they allowed to leave the camps whenever they wish? Otherwise that sounds like confinement to me.

 

[seventh bullet]

There is a big difference between camps that are used to imprison / confine / exterminate and camps that are used to give aid and to help process people regarding their right to enter Europe.

And the torture, rape and murder?

 

[Supine]

So redsquirrel - what would you do? Have no borders at all?

 

[seventh bullet]

Well?

 

[redsquirrel]

So redsquirrel - what would you do? Have no borders at all?

First, how about you tells us whether you admit you were talking crap (and nasty crap at that) or are still insisting that these camps are

used to give aid and to help process people regarding their right to enter Europe.

 

[Supine]

First, how about you tells us whether you admit you were talking crap (and nasty crap at that) or are still insisting that these camps are

You seem to insinuate the EU is some evil that is raining terror on others. I'm of the opinion they are trying their best to deal with a real difficult situation, where people in great need are being helped. I'm not saying what is done is perfect in any way shape or form but I have faith the intention is good.

 

[DotCommunist]

One man from Gambia, who was detained for three months, told Amnesty how he was starved and beaten in a detention centre. “They beat me with a rubber hose because they want money to release me,” he said. “They call the family while beating [you] so the family send money.”

what would you do? Have no borders at all?

dark

 

[sleaterkinney]

I'm not sure how standing with the Tories and Farage and voting for Brexit will lead to things being better for immigrants.

 

[redsquirrel]

The dreadful stench of urine and garbage greets visitors and the ground is covered with hundreds of plastic bags. It is raining, and filthy water has collected ankle-deep on the road. The migrants who come out of the camp are covered with thin plastic capes and many of them are wearing only flipflops on their feet as they walk through the soup… Welcome to one of the most shameful sites in all of Europe.

(here)

I'm not saying what is done is perfect in any way shape or form but I have faith the intention is good.

Like I said wilful blindness - 'I don't want to believe that the EU might be intentionally implementing horrific policies so it can't be'. Never mind all the evidence you've been presented with, it destroys your beliefs so it must not exist.

Priests refusing to look through telescopes so that they won't find the proof that their beliefs are false. It would be pathetic without the 100,000s of deaths. With them it's just revolting.

 

[teuchter]

I though it was usually the case that anti immigration sentiment in the U.K. tended to be comparitively lower than many parts of Europe. Not news?

The survey doesn't seem to have asked people if they were "anti-immigration". It seems to have asked what they think are important issues in the EU at the moment, which is not the same thing at all.

 

[Raheem]

Why does it need to when it usually shares the same anti-migrant politics as the national governments.

Not usually, but always, because it has no politics or powers to call its own in this policy area. So, once you arrive at a situation where national governments decide to turn away refugees, it becomes realistically inevitable that they will end up in camps, and there is nothing the EU as an entity can possibly do to prevent that from happening. Place the blame where it belongs.

But you're wrong anyway, see the examples of the Mare Nostrum operation and the relocation of migrants within the EU, Italy and Greece quickly told where they stand. There has been a outsourcing of migration policies to the EU

This is a good example of what I was talking about above in terms of the EU being able to coordinate with regard to refugee policy, but not to dictate to member states. The EU provided funding for Mare Nostrum, but it didn't force any country to take part, because it did not have any power to do that.

 

[redsquirrel]

Not usually, but always, because it has no politics or powers to call its own in this policy area.

Again rubbish, as evidenced the Kouvlakis article

So, once you arrive at a situation where national governments decide to turn away refugees, it becomes realistically inevitable that they will end up in camps, and there is nothing the EU as an entity can possibly do to prevent that from happening. Place the blame where it belongs.

I do, I'm not the one refusing to accept the evidence that is in front of his face. I guess the murderous neo-liberal economics forced on Greece is nothing to do with the EU either.

This is a good example of what I was talking about above in terms of the EU being able to coordinate with regard to refugee policy, but not to dictate to member states. The EU provided funding for Mare Nostrum, but it didn't force any country to take part, because it did not have any power to do that.

You claim to have head the Kouvlakis piece but you get basic facts mentioned in there wrong

However, after the eu refused to make a significant contribution to the high cost of the operation, some €9m per month,

 

[Raheem]

Again rubbish, as evidenced the Kouvlakis article

Please elaborate.

You claim to have head the Kouvlakis piece but you get basic facts mentioned in there wrong

No, I have no facts wrong, or at least not that one. I said the EU provided funding, which it did, although it is also true that the EU funding was dwarfed by the Italian funding. It's also worth noting that Mare Nostrum wasn't even under the auspices of the EU.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm not sure how standing with the Tories and Farage and voting for Brexit will lead to things being better for immigrants.

In the 2016 referendum you mean? The one that Tory prime ministers past and present campaigned on the Remain side during?

Which ever way you voted, you voted with Tories.

 

[Raheem]

In the 2016 referendum you mean? The one that Tory prime ministers past and present campaigned on the Remain side during?

There's only certain Tories who really know the score.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I look forward to arguments against Trump’s wall being subject to the same level of non-emotive scrutiny.