OK, then how about migrants living it up on the taxpayers in 4* hotels, 3 square meals a day, pocket money, dentist, doctor, etc, etc - while our own homeless, inc many veterans, can only hope for shop doorways, Sally Army hostels or friend's sofa. Is that fair?
I'm going to say again, I firmly believe (much) more should be done to control who is coming into the UK. Government action on this has been p1ss poor, obviously we now need to give Labour a period of time to see if they can get to grips with it.
Linked to this, I also think we should be much more effective at removing people from the country if they don't meet the criteria to remain. This is easier said than done, appeals etc. Hence partly why the Rwanda scheme never got off the ground, pardon the pun (regardless of whether we think it was a good plan or not.)
However, having said all that, whilst I understand the sentiment behind the 'we should be looking after our own first' to a large extent it's a statement that makes little sense in my opinion. Here's why. We're never going to get to a stage where 'our own' are all sorted, whether referring to housing, healthcare, dental etc. So if we have a firm line about not helping others to at least some extent in parallel with our own, they would forever remain firmly at the bottom of the queue receiving nothing. Some might think that's fair, some won't.
What would you propose for the migrants that are here? Don't house them anywhere, don't feed them, give them nowt? Surely that would further push them to the fringes where they might, through sheer necessity, feel a need to engage in criminal activity e.g. to feed themselves.
I'm defending no government on this, however these issues are multi-faceted with no black and white answers.
As I mentioned in another post, dealing with homeless people is also multi-faceted. Re the tv prog I saw where three homeless people were housed and x weeks later two of them were back on the streets, through choice.
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk
