Stats

Enlightenment

Francis Hutcheson, a moral philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" - also David Hume and Adam Smith, Joseph Black, James Watt. 17th century Scotland had five universities and England had two

Good things about the EU

Helping bring a lasting peace to Europe. (Not a negative peace of the kind brought by military force.) Promoting prosperity, innovation, opportunity and choice. Raising standards and expectations. Helping Europeans understand their shared values. Reducing – yes, reducing – regulation and red tape. Replacing self-interest with shared interests, and exclusion with inclusion. Promoting democracy and free markets at home and abroad. Allowing Europe and its individual states to speak with a louder voice. Offering a benchmark model of civilian power. Encouraging a rules-based approach to international affairs.

Voting to remain in the EU and leave the UK. Is retaking sovereignty from a one sided selfish controlling partner, and staying in the EU is remaining friends with those who are mutually beneficial. The important point is sovereignty. Brexit is nonsense England is sovereign already. It was a vote about putting two fingers up to the rest of Europe. Scotland has not been sovereign for 300 years. We get nothing from Brexit other than more London rule.

The UK is home to the most diverse immigrant community in the world. Based on the Herfindahl-Hirschman index – which is widely used by biologists, ecologists, linguists, economists, sociologists and demographers to measure the degree of concentration of human or biological populations – the diversity of immigrant birth countries in the U.K. on a 0 to 100 scale is 97. For immigrants living in the U.S., it is 91. It used to be said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Now, people from the many countries the British once ruled live inside the U.K.’s borders…

The Mexico-to-U.S. link is the most popular bilateral migration path in the entire world. In 2013, more Mexican immigrants (13 million) were living in the U.S. than all immigrants to Russia combined which ever nationality they belong to (11 million). To give the big picture, Russia is the second destination for immigrants in the world, after the United States which has the biggest foreign-born population (46 million immigrants).

Hungary

The immigration crisis is the greatest challenge that EU has faced and what would be of the greatest value is unity. Recourse to international law shows that people have a right to live free from harm, but not the right to simply pick a country they like the sound of and go and live there. The onus is placed upon states of entry, in which Hungary fares very poorly.

What is the burden-sharing programme at the present time?

Russia

I do not know why the western countries are advancing aggressively upon Russia, more so than they did in the Cold War. There used to be many buffer states between Europe and Russia, now however they have become westernised and European and Ukraine doing this was the last straw - now Europe is on their borders. Little wonder they feel defensive.

Blair Migrants

Of the millions brought in by Blair, from outwith the EU, they were brought to make up skill shortages. It would be impossible for them to get access any other way.

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) - - an offshoot of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Migrants

A solution might be to devolve decision making to local levels, eg 1% of population. A solution might be education - - raise the GDP of developing countries by educating the girls. A solution might be to repatriate the 4 million in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Getting Facts

The UK Unemployment Rate

Most recent data shows

Just 2.7% of Unemployment Benefit Claimants [JSA] are EU Migrants 99% of National Insurance Numbers issued to foreigners are for workers not the jobless EU Migrants from Poland & A8 Countries contribute a net £16bn+ benefit per year to the UK economy [2009 data] Just 38,000 EU Migrants claim JSA at a cost of £140m to the taxpayer NHS ‘Tourism’ from overseas visitors using the NHS costs 0.1% of the NHS Budget EU Immigrants from Poland and other A8 countries pay 39% more in taxes than they get back in state expenditure on them A UK born person of working age is 150%+ more likely to be receiving benefits than a foreign born person resident in the UK 93% of foreign born persons of working age in the UK do not receive benefits EU Migrants from Poland and other A8 countries are 60% less likely to live in Social Housing than UK citizens. In 2011, 67% of Poles & other EU (A8) nationals who attempt to claim benefits in the UK were refused

The sources for this are here and here

Syrian Civil War

The Syrian civil war began with a wave of protests similar to Arab spring, in the so-called 'youth bulge'

Sudan 51 million Pakistan 206 million Nigeria 172 million

Causes

Turkey was not active in stopping the so-called Balkans route, with Macedonia actually laying on trains to take people to the Serbian border. Middle Eastern countries have no incentive to prevent them from leaving; and Europe has no means of blocking their path.

• High birth-rate coupled with declining death-rate • Youth bulge • High unemployment, especially among the young • Competition for scarce resources, including basic commodities like water • Disease • Internal disruption or civil war • Spilling over into irregular migration into Europe • Right-wing European backlash • Increased unemployment in Europe • Inter-community conflict in Europe • Threat to European values

Proposed Sovereign Areas

• Quebec sovereignty movement
• Chiapas movement in Mexico
• Hawaii, California Yes, Alaskan Independence party
• Istrian movement in Croatia
• Faroe Islands
• Corsican, Basque, Breton
• Republic of Sardinia