(JNi.media) UK home secretary Theresa May on Tuesday sounded a resounding warning yet that the mass immigration of past years can no longer be sustained without threatening the country’s cohesion. She declared that mass emigration will cause wage undercutting for low-paid workers, and force thousands out of employment.
May promised a massive crackdown on bogus refugees, according to the Evening Standard, saying that people who try to cheat the system would get only temporary asylum, but would have no right to settle down. May rejected the calls by European leaders for a quota of refugees for each member state declaring: “Not in a thousand years!”
Secretary May also promised tougher treatment of cheating asylum seekers try to sneak into the UK via Calais, France. “For the first time we’ll distinguish between vulnerable people resettled from their region and those who claim asylum after abusing the visa system or having traveled to get here through safe countries,” she said, adding, “If you’ve spurned the chance to seek protection elsewhere — but we cannot return you to that safe country and you still need refuge — you’ll get the minimum stay of protection and you won’t have an automatic right to settle here. But for those who really need it, we will offer a longer stay of protection. Humane for those who need our help, tough on those who abuse it.”
Speaking about the plight of Syrian refugees, May said: “2,000 miles away, in towns and cities across Syria, eleven million men, women and children have been forced from their homes. More than four million have become refugees. And nearly a quarter of a million have been killed.
“More than 600,000 Syrians are taking refuge in Jordan, a country that before the conflict had a population of little more than six million. There are more than one million finding respite in Lebanon, which previously had a population of just over four million. By the end of the year, the United Nations believes there will be a further 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
“These people are fleeing a civil war that exceeds even the other conflicts of the Middle East in its barbarism, brutality and bloodshed. Bashar al Assad’s forces are committing war crimes on an industrial scale, deliberately targeting civilians and poisoning their own citizens with chemical weapons. ISIL – the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – is engaged in a programme of ethnic cleansing, mass murder of enemy soldiers, systematised rape and sexual violence, kidnappings and murder.
“And the other players in this appalling civil war include Hezbollah, Al Nusra Front – a jihadist group affiliated to Al Qaeda – and several other jihadist militias. These militias in turn are often backed by powerful foreign sponsors, and the forces of Bashar al Assad are supported by Iran and Russia – whose warplanes are engaged in airstrikes against civilians and anti-government fighters.
“So it is too simplistic to say that there is a single intervention which will bring a sudden end to the fighting. There is no easy solution to the civil war in Syria, and we must learn the lessons of the past.”
The solution, according to May, is not in accepting hordes of fleeing Syrians. Knowing there is no easy solution, she said, “does not mean Britain should do nothing. We must work to get the states that sponsor the different armies and militias around the negotiating table. We must do what we can to support friendly states and moderate elements within other states in the region. And – because of the clear threat they pose to Britain’s national security – we must take action against ISIL not just in Iraq but in Syria too.”