Did Zeus never teach Athena to have some tolerance with Muslims?

[al Roumi]

makes schengen seem like a thoroughly stupid idea, pity we joined it............... no wait, we didn't!

Not sure that's really the point... The UK's non-membership of Schengen is why there are seperate camps near Calais. If the UK were part of the Schengen agreement, it would just mean there would be fewer people camped out near Calais. All you really have to feel smug about is the channel

[Furunculus]

Not sure that's really the point... The UK's non-membership of Schengen is why there are seperate camps near Calais. If the UK were part of the Schengen agreement, it would just mean there would be fewer people camped out near Calais. All you really have to feel smug about is the channel

but that is exactly the point.

while they are camped outside calais they are not in dear old blighty!

the border-hoppers are prevented from hopping the border, the channel on makes the legal enforcement more effective.

Neither did we.

that was mainly because ireland didn't want to threaten the open-borders business with the UK was it not?

[al Roumi]

but that is exactly the point.

while they are camped outside calais they are not in dear old blighty!

the border-hoppers are prevented from hopping the border, the channel on makes the legal enforcement more effective.

...but is France, or would the UK be, more awash with immigrants? Especially if the UK got more involved in EU external border policy and support, which it would have to have done.

[Furunculus]

...but is France, or would the UK be, more awash with immigrants? Especially if the UK got more involved in EU external border policy and support, which it would have to have done.

pardon?

[rory_20_uk]

...but is France, or would the UK be, more awash with immigrants? Especially if the UK got more involved in EU external border policy and support, which it would have to have done.

Are you seriously saying that IF the UK had joined somehow they'd be able to police the Greek / Italian / Maltese borders so well that the problem of illegal immigrants would all but disappear? That's a flattering statement to make, but sadly it's not the case.

Think of a submarine. All those separate compartments so if there's a leak somewhere, the boat stays afloat. Maybe we could employ this somehow in the EU... Some soft of borders that were internal to prevent immigrants traipsing across Europe. We could check some sort of paperwork that proved who a person was and where they were from against a sort of searchable electronic list. Those that weren't on it could be detained and removed.

Just an idea...

[al Roumi]

Are you seriously saying that IF the UK had joined somehow they'd be able to police the Greek / Italian / Maltese borders so well that the problem of illegal immigrants would all but disappear? That's a flattering statement to make, but sadly it's not the case.

That is what I was questioning, just how much of a disaster zone the UK would actually be if it had signed up to Schengen. Lets try to have some rational predictions, not "ZOMG ITS FALLOUT BOURTON-ON-THE-WATER!11!!!!"

I'm not saying that, with the UK's shining light of exacting border controls, the EU's border problems would be gone, but the issue might be better addressed if the UK were not content to simply entrench itself behind the channel.

[Louis VI the Fat]

External borders (between two displined countries of roughly comparable standards) are a major waste of time for people going about legal business, but scarcely an inconvenience for those with more malign intentions.

There are smarter instruments of catching criminals and preventing illegal immigration.

You can check the passports of everybody on the boat / car / train / plane, but at some point you need to realise that unless you transform your borders to an impregnable fortress like the Berlin Wall, you are really mostly just inconveniencing normal citizens with intrusive questions, cavity searches and hours of delay, while those with malign intentions simply cross the border at night in an unpatrolled forest / beach / country road.

[Fragony]

That is what I was questioning, just how much of a disaster zone the UK would actually be if it had signed up to Schengen. Lets try to have some rational predictions, not "ZOMG ITS FALLOUT BOURTON-ON-THE-WATER!11!!!!"

I'm not saying that, with the UK's shining light of exacting border controls, the EU's border problems would be gone, but the issue might be better addressed if the UK were not content to simply entrench itself behind the channel.

Projecting hysteria on percieved hysteria doesn't help, why are you lefties always using caps? We don't, so what's the point?

[al Roumi]

Projecting hysteria on percieved hysteria doesn't help, why are you lefties always using caps? We don't, so what's the point?

It helps communicate the fury better. Are you just wingeing because I copied a leaf from your book with hyperbolic and sensationalist satire?

[gaelic cowboy]

that was mainly because ireland didn't want to threaten the open-borders business with the UK was it not?

Correct the common travel across the border between the North and the Republic is far more economically important than any EU travel arrangement.

I laugh anyway at the people who hold up Shengen as some great moral force, when it came to it actually allowing people to work in EU only Britain, Ireland and Sweden allowed the Poles and other Baltic peoples in straight away.

[Furunculus]

Correct the common travel across the border between the North and the Republic is far more economically important than any EU travel arrangement.

I laugh anyway at the people who hold up Shengen as some great moral force, when it came to it actually allowing people to work in EU only Britain, Ireland and Sweden allowed the Poles and other Baltic peoples in straight away.

and we were right to do so.

[gaelic cowboy]

and we were right to do so.

My brother married a Polish lady so he got a good deal at least

[Furunculus]

My brother married a Polish lady so he got a good deal at least

i'm practically in the same boat five years in.

my boss has married a finnish girl
a work-mate is going out with a polish girl
another mate is also going out with a polish girl
my brother is going out with a Venezuelan yank.

it's all the rage these days.

[Husar]

The riot police should have given some food back in the form of pepper spray though.