Thursday 27 August 2015

Is it not time we showed a little humanity on the refugee crisis ?

A Ukip council candidate has resigned from the party after a Facebook post emerged from last year in which he said immigrants should be gassed.
Bobby Douglas, who is standing at a by-election in Caerphilly next week, was responding to a social media advertisement which said: “Nigel Farage has called for all immigrants to be banned from receiving benefits until they have been resident in Britain for at least five years. Share if you agree.”
Mr Douglas responded:

 “To [sic] right. Gas the b******* if they don’t go. If its [sic] good enough for badgers its [sic] good enough for scum.”
In another post he said a woman should have been “painted black” to get into the UK, before describing migrants as “sponging, scrounging parasites”.#

Challenged about the comments by the Caerphilly Observer newspaper, Mr Douglas claimed the “gassing” comment was “in jest” and that he has a “black sense of humour”.
Asked if it was wrong he said: “Yes, it was said out of context to somebody.”
Later he posted a statement which said: 

I deeply regret any offence I have caused by posting and reposting various remarks on Facebook.
"They were made in poor humour at a time when I was not a candidate and not even considering standing for election. I was furthermore not even a member of the party at the time these comments were made.
“I accept full responsibility for these comments and am therefore resigning my membership with immediate effect.”
 
Ukip Welsh assembly election campaign co-ordinator Sam Gould ( I thought that was former MP Marl Reclless's job) said he was “deeply disappointed”.

The comments are disgusting, vile and sickening,” he said. “The Facebook posts weren’t visible to us when he was selected. We suspended him within two hours of finding out, and he’s now no longer a member of the party – we have a zero-tolerance approach to this kind of thing.”


Former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, who is standing in the Bedwas, Trethomas and Machen ward as a Plaid Cymru candidate next Thursday (3rd September) , said: 


These comments are vile and abhorrent and he should issue a statement withdrawing his candidacy. I find it extraordinary that someone holding such views about fellow human beings should seek public office, which is about serving your fellow humans.

” The by-election was caused by the death of long-serving Labour councillor Ray Davies a man who would be appalled to see someone with the views of Bobby Douglas.


Even if you were to accept that this was "Black Humour" on behalf of Me Douglas it reflects a distressing trend in Social Media were there appears to be little sympathy to the refugee crisis (Or migrants as the media keep labelling them).


Only yesterday rescuers there came news that  rescuers  have saved about 3,000 refugees but found more than 50 dead on boats near the coast of Libya, according to the Italian coastguard.
Who cannot recognise the desperation of Refuges in that they try to cross the Med crammed in such flimsy a vessel

At least 55 bodies were discovered on Wednesday on three overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean Sea, the coastguard said.
Of them, 51 were found in the hold of a wooden boat found drifting precariously off the Libyan coast by the Poseidon, a Swedish ship mobilised under the European Union's rescue mission Triton.

Tens of thousands of people, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, have put to sea this year in the hope of reaching Europe, often dangerously packed into small vessels that were never designed to cross the Mediterranean.

Thousands have died but the media including the BBC still keep using the term migrants in their coverage and treat this as a crisis for the UK and the rest of Europe and not for the refuges fleeing violence in their own countries.


Its time we started to show more humanity to the refugees and it shpuld start with the media and the UK government.

2 comments:

David said...

"this kind of thing"

Father Ted lives on in our hearts and UKIP prose.

Anonymous said...

here here Glyn. Amid all the hysteria over immigration in the british media it's deliberatley overlooked that the UK has taken in just over TWO HUNDRED of the millions of people fleeing the terrible civil war in Syria - in contrast Germany has taken in EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND! Figures which put matters into perspective we think.

Something else which tends to get overlooked - again deliberately in our view - is that the reason people are fleeing countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria in such large numbers is because the policies of western governments in recent times have completely destabilised them and left millions of people in the region at the mercy of the homicides of ISIS.

Given the anti immigration climate whipped up in the british media it takes a courageous politician to challenge the 'anti immigrant narrative', and all credit to the likes of jeremy corbyn, caroline lucas and leane wood for trying to do so. Tthe irony of all this is of course that 'immigrants' have been coming to the island of britain since neolithic times. - whisper it but everyone on this island is the descendant of an 'immigrant'.