The room turned a question about temporary use of former military sites into a blunt test of priority: who should be helped first when housing is scarce. Yes won decisively, while the most striking imbalance was that its case was louder and more numerous, even as the best-respected No arguments offered the more expansive moral alternative.
The floor’s strongest Yes voices treated citizenship and contribution as the decisive currency. One argued, “Why should any person who is an illegal” be prioritised, while another opened with the stark claim, “No illegal migrants”; a more measured Yes voter said simply that “UK citizens should be given priority over immigrants”.
The No side resisted the premise rather than accepting its ranking exercise. Its best-respected argument said, “Ideally, our government would ensure that no-one in our country was without a place to call home”, while another insisted on “a moral obligation to the homeless and a legal obligation to the asylum seeker”. The two camps were often answering different questions: one about order and entitlement, the other about whether scarcity should be allowed to define the choice at all.
That helps place the result inside the UK’s live argument over asylum accommodation, homelessness and the use of public assets. Several Yes voters widened the question from interim housing on former armed services sites to a general claim about immigrants and access to housing; several No voters, meanwhile, warned against making homelessness a vehicle for hostility towards migrants.
The chamber settled the priority question, but not the larger one underneath it: whether a housing shortage is chiefly a contest over entitlement, or a failure to provide enough homes for anyone.
13 Opinions
It’s axiomatic. If native people need something why ignore them yet handsomely fund incomers with no UK ties? It reveals the lies we have been told by Politicians for decades about ‘choices’. Seems that they could have helped veterans & homeless all along but it was their choice to lie to us & ignore those in need. These people are being imported to be used against us when we eventually have enough. It will be electoral gerrymandering or they will be armed by the Socialists.
People who break into our country should get NOTHING. The government, NGOs and everyone else encouraging them to come here must be held to account for facilitating their presence in the UK.
UK citizens should be given priority over immigrants, particularly those (the majority) who are here for economic reasons. I also do not believe that armed forces are given priority - stories coming out in the press indicate otherwise.
Help everyone and stop dividing everyone
Although I put yes, it was mainly for the part in question "over immigrants "" as I believe unless British homeless need help,ie drink drug problems, they should be given houses,flats etc. Not open prisons!!
Any uk citizen should be given priority over any immigrant.
We should tackle homelessness with proper, sustainable initiatives, not use these people as a means of using up inferior accommodation Remarkable how many people call on the homeless issue to support their anti immigrant views, when their support for those experiencing homelessness has been markedly absent beforehand .
These questions far too often focus on false and binary polarities. If we are going to survey public opinion, we need to make sure that the questions aren't loaded. We need rational discussion, not uninformed bigotry. The obvious answer is that we have a moral obligation to the homeless and a legal obligation to the asylum seeker. We also have a public who don't want anyone to be housed anywhere near them. Go figure.
No illegal migrants - and let’s face it they’re not asylum seekers they’re here to take from a ridiculously supportive system- should be entitled to any housing. We should run internment centres and deport . A lot of housing ,of all kinds, would be freed up.
I disagree with TomHuchcraft it is a question to answer and an important one. Why should any person who is an illegal so subsequently a criminal, who has never contributed to our country be prioritised over indidgenous white british (yes that is a term i can use and the group should have equal protections in law) citizens. Why should those who work hard and pay taxes be expected to pay for those who had a home and chose to leave it. The word 'ideally' says to me hard left!