I was out in Brussels visiting friends this weekend. I had a few warnings from people before heading out but ignored them all.

When I got there I was told there had been a few curfews recently but no real concern. I saw a couple of police cavalcade with blue lights going on Friday night, a couple of soldiers in the street on Saturday. The most perculicar thing I saw was a house getting raided on my way to the station on Sunday with lots of Arabs being escorted out.

Following that I can't help that following Friday's arrest but think today's attack was a sign that the terrorists are on the running scared of the law and launched what ammunition they have left.

Other things I noted where that they have much bigger integration and crime problems than us. There integration issues are not solely attributed to immigration, they are busy enough arguing amongst themselves. And, terrorism and crime have nothing to do with EU membership, there will always be terrorism and crime in one form or another, all we can do is reduce and contain it.

Will it? How exactly? People move around from the UK all the time, tourists come and go, and all of them require passports to get into the UK, which are checked and verified by the Borders Agency (the details of which are stored electronically and verified against the warning index).

Very few of the incidents and arrests in the UK or the arrests have involved foreign nationals. The idea that we don't control our borders at all is a misnomer - and its people who travelled overseas and returned to places like pakistan, Afghanistan etc who were likely the weak links that led the Security Services to identifying cells.

Now I do agree that we should control immigration from the EU more than we do, but no exit from the EU is going to result in a situation where suddenly the UK has more power to prevent people travelling to and from the UK - It will only require people to apply for working visas if they EU citizens - and it certainly won't apply to people coming as tourists, to study etc.

A Britexit isn't going to result in some idealised view where only British people live or come to the UK, or that the UK will have more much more power to prevent people coming to the UK, or that you could even ban Muslims from travelling to and from the UK.

It'll just return it to a pre-EU Freedom of Movement - which means applying for a working visa. In fact it would only affect 48% of UK migration.

You still need travel documents such as passports etc to legally enter the UK.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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A Brexit will give us more power over our borders. We could arbitrarily ban people from certain countries coming to the UK. We could introduce an ESTA type visa system to people from certain countries and we wouldnt be bound by Schengen, so there wouldnt be the automatic transit of people from the EU.

I do not agree with your 'it would change' nothing stance on Brexit. Its quite clear you are ideologically wedded to the social engineering project that is the EU. Why don't you just admit rather than pouring out meaningless blurb and 'Jamiefacts'?

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

In truth, having travelled around Europe a lot between 92 and 94, and then recently, not much has changed. You show your passport, go through security to get out. Its harder by plane, than by ferry and I've not been on the Eurostar, so I can't comment. But it all feels the same pretty much.

You mean the country with 200 different languages where 25% of the population were born overseas.

Mandatory detention only applies to people claiming asylum and refugee status. It doesn't apply to people travelling on legal documentation.

I don't really have a problem with the idea of detention of asylum applicants pending their application, provided the accommodations are reasonable and the treatment fair (i.e. they're used to fairly process people - Decent access to solicitors, translators, independent advice family wings, social rather than the reality of turning them into prisons).

Thing is, in the UK, asylum applications aren't a real problem.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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How effective border controls are depends on how draconian they are. A total ban on movement from the middle east and deportation of selected individuals would help a lot. Is it fair or desirable? No, but did we let Germans of Italians or Japanese come here in WW2?
Did we incarcerate citizens of those countries? Yes.

We are in a war now so let's act like it if we really want to reduce risk.

The fact is that European governments would rather let citizens die than do something that would cost them and their corporate buddies money.