The refugee crisis

Even living out here in HK, one cannot avoid the refugee crisis that is happening in the Europe and the UK in particular.
From truck stowaways, cross channel swimmers and drowned toddlers, this has been the headline news on CCTV, Phoenix TV and TVB here in HK. There are many harrowing stories and but if you see through the emotional photos and footage a few facts need to be made clear.

Refugee or not.

Assuming they are all refugees fleeing persecution, why haven't they all sought refuge in first safe destination. Why do they have to seek refuge in certain European countries?  Also apart from a few tragic examples, most of these refugees are young men, if governments persecute people then they would persecute men and women, young and old.  Could it be to do the fact that the UK and Germany have a good social security structure?

 

Crisis due to western intervention

Germany has opened up its doors to these refugees from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea, but Germany has not been involved in any of these conflicts.  The UK was involved in Iraq and Afghanistan and now partially in Syria.  Other countries have been heavily involved in the Syrian conflict including Iran and Russia(both on the Assad side), the Gulf states, Saudia Arabia and Turkey (on the side of ISIS).  So far these countries have failed to take in any refugees.  The other form of western intervention has been British muslim teenagers going to Syria to join IS, apparently without their parent's knowledge!  Surely Iran and Russia should open their borders.  This argument does look very thin.

 

Isn't the UK in austerity.
We keep hearing that the UK is in austerity, but the left wants the UK to let these 'refugees' in, so how can the British taxpayer pay for all this when the UK is already in tough economic times?  Suddenly we regard to foreigners, austerity is ignored.