I guess "moderate" is a relative term. Although I suspect that we disagree on many issues, including this one, the fact that you accept that there is an obligation to accept genuine refugees (#14) and that their interests do count for something does cause me to hold you in less disdain than I hold the BNP and their supporters.

We must indeed agree to disagree on whether a nation should first have a moral obligation to the people within that nation state. (I assume that by ‘within’ you are referring to citizens of that country). I happen not to believe in hereditary rights and do not believe that the identity of an individual’s parents or the location that that individual happened to be born in can confer any additional rights or claims to that individual. A discussion of this though, would take us far outside the remit of this article and, as you say, we should agree to disagree.

However, I can’t help but comment that even if the principle that a country should first have a moral obligation to its citizens is accepted, it does not imply that many nations including our own should not do more to address the situation of refugees. Having a primary moral obligation to one group means that you should consider the interests of that group first, only where the interests are comparable and similarly pressing. In the case of modern, developed nations, the interests of their citizens in not having refugees admitted are either negative or non-existent (since refugees often actually bring benefits to the countries they settle in) or, if such interests do exist, they are trivial in comparison to the interests of those fleeing persecution. Refugees accepted into another country have a good chance of leading a satisfactory and fulfilling life. Those who are not accepted often face unjustified imprisonment, torture or death. It is clear that those with the most pressing and fundamental interests at stake are the refugees themselves and even if a limited prejudice in favour of the citizens of the country was justified, it could not excuse these interests being ignored.