Migrants crossing the channel reach a new record.

Cliff

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The Migrant problem has not been solved in spite of all the tough talk from the government.
There has to be a solution to reduce this number and bring migration back into control.
Some may be refugees fleeing war zones and some are just looking for a better life.
However the present situation is just a free for all.
Once people set foot on the beach, they are pretty much home and dry.

 
The Migrant problem has not been solved in spite of all the tough talk from the government.
There has to be a solution to reduce this number and bring migration back into control.
Some may be refugees fleeing war zones and some are just looking for a better life.
However the present situation is just a free for all.
Once people set foot on the beach, they are pretty much home and dry.


Well dry at least
 

A bill which will make knowingly arriving in the UK without permission a criminal offence has passed its latest parliamentary hurdle.

The bill will give Border Force officers the powers to turn back migrant boats attempting to cross the Channel from France and use "reasonable force, if necessary".

Prison sentences for those who enter the country without permission will increase from six months to four years and a maximum of life imprisonment for convicted people smugglers will be introduced.

And, for the first time, the way an individual arrives in the UK - legally or illegally - will have a bearing on whether their asylum application is accepted.

What could go wrong?
 
I'm sure Bexit was meant to reduce illegal immigration. It was talked about all the time in the campaign.

Are we to assume that was just a massive lie by the Leave supporters?
 
Absolutely astonishing.

Nige leaves the beach to take up residence in the GBeebies studio, and a day later the record is broken.

Incredible.
 
Funny, the UK makes all these threats to just send back migrant boats to France and then give France's Border Patrols another £55 million

I don’t understand why some people think it’s a problem for France to solve.

If migrants were leaving the UK by boat to go to France the anti immigration supporters would be buying the boats for them.
 
The Migrant problem has not been solved in spite of all the tough talk from the government.
There has to be a solution to reduce this number and bring migration back into control.
Some may be refugees fleeing war zones and some are just looking for a better life.
However the present situation is just a free for all.
Once people set foot on the beach, they are pretty much home and dry.

Because the government made it hard for asylum seekers to claim asylum outside the UK.
 
The Migrant problem has not been solved in spite of all the tough talk from the government.
There has to be a solution to reduce this number and bring migration back into control.
Some may be refugees fleeing war zones and some are just looking for a better life.
However the present situation is just a free for all.
Once people set foot on the beach, they are pretty much home and dry.


What is it that actually needs "solving"? A lot of people talk about solving it, but rarely are the problems actually identified.

Would not the solution be to work with our international partners as well? Rather than alienating them?

The present situation is down to 10 years of Tory incompetence, and I'd strongly disagree that setting foot on the beach is home and dry. Far from it. As evidenced only recently with some migrants having to wait 12 months for an initial assessment interview. And that's not Covid related.
 
It's not going to get any better, the Tories can pass as many immigration bills as they like. The sobering fact is as the planet warms up more and more, vast numbers of people are going to be displaced and will seek out safer places to live. That's one of the elephants in the room.

As I recall France has more patrol boats for it's waters than the UK does, and the UK has a far bigger coast to patrol. So maybe the Tories might want to start funding that more, instead of cheap stunts and passing bills that will likely break international law in one way or another.
 
Only when we start treating it like the humanitarian crisis it is, as opposed to the political football it most definitely isn't, will we be able to address it adequately enough to find a viable long term solution. That satisfies all parties.

But let's be brutally honest. That's not going to happen with the pantomime, and certainly not with Priti Awful headlining this particular act.
 
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It's not going to get any better, the Tories can pass as many immigration bills as they like. The sobering fact is as the planet warms up more and more, vast numbers of people are going to be displaced and will seek out safer places to live. That's one of the elephants in the room.

As I recall France has more patrol boats for it's waters than the UK does, and the UK has a far bigger coast to patrol. So maybe the Tories might want to start funding that more, instead of cheap stunts and passing bills that will likely break international law in one way or another.
It's already happening , I can't copy and paste for some reason but an article in Aljazeera estimated that in 2020 a record 55 million people had been displaced internally (within their own countries) due to extreme weather events.
 
It's already happening , I can't copy and paste for some reason but an article in Aljazeera estimated that in 2020 a record 55 million people had been displaced internally (within their own countries) due to extreme weather events.

Allow me.


From: Aljazeera 2020 55million displaced by extreme weather events - Google Search
 
Migrants are arriving on small boats, effectively bypassing the immigration system. People coming to this country and not passing through border control, must be discouraged.

If you live in a third world country, obtaining a visa to come to Britain is now really difficult. If you do this legally and succeed you have earned their right to stay.
Bypassing the system, arriving by small boat, is not fair on those that go through the correct procedures.
Successive governments have failed to stop the flow. Turn the clock back a decade or so and the French actually had a camp for immigrants just waiting for their chance to travel under a truck or on the Eurostar.
Whether the new Bill will succeed only time will tell.
 
Turn the clock back a decade or so and the French actually had a camp for immigrants just waiting for their chance to travel under a truck or on the Eurostar.
They also had them 4 weeks ago;


Can I ask what would you propose to ‘discourage’ them?

As Rich posted above, actively supporting people outside of the U.K., to improve their home country where possible, is surely a progressive step, but we’ve just seen our Government applauded for cutting foreign aid by the same people who voted in favour of a campaign which included the idea of, “taking back control of our borders”.

It kind of feels like those people are never happy.
 
They also had them 4 weeks ago;


Can I ask what would you propose to ‘discourage’ them?

As Rich posted above, actively supporting people outside of the U.K., to improve their home country where possible, is surely a progressive step, but we’ve just seen our Government applauded for cutting foreign aid by the same people who voted in favour of a campaign which included the idea of, “taking back control of our borders”.

It kind of feels like those people are never happy.
Unfortunately it’s not a simple matter of improving their home country.
A sample of the migrants questioned today, were Yemeni, Palestinian, Ertitrean, Chad, Egyptian, Sudanese, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Iranian, Indian, and Mali.
Foreign aid is hardly going to make a seismic change in their home countries.
Kuwait, India, Iran, Egypt, poor?
And as for the really poor countries, unless you colonise them again, or introduce a neo colonial policy, nothing will change. (I certainly don’t want colonisation )
Most have been independent from the Imperial powers for 60years or more and it is usually bad or corrupt government, tribalism or local wars that have kept them behind.

The ticket to cross the channel was around £3000 which goes to the smuggling gangs.
France is steering the migrants this way. They want rid of them, and our Coast guard picks them up.
The numbers this year have now eclipsed the figure for the whole of 2020.
8542
Quite rightly, the government needs to stop this.
 
8,542! That's almost as many as babies born in any 5 day period in the UK. We're full up. How can we support them all? The babies I mean. As with 1.5million EU nationals gone home and serious lack of labour the migrants can support themselves. But the babies. Getting all those handouts - cash or ISA up front just for being born and a weekly child benefit. For dribbling and sleeping 20 hours a day. They cant even speak the language. Or work.
 
You are missing they are physically impaired and can’t walk .

I had a couple and they were such a drain for 18 years
 
Unfortunately it’s not a simple matter of improving their home country.
A sample of the migrants questioned today, were Yemeni, Palestinian, Ertitrean, Chad, Egyptian, Sudanese, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Iranian, Indian, and Mali.
Foreign aid is hardly going to make a seismic change in their home countries.
Kuwait, India, Iran, Egypt, poor?
And as for the really poor countries, unless you colonise them again, or introduce a neo colonial policy, nothing will change. (I certainly don’t want colonisation )
Most have been independent from the Imperial powers for 60years or more and it is usually bad or corrupt government, tribalism or local wars that have kept them behind.

The ticket to cross the channel was around £3000 which goes to the smuggling gangs.
France is steering the migrants this way. They want rid of them, and our Coast guard picks them up.
The numbers this year have now eclipsed the figure for the whole of 2020.
8542
Quite rightly, the government needs to stop this.

Yet the bill is a clusterfudge. Breaks international obligation and law, alienates our allies, endangers the migrants even further. It is quite frankly a joke.

You're not wrong that it needs sorting out, so sooner or later the good folk of the UK are going to have to stop voting for clueless clowns who have no idea how to sort anything out.

And for the record even though I know we may not normally agree on many matters, I appreciate that you actually read the brief more than most. So what is it you think we need to do and how do we do it?
 
We vote for people who have no qualifications to do the job , regardless of party .

it could be said it’s always been so
 
We vote for people who have no qualifications to do the job , regardless of party .

it could be said it’s always been so

I don't disagree, but never before have we voted for such a level of imbecility. Creating a bill to solve a problem that actually makes the problem worse. Also throws in a bit of law breaking for good measure and trashes our international reputation.

Three birds with one stone.

I mean you've got to hand it to them.

I didn't even come across this first before I wrote the above, I was actually looking for something else. This is from yesterday however.

 
Unfortunately it’s not a simple matter of improving their home country.
A sample of the migrants questioned today, were Yemeni, Palestinian, Ertitrean, Chad, Egyptian, Sudanese, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Iranian, Indian, and Mali.
Foreign aid is hardly going to make a seismic change in their home countries.
Kuwait, India, Iran, Egypt, poor?
And as for the really poor countries, unless you colonise them again, or introduce a neo colonial policy, nothing will change. (I certainly don’t want colonisation )
Most have been independent from the Imperial powers for 60years or more and it is usually bad or corrupt government, tribalism or local wars that have kept them behind.

The ticket to cross the channel was around £3000 which goes to the smuggling gangs.
France is steering the migrants this way. They want rid of them, and our Coast guard picks them up.
The numbers this year have now eclipsed the figure for the whole of 2020.
8542
Quite rightly, the government needs to stop this.
I agree that it’s not a simple task, but what do you propose would work?

Introducing a new bill, which looks tough to impress the core Party voters, will only go so far (of course, winning votes is more important to this Government than actually solving any issues), so what next? Punishing those people who make the decision to pay their way across the Channel, and more worryingly those in the U.K. who choose to carry out a legal duty of care, won’t necessarily stop people coming.
 
If only we belonged to an organisation that gave us the right to return failed asylum seekers to the first EU country they entered. Wouldn't that be a great idea.
 
I have thoroughly enjoyed the literal shaking of rage on the DM comments threads for these stories. They got their precious brexit and, big surprise, it has not stopped the people coming over on boats at all. Its like a whole warehouse of toys being thrown out of prams. :)
 
The actual solution is to make the legal routes far easier to access so everyone can be documented and there is no need for any dangerous crossings.

It should also be noted that the UK gets far less immigration applications than others. We get 30K, Germany gets 130k!
 

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