Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
You and I may be complete amateurs but that puts us on a par, if not slightly ahead, of Russian Military Intelligence.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
There are laws against such arrangements. Perhaps we could enforce them better?
Good luck. People have been trying that or claiming that for decades.
£10k per person is already a substantial fine, plus the threat of imprisonment, and it still happens today.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Which is funny as the way to ensure they're gone is to ensure they're stopped. Its a bit of a Catch-22.
For local politicians in Calais, such a policy would require “holding the line” for several years. And doing something with the refugees already there. It would also mean trusting Paris to hold to the agreements, to do this.
Letting them get on boats to irritate the British or drown is a much more popular , short term policy.
I don't think this is right. Politicians in Pas de Calais are under pressure to abolish the Touquet Agreement that does limit Channel crossings somewhat. As far as they are concerned ;let the migrants go the UK - it's not France's problem. According to the Agreement French authorities will prevent ad hoc crossings of the Channel in exchange for the UK providing a safe route for asylum. Neither party is fully implementing its side of the agreement.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
That is a related issue that needs clamping down upon. A lot of cowboy companies avoid debt payments that way and it's an outrage to hard working people.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
That is a related issue that needs clamping down upon. A lot of cowboy companies avoid debt payments that way and it's an outrage to hard working people.
And one of the major contributing reasons other small businesses fail.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
I think you are supposed to phrase it more like this.....
"Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you or do you want babies to drown in the channel?"
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
I do, but I have little faith that much will change when its already been official policy for many decades.
The other problem with relying upon people 'dobbing in' their employers is the attitude that 'snitches get stitches'. These scum crooks are already criminals willing to break the law and the problem with criminals that are willing to break the law is that many are equally willing to resort to violence.
A lot of the victims of smuggling have families back home threatened with violence, or are threatened with violence here, so its not so easy for people to come forwards to report what is happening.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
I think you are supposed to phrase it more like this.....
"Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you or do you want babies to drown in the channel?"
People are drowning in the Channel today, that is a matter of fact and it is horrendous.
I want the drownings to stop and I want safe and legal routes instead, coming not from France but from the places of conflict (or nearby) where refugees are as David Cameron rightly recognised was the best way of doing it many years ago now.
Unless we stop the boat crossings, the drownings will continue. If we just allow crossings from France, people will drown on way to France, as they did when Merkel did that.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
Please do - anything is better than the endless whining and hand-wringing.
When the Even More Hostile Environment Policy finds illegal immigrants, what are we going to do with them? They are paperless.
Either we let them stay, errrr, errrr, uhmmm, or we have to deport them. Where?
They have no papers. We will need a third country to take them in. Perhaps Rwanda?
I believe you want a deterrent to stop people drowning. So there are two basic groups - refugees with kids who are on boats because there is no legal route for them to claim asylum here, and economic migrants.
We solve the first one by reopening legal routes for people to claim asylum. We solve the second one by removing the prospects of them working illegally. Stop the employer and you remove the prospective employee.
BTW your preferred deportation press release makes no provision for undocumented people who are already here.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
I do, but I have little faith that much will change when its already been official policy for many decades.
The other problem with relying upon people 'dobbing in' their employers is the attitude that 'snitches get stitches'. These scum crooks are already criminals willing to break the law and the problem with criminals that are willing to break the law is that many are equally willing to resort to violence.
A lot of the victims of smuggling have families back home threatened with violence, or are threatened with violence here, so its not so easy for people to come forwards to report what is happening.
Just perhaps we could take it for granted that none of us want to see babies drowning in the channel, or anywhere else for that matter. It is most superfluous to the debates around policy.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
Used to visit a friend who lived in Tooting, and warned me "Watch out for London drivers - they'll run you over as soon as look at you". But, yes, I can well believe NY and Paris are worse.
There does seem to be a new rule or indeed rules, a significant revision of the Highway Code:
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
There are laws against such arrangements. Perhaps we could enforce them better?
Good luck. People have been trying that or claiming that for decades.
£10k per person is already a substantial fine, plus the threat of imprisonment, and it still happens today.
The Government puts a lot of effort into benefit fraud. Perhaps it could put the same effort into corporate tax evasion, phoenix companies abusing bankruptcy laws and other corporate malfeasance.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
Please do - anything is better than the endless whining and hand-wringing.
I'm not whining or hand-wringing. I also have an 'out the box' solution. Free up space for refugees by rounding up everyone who thinks this is a morally defensible plan and shipping them off to Rwanda. One in, one out. Sorted.
Germany and France are very curious places to monitor right now. In France there is the danger of Le Pen winning the election and a large number of people willing to vote for Putin sympathising figures. Amazingly a poll suggested French people were more likely to think they would be worse affected by the sanctions than Russia would be. Latest models suggest Russian GDP contracting by 10-15% this year. Could Macron please point this out to people? Oh and a bit of smugness about France's lack of reliance on Russian energy compared with much of Europe might ease the worries.
In Germany polling suggested about half of people don't think the government is doing enough to support Ukraine. Most people support sending them heavy weapons (Greens most supportive!). Only the AFD are opposed. Yet the politicians prevaricate. I wonder once this is all over if we will find out just how deeply the tentacles of the Russian state penetrated into the SPD.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Which is funny as the way to ensure they're gone is to ensure they're stopped. Its a bit of a Catch-22.
For local politicians in Calais, such a policy would require “holding the line” for several years. And doing something with the refugees already there. It would also mean trusting Paris to hold to the agreements, to do this.
Letting them get on boats to irritate the British or drown is a much more popular , short term policy.
I don't think this is right. Politicians in Pas de Calais are under pressure to abolish the Touquet Agreement that does limit Channel crossings somewhat. As far as they are concerned ;let the migrants go the UK - it's not France's problem. According to the Agreement French authorities will prevent ad hoc crossings of the Channel in exchange for the UK providing a safe route for asylum. Neither party is fully implementing its side of the agreement.
In French politics, an international agreement that clashes with a domestic issue…. Loses.
This is why Chirac referred to Blair as “Ill mannered” for suggesting that an agreement to review the CAP should actually result in a review of the CAP.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
Germany has taken in many more migrants, yet they didn’t elect a Le Pen-type government.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you?
I do, but I have little faith that much will change when its already been official policy for many decades.
The other problem with relying upon people 'dobbing in' their employers is the attitude that 'snitches get stitches'. These scum crooks are already criminals willing to break the law and the problem with criminals that are willing to break the law is that many are equally willing to resort to violence.
A lot of the victims of smuggling have families back home threatened with violence, or are threatened with violence here, so its not so easy for people to come forwards to report what is happening.
Just perhaps we could take it for granted that none of us want to see babies drowning in the channel, or anywhere else for that matter. It is most superfluous to the debates around policy.
I think some people are against the idea of people drowning in theory but not against it enough to support action to stop it from happening.
A bit like Keir Starmer being against antisemitism in theory but not against it enough to resign from Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
I'm hearing Priti Patel is having second thoughts about Rwanda.
She's just going to send them all to live with MightyAlex instead. I'm assuming that's cool?
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
New law, I believe. Surprised me too. But perhaps another PBer can confirm?
I’m a Londoner. Been driving here 30 years or more. I’m not aware of any new law
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
So the families have turned down $1.5m, to probably end up with almost nothing as the company is bankrupt.
I really don't think money was ever the issue; some things you cannot put a price on.
Indeed.
Also Infowars has not filed for bankruptcy. It has filed for bankruptcy protection provisions, some system they have in the US but not here. They’re not saying they’re bankrupt yet.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
Its worth noting its Chapter 11, which isn't the same as in the UK e.g. US airlines seems spend more time in chapter 11 than not. It enables a certain level of protection from creditors while still continuing to trade, but is much more expensive and complex i.e. you really only do this if you think you can make your business work longer term.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
China is infamous for the heavy hand of the state imposing new laws / rules every week, but there is a weird dynamic of rampant flouting and bending of them. And the local officials turn blind eye, but always have something they can then punish people for should they choose to.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Which is funny as the way to ensure they're gone is to ensure they're stopped. Its a bit of a Catch-22.
For local politicians in Calais, such a policy would require “holding the line” for several years. And doing something with the refugees already there. It would also mean trusting Paris to hold to the agreements, to do this.
Letting them get on boats to irritate the British or drown is a much more popular , short term policy.
I don't think this is right. Politicians in Pas de Calais are under pressure to abolish the Touquet Agreement that does limit Channel crossings somewhat. As far as they are concerned ;let the migrants go the UK - it's not France's problem. According to the Agreement French authorities will prevent ad hoc crossings of the Channel in exchange for the UK providing a safe route for asylum. Neither party is fully implementing its side of the agreement.
In French politics, an international agreement that clashes with a domestic issue…. Loses.
This is why Chirac referred to Blair as “Ill mannered” for suggesting that an agreement to review the CAP should actually result in a review of the CAP.
If France retains le Touquet, controlling cross-Channel migration it is because it thinks that agreement is in France's interest. It is not doing it as a favour to the UK obviously. Point is, there is debate in France about whether the agreement is in France's interest, while it is certainly in the UK interest. Ultimately France will make its own choice - Macron is in favour, Le Pen is opposed.
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
All draconian states have their limit. Mostly bounded by incompetence.
I would not be surprised if vaccination was measured in targets of x doses per head of population. So officials, working to the targets, found it easiest to target the young.
The results will be disastrous - uniformly, around the world, when Omicron does it’s thing, the countries that emphasised vaccination if the elderly and using the top performing vaccines did well. Those that didn’t… they chose poorly….
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
All draconian states have their limit. Mostly bounded by incompetence.
I would not be surprised if vaccination was measured in targets of x doses per head of population. So officials, working to the targets, found it easiest to target the young.
The results will be disastrous - uniformly, around the world, when Omicron does it’s thing, the countries that emphasised vaccination if the elderly and using the top performing vaccines did well. Those that didn’t… they chose poorly….
Also under such a regime you will never really be open that you might be struggling to convince old people to get jabbed, instead find ways to fudge the numbers to meet the central targets. And as things go up the chain, again nobody is going to be pointing this out and hope it all just gets merged into the summary presented to the top of the chain.
Remember the leaked documents of the first recorded cases of COVID, it was the same, every rung up the ladder, it was always hiding / down playing the situation.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
I'm hearing Priti Patel is having second thoughts about Rwanda.
She's just going to send them all to live with MightyAlex instead. I'm assuming that's cool?
The Conservative party made this rod. Tens of thousands was the disingenuous 'promise' every election cycle. And when it turns out the problems far more complex than slogans allow for? Well there's another clearly unworkable policy spasmed out from the recesses. Sonic weapons, wave machines or Rwanda, and whatever else the Tufton street degenerates imagineer do not fix the issues.
Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the blatant propoganda.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point? It would be a very short war, starting and finishing with every known Russian missile base receiving an extra one or two. Kaliningrad would quickly look like Mariopol does now.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the blatant propoganda.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point? It would be a very short war, starting and finishing with every known Russian missile base receiving an extra one or two. Kaliningrad would quickly look like Mariopol does now.
Russia is hopelessly technologically outgunned against NATO when NATO are only partially committed by proxy.
Never say never but they have absolutely zero chance in a straight conflict.
“Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.”
This Isn’t going to “get better”. It’s probably going to get worse. It certainly won’t get better by expecting France to sign up to a deal which means they keep more refugees/migrants. That’s as delusional as “tens of thousands”
Ironically the one way things might improve is by the EU securing its own external borders by doing their whole Libya concentration camp thing everywhere. Meaning we can offshore our cruelty to Brussels
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
All draconian states have their limit. Mostly bounded by incompetence.
I would not be surprised if vaccination was measured in targets of x doses per head of population. So officials, working to the targets, found it easiest to target the young.
The results will be disastrous - uniformly, around the world, when Omicron does it’s thing, the countries that emphasised vaccination if the elderly and using the top performing vaccines did well. Those that didn’t… they chose poorly….
Also under such a regime you will never really be open that you might be struggling to convince old people to get jabbed, instead find ways to fudge the numbers to meet the central targets. And as things go up the chain, again nobody is going to be pointing this out and hope it all just gets merged into the summary presented to the top of the chain.
Remember the leaked documents of the first recorded cases of COVID, it was the same, every rung up the ladder, it was always hiding / down playing the situation.
In the old days of the Soviet Union exactly the same thing would happen - each level of the system would improve the numbers, until the data presented to the leadership was utter bullshit.
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
All draconian states have their limit. Mostly bounded by incompetence.
I would not be surprised if vaccination was measured in targets of x doses per head of population. So officials, working to the targets, found it easiest to target the young.
The results will be disastrous - uniformly, around the world, when Omicron does it’s thing, the countries that emphasised vaccination if the elderly and using the top performing vaccines did well. Those that didn’t… they chose poorly….
Also under such a regime you will never really be open that you might be struggling to convince old people to get jabbed, instead find ways to fudge the numbers to meet the central targets. And as things go up the chain, again nobody is going to be pointing this out and hope it all just gets merged into the summary presented to the top of the chain.
Remember the leaked documents of the first recorded cases of COVID, it was the same, every rung up the ladder, it was always hiding / down playing the situation.
In the old days of the Soviet Union exactly the same thing would happen - each level of the system would improve the numbers, until the data presented to the leadership was utter bullshit.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the blatant propoganda.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point?
No, but they would probably like to keep NATO guessing about the point where proxy aid from NATO to Ukraine turns into an escalatory action -- if they can keep NATO cautious about what aid they provide that's a benefit.
So the families have turned down $1.5m, to probably end up with almost nothing as the company is bankrupt.
I really don't think money was ever the issue; some things you cannot put a price on.
So what do they (and their expensive lawyers) want? Defamation is a civil offence, and the usual remedy is financial.
The verdict, and pound infowars into the ground?
The zillion dollar payouts, in the US, often result in constructive bankruptcy. The classic is that a sub company of the group takes all the blame. Legally isolated and without sufficient funds, it goes under. The plantiffs get pennies of their settlements….
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
Good job I said “one of the most densely populated” then, isn’t it? Twit
Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
You and I may be complete amateurs but that puts us on a par, if not slightly ahead, of Russian Military Intelligence.
“Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.”
This Isn’t going to “get better”. It’s probably going to get worse. It certainly won’t get better by expecting France to sign up to a deal which means they keep more refugees/migrants. That’s as delusional as “tens of thousands”
Ironically the one way things might improve is by the EU securing its own external borders by doing their whole Libya concentration camp thing everywhere. Meaning we can offshore our cruelty to Brussels
You will notice those arguing against the Rwanda policy never actually talk about results and processes in their better solutions, just about behaviors. "More cooperation with the French" - cooperation to do what? They never say. Because as soon as they get specific it becomes clear it wouldn't change the problem of illegal crossings. It would just mean more immigrants to the UK, which is what they want.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the blatant propoganda.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point? It would be a very short war, starting and finishing with every known Russian missile base receiving an extra one or two. Kaliningrad would quickly look like Mariopol does now.
So the Russian line is that the Norwegians (or Poles) gave the Ukrainians NSM?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
I'm hearing Priti Patel is having second thoughts about Rwanda.
She's just going to send them all to live with MightyAlex instead. I'm assuming that's cool?
The Conservative party made this rod. Tens of thousands was the disingenuous 'promise' every election cycle. And when it turns out the problems far more complex than slogans allow for? Well there's another clearly unworkable policy spasmed out from the recesses. Sonic weapons, wave machines or Rwanda, and whatever else the Tufton street degenerates imagineer do not fix the issues.
Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.
What thorny issues and what would be the way we solve them with France? Be specific.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
The claim of most dense country isn't true, but it was England mentioned, not the UK. England is definitely more densely populated than Rwanda.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
UK pop density is a silly statistic because Highland Scotland
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
My guess is that younger people had to vaccinate as a condition of employment or education while older people are mostly at home and don't have the same pressure.
China is a low trust society. Draconian rules only partly compensate for that.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
Such comparisons are misleading. You only have to think of countries like Australia and Canada where a large chunk of the land is essentially uninhabitable to see why. What you want to do is compare something like the population density of urban centres.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
The claim of most dense country isn't true, but it was England mentioned, not the UK. England is definitely more densely populated than Rwanda.
I don't think it is.
England is still "one of" the most densely populated in the world that claim was obviously correct, along with the Netherlands and Rwanda, but Rwanda is more I believe.
“Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.”
This Isn’t going to “get better”. It’s probably going to get worse. It certainly won’t get better by expecting France to sign up to a deal which means they keep more refugees/migrants. That’s as delusional as “tens of thousands”
Ironically the one way things might improve is by the EU securing its own external borders by doing their whole Libya concentration camp thing everywhere. Meaning we can offshore our cruelty to Brussels
You will notice those arguing against the Rwanda policy never actually talk about results and processes in their better solutions, just about behaviors. "More cooperation with the French" - cooperation to do what? They never say. Because as soon as they get specific it becomes clear it wouldn't change the problem of illegal crossings. It would just mean more immigrants to the UK, which is what they want.
Sea crossings jumped dramatically in 2021 which just so happens to be after the Brexit transition period so clearly there has been less co-operation with the French .
And then there’s the issue with the NI protocol hanging there .
The French won’t help until that’s resolved and the threat to trigger Article 16 is removed . It would have been cheaper to hand more money over to the French and seek a better agreement but this is being further hindered by the French elections .
Fundamentally the current processing of refugees isn’t working , outsourcing this to Rwanda won’t solve the issue and morally is unacceptable.
If post Brexit relations can be improved with the French the best solution is one that has the UK and France working together much more closely .
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
The claim of most dense country isn't true, but it was England mentioned, not the UK. England is definitely more densely populated than Rwanda.
I don't think it is.
England is still "one of" the most densely populated in the world that claim was obviously correct, along with the Netherlands and Rwanda, but Rwanda is more I believe.
I don't have stats to hand but England is about half of the land mass of the UK and has near 90% of the population. That must overtake Rwanda on the numbers cited.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
The claim of most dense country isn't true, but it was England mentioned, not the UK. England is definitely more densely populated than Rwanda.
England’s population density, according to Wikipedia, is 1119 per square mile, very similar to but slightly less than Rwanda’s. Perhaps you should be more careful using words like “definitely”?
Also, the four nations comprising the UK do not have separate asylum policies. The UK is the relevant level to consider.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
The claim of most dense country isn't true, but it was England mentioned, not the UK. England is definitely more densely populated than Rwanda.
I don't think it is.
England is still "one of" the most densely populated in the world that claim was obviously correct, along with the Netherlands and Rwanda, but Rwanda is more I believe.
I don't have stats to hand but England is about half of the land mass of the UK and has near 90% of the population. That must overtake Rwanda on the numbers cited.
England is more than half so your maths doesn't work I'm afraid, though it does get fairly close.
England population density* 432/sq km = 1118/sq mi < 1217/sq mi
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
UK pop density is a silly statistic because Highland Scotland
Talking about any country’s population density is pretty silly when considering how to handle those fleeing war and tyranny, but those supporting the Rwanda deal started talking about it, so I thought I’d give the figures.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
Yes, it's just legal boilerplate which purports to wash our hands of any problems which emerge once we've deported them.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
What on earth are you wibbling about. In the last 20 years the UK has experienced the greatest wave of immigration in its entire history. England is now one of the most densely populated countries on earth. We will still take in 300k a year, even after Brexit
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
We take relatively few refugees. And there are ways to be better on this without abdicating control of the borders. It's just it takes some graft and imagination. One of the (many) problems with this government is they either won't or can't do the work and the thinking necessary to solve problems. Instead they're focused 100% on shoring up Johnson by pandering to his base. You don't get good policy that way. Or let's say you stack the odds against it.
England has a lower population density than the Netherlands to name one other country. "Most densly populated on Earth" my arse.
UK population density: 701 per square mile (50th in the world) Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
UK pop density is a silly statistic because Highland Scotland
Talking about any country’s population density is pretty silly when considering how to handle those fleeing war and tyranny, but those supporting the Rwanda deal started talking about it, so I thought I’d give the figures.
Rwanda's biggest problems are financial etc more than density though. If UK money can aid Rwandans pre-existing population then an agreement between the nations can be a win/win for both.
If their government is happy to reach an agreement, then great.
No; it's that people are choosing to defecate in the wild much more. Must be a trend, like wild swimming.
It's a serious issue for the environment, all that wild defecation. Like the John Muir Trust had to ban the deposition of cremated ashes on the top of Ben Nevis etc because of the impact of all that fertiliser on the alpine/montane flora.
No; it's that people are choosing to defecate in the wild much more. Must be a trend, like wild swimming.
It's a serious issue for the environment, all that wild defecation. Like the John Muir Trust had to ban the deposition of cremated ashes on the top of Ben Nevis etc because of the impact of all that fertiliser on the alpine/montane flora.
I await the daily Guardian articles on how liberating it is.....
No; it's that people are choosing to defecate in the wild much more. Must be a trend, like wild swimming.
It's a serious issue for the environment, all that wild defecation. Like the John Muir Trust had to ban the deposition of cremated ashes on the top of Ben Nevis etc because of the impact of all that fertiliser on the alpine/montane flora.
Defecation in the wild has always been a thing, but experienced walkers know to do it off the track, and hopefully have a trowel to dig a hole and cover it up. I suspect the current crop is due to lack of country education.
Rwanda clearly appeals to the Nasty Party element within the Conservatives. I can see others providing some support for it on the basis that this stuff is difficult, I don't understand the policy but at least they're trying to do something. On the whole I don't think most people are particularly engaged on this topic, but the appalled probably at least equal the enthusiasts.
No; it's that people are choosing to defecate in the wild much more. Must be a trend, like wild swimming.
It's a serious issue for the environment, all that wild defecation. Like the John Muir Trust had to ban the deposition of cremated ashes on the top of Ben Nevis etc because of the impact of all that fertiliser on the alpine/montane flora.
Defecation in the wild has always been a thing, but experienced walkers know to do it off the track, and hopefully have a trowel to dig a hole and cover it up. I suspect the current crop is due to lack of country education.
Quite; still got my miniature aluminium trowel ...
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
I've suggested an alternate policy to you at least a couple of times.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
Must not make things too easy for people fleeing for their lives eh Philip?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
Must not make things too easy for people fleeing for their lives eh Philip?
Has the situation gotten so bad in France that people there are fleeing for their lives?
I have said we should do more to take people who are genuinely fleeing for their lives from conflict zones and their neighbours like Turkey, Poland etc through safe and legal means.
France is neither a conflict zone nor the neighbour to one. Anyone in France is there through choice and has ceased to flee for their lives already, if they ever were.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
It's firefighting but it'd score 2 ticks - we'd close the deficit in the number of refugees we take and there'd be fewer crossings on flimsy boats. Structurally it's a thorny problem, nobody in their right mind thinks otherwise. The supply of people fleeing war, persecution and poverty is greater than the appetite of wealthy countries to take them in. That's why it needs vision, goodwill and cooperation amongst those countries. At the moment our government are demonstrating precious little of any of these qualities. Everything is half arsed and done with a view to keeping Johnson in his job.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
The solution involves taking refugees directly from war zones around the world, allowing individual claims at embassies, and making it very clear that no-one arriving on a small boat will ever be allowed to settle in the UK.
There also needs to be a general principle of time-limited refuge - in the majority of cases, war zones benefit from refugees returning once the war is over. See Ukraine as a good example, where the refugees are mostly women and children.
The French would clearly like to see less refugees turning up in Calais so it’s not like they’re happy with the current situation but whether people like to admit it or not Brexit has effected things .
Some people also seem to forget that French politicians are under pressure and have their own voters to think about.
Without much better co-operation between the UK and France the problem will remain . Hopefully if Macron wins a page can be turned on the past and better post Brexit relations can come about which can facilitate a more joined up approach to refugees .
Bizarely some in the right wing press are cheering on Le Pen simply because she’s anti EU ignoring the fact she’ll be less likely to co-operate on the refugee issue , and at the same time pissing off no 10 with her stance on Russia and NATO.
At a time when UK EU relations have improved we need that to go further and the last thing we need is a Putin lapdog in the Elysee .
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
Given how crap everything else that Russia makes is, I do wonder how accurate some of their weapons really are.
I wonder if the tyre shop is close to something of more importance militarily.
The missile that broke my windows landed on a school, but the school was 100m away from the regional administraton’s town hall.
Exactly, it might not have been the target at all. There's a big difference between "a garage was hit" and "a garage was targetted".
Hmmmm. Agree that it probably missed and Mr Tyres was just unfortunate. Assuming he does not have a missile factory underneath.
I note that:
1 - A Kalibr costs more like $1.5m than $6.5m. 2 - Accuracy over land is 50m-150m, which is a lot of space. A 150m circle is 20 acres. At normal densities that's a Housing Estate of 250 houses. Or 1/296842 of the area of Wales.
Putin calls the Palestinian leader for a bit of a cheer-up. Never has a man in Palestine been more surprised, and there have been a lot of surprises in the area historically!
We should co-operate with the French. . Would that mean towing all the boats back to France? It must be embarrassing to the French that so many would risk their lives to escape from that God forsaken country.
I detect a touch of hysteria in the air this morning. Yes, BoJo is a lazy, fat, good-for-nothing, with a disdain for the truth, but what really annoys some posters is that he's lucky. 'It's not fair' is what they're really saying. He has no principles we can pin him down to, because he's looking after number one all the time.
He's the exact opposite of a political activist, and that's his only saving grace. At least, he won't be exhorting others to glue their heads to pipelines in an effort to blackmail normal people. And when did the electorate gain this sense of self-importance?
Seriously, I would quite like a politician who admits he doesn't know everything. We're on a journey of exploration in a changing world, and we need to be free to change our minds. Unfortunately, we end up with a Boris, or a fool who thinks he knows all the answers.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
It's firefighting but it'd score 2 ticks - we'd close the deficit in the number of refugees we take and there'd be fewer crossings on flimsy boats. Structurally it's a thorny problem, nobody in their right mind thinks otherwise. The supply of people fleeing war, persecution and poverty is greater than the appetite of wealthy countries to take them in. That's why it needs vision, goodwill and cooperation amongst those countries. At the moment our government are demonstrating precious little of any of these qualities. Everything is half arsed and done with a view to keeping Johnson in his job.
No it'd make matters worse not better.
It would increase the pull factor to France which would increase the amount of people making deadly crossings from Africa (often on rickety boats) to and through Europe to Calais and unless it was an open door policy from there, those who don't legally get past Calais would still take boats across the Channel.
If you perceive a "deficit" in us taking refugees, we should do so from conflict zones and states neighbouring conflict zones as we already do and as Cameron very rightly set up policies for which continue to this day. Not France.
The French would clearly like to see less refugees turning up in Calais so it’s not like they’re happy with the current situation but whether people like to admit it or not Brexit has effected things .
Some people also seem to forget that French politicians are under pressure and have their own voters to think about.
Without much better co-operation between the UK and France the problem will remain . Hopefully if Macron wins a page can be turned on the past and better post Brexit relations can come about which can facilitate a more joined up approach to refugees .
Bizarely some in the right wing press are cheering on Le Pen simply because she’s anti EU ignoring the fact she’ll be less likely to co-operate on the refugee issue , and at the same time pissing off no 10 with her stance on Russia and NATO.
At a time when UK EU relations have improved we need that to go further and the last thing we need is a Putin lapdog in the Elysee .
If you succeed in deterring people from pursuing irregular migration routes, then you solve the problem without any dependency on cooperation from France.
The French would clearly like to see less refugees turning up in Calais so it’s not like they’re happy with the current situation but whether people like to admit it or not Brexit has effected things .
Some people also seem to forget that French politicians are under pressure and have their own voters to think about.
Without much better co-operation between the UK and France the problem will remain . Hopefully if Macron wins a page can be turned on the past and better post Brexit relations can come about which can facilitate a more joined up approach to refugees .
Bizarely some in the right wing press are cheering on Le Pen simply because she’s anti EU ignoring the fact she’ll be less likely to co-operate on the refugee issue , and at the same time pissing off no 10 with her stance on Russia and NATO.
At a time when UK EU relations have improved we need that to go further and the last thing we need is a Putin lapdog in the Elysee .
I'm not so optimistic about Mons. Macron.
But I agree relations have improved in some respects - eg the argument wrt fishing licenses has gone into quiescence in the last week.
There was a quiet period at the start of the Ukraine war, though the French Govt reignited things after a couple of weeks by starting shouting away about 'take more refugees', when their own numbers are remarkably similar to our own. I put that down to Mr Macron electioneering, or needing to distract from his humiliation by Mr Putin, or French companies continuing to operate in Russia.
I'd also point out that the last time we tried to cooperate with France, Mr Marcon had a tantrum and excluded us from the conference to talk about it.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the blatant propoganda.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point?
No, but they would probably like to keep NATO guessing about the point where proxy aid from NATO to Ukraine turns into an escalatory action -- if they can keep NATO cautious about what aid they provide that's a benefit.
There’s no chance now that the NATO countries stop arming Ukraine. If anything, the arms are coming faster than ever, and the US and UK are sending heavy vehicles across the border from Poland.
In the eyes of most NATO countries, the more they can destroy the Russian military the better. It’s a once-in-a-generation chance to actually beat up the Russkis, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest they’re dealing with a paper bear, woefully short of equipment and unable to manufacture replacement weapons.
R4 - Russian commentator Sergei Markov saying that Moskva was sunk by Norwegian transferred missile while UK/US electronic warfare kept defences confused - so “it was NATO not Ukraine that did it.” Also argued that Russian advance was slow in order to protect Ukrainian civilians…..
Russia being defeated by Ukraine is an idea too humiliating to be contemplated. Russia being defeated by NATO is actually OK. NATO countries, in particular the US, are perceived by Russia as peers and it also fits in with its narrative of Russia being the victim.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
It's firefighting but it'd score 2 ticks - we'd close the deficit in the number of refugees we take and there'd be fewer crossings on flimsy boats. Structurally it's a thorny problem, nobody in their right mind thinks otherwise. The supply of people fleeing war, persecution and poverty is greater than the appetite of wealthy countries to take them in. That's why it needs vision, goodwill and cooperation amongst those countries. At the moment our government are demonstrating precious little of any of these qualities. Everything is half arsed and done with a view to keeping Johnson in his job.
The conflation of those fleeing war and persecution, with those fleeing ‘poverty’, is a huge part of the problem.
The first two categories are refugees, the latter are economic migrants who should be expected to apply through the usual formal immigration channels.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
The choice isn't between offloading our refugees to Rwanda and accepting everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK. That's the Tory line on this - designed to paint opposition to this godless extremity as meaning support for open borders - but it's silly when you think about it. It doesn't follow at all.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
That is the choice, it isn't nonsense.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The need is for a new international framework on refugees because the current set-up doesn't work. The government should lobby for that and in the meantime work with France to reduce the crossings. Offer them something of value and in return agree to take greater numbers via a safe mode of transport. This, deporting our refugees to Africa, is not the way.
But taking more numbers via a safe mode will just increase the size of campers in Calais, as Merkel showed.
Must not make things too easy for people fleeing for their lives eh Philip?
Has the situation gotten so bad in France that people there are fleeing for their lives?
I have said we should do more to take people who are genuinely fleeing for their lives from conflict zones and their neighbours like Turkey, Poland etc through safe and legal means.
France is neither a conflict zone nor the neighbour to one. Anyone in France is there through choice and has ceased to flee for their lives already, if they ever were.
Several aid agencies have stated that the refugees must be allowed to leave France because of the horrific conditions there.
Comments
£10k per person is already a substantial fine, plus the threat of imprisonment, and it still happens today.
"Yes. I want a more hostile environment against crooked company directors cheating the tax system by paying illegal employees in cash. Don't you or do you want babies to drown in the channel?"
The other problem with relying upon people 'dobbing in' their employers is the attitude that 'snitches get stitches'. These scum crooks are already criminals willing to break the law and the problem with criminals that are willing to break the law is that many are equally willing to resort to violence.
A lot of the victims of smuggling have families back home threatened with violence, or are threatened with violence here, so its not so easy for people to come forwards to report what is happening.
Either we let them stay, errrr, errrr, uhmmm, or we have to deport them. Where?
They have no papers. We will need a third country to take them in. Perhaps Rwanda?
I want the drownings to stop and I want safe and legal routes instead, coming not from France but from the places of conflict (or nearby) where refugees are as David Cameron rightly recognised was the best way of doing it many years ago now.
Unless we stop the boat crossings, the drownings will continue. If we just allow crossings from France, people will drown on way to France, as they did when Merkel did that.
But dropping that sort of nonsense (please) I guess we just see this thing differently. You see a pragmatic, hard-headed innovation aimed at smashing the trafficking gangs and preventing drownings in the Channel. I see a wealthy nation with a history of inserting itself uninvited into the affairs and territories of others now pulling every trick in the book to avoid taking its fair share of people fleeing war and persecution whilst patting itself on the back and pronouncing how compassionate it is. It makes me want to put my head in a bucket quite frankly.
London has always been a surprisingly civilised placed to drive and walk, compared to other world cities like Paris and New York
I’ve just driven from Camden to Hampstead. Everyone very polite. No hooting. Lots of cars letting other cars pull out etc. This is not new
We solve the first one by reopening legal routes for people to claim asylum. We solve the second one by removing the prospects of them working illegally. Stop the employer and you remove the prospective employee.
BTW your preferred deportation press release makes no provision for undocumented people who are already here.
Merkel tried just saying she'd accept anyone who came and record numbers of people died in the crossings to Europe as a result, it was a humanitarian disaster. If we do the same thing, the same will happen. If we say we'll take anyone who is in Calais going forwards then millions will attempt the crossing to Calais and many will die in the process, how can I know that for certain? Because it happened only a couple of years ago already. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The safe and humane way to take our "fair share" of asylum seekers is not from France, but from areas with asylum seekers like Poland (now) and Turkey (then) etc as David Cameron said years ago. The UK has safe and legal routes already, but some people don't want to try their chances with the safe and legal routes so will try alternative routes which is not a "Tory line" it is something even @NickPalmer and Tony Blair rightly recognised.
I am not against migrants coming, I would love us to take even more asylum seekers as part of our "fair share" but we should be taking them through legal routes safely and humanely from conflict zones, not from France.
The trouble is, there is a limit. And we are close to it. Unless you want a Le Pen type government in London, which I presume you don’t. But that is what your virtue signalling immigration non-policy would achieve
There does seem to be a new rule or indeed rules, a significant revision of the Highway Code:
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/new-highway-code-rules-what-you-need-to-know/
In Germany polling suggested about half of people don't think the government is doing enough to support Ukraine. Most people support sending them heavy weapons (Greens most supportive!). Only the AFD are opposed. Yet the politicians prevaricate. I wonder once this is all over if we will find out just how deeply the tentacles of the Russian state penetrated into the SPD.
https://twitter.com/tetriano/status/1515686779088691202?s=20&t=CniTB30YTUxV-JWJKHx_xA
This is why Chirac referred to Blair as “Ill mannered” for suggesting that an agreement to review the CAP should actually result in a review of the CAP.
A bit like Keir Starmer being against antisemitism in theory but not against it enough to resign from Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
She's just going to send them all to live with MightyAlex instead. I'm assuming that's cool?
Quite a few drivers without licenses, insurance etc taken off the road.
It was around the time the legal mini cab trade really took off.
Also Infowars has not filed for bankruptcy. It has filed for bankruptcy protection provisions, some system they have in the US but not here. They’re not saying they’re bankrupt yet.
I accept the stat but finding it puzzling. How do we square it with the image of the draconian Chinese state?
I would not be surprised if vaccination was measured in targets of x doses per head of population. So officials, working to the targets, found it easiest to target the young.
The results will be disastrous - uniformly, around the world, when Omicron does it’s thing, the countries that emphasised vaccination if the elderly and using the top performing vaccines did well. Those that didn’t… they chose poorly….
Remember the leaked documents of the first recorded cases of COVID, it was the same, every rung up the ladder, it was always hiding / down playing the situation.
The Conservative party made this rod. Tens of thousands was the disingenuous 'promise' every election cycle. And when it turns out the problems far more complex than slogans allow for?
Well there's another clearly unworkable policy spasmed out from the recesses. Sonic weapons, wave machines or Rwanda, and whatever else the Tufton street degenerates imagineer do not fix the issues.
Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.
Does Russia really want to declare war on NATO at this point? It would be a very short war, starting and finishing with every known Russian missile base receiving an extra one or two. Kaliningrad would quickly look like Mariopol does now.
Never say never but they have absolutely zero chance in a straight conflict.
“Want my view? This will only get better when all the horrible little thorny issues are faced up to and worked out. The key one being our relationship with France. But, there is no patience for good governance and poor headlines in a cabinet headed by journalists.”
This Isn’t going to “get better”. It’s probably going to get worse. It certainly won’t get better by expecting France to sign up to a deal which means they keep more refugees/migrants. That’s as delusional as “tens of thousands”
Ironically the one way things might improve is by the EU securing its own external borders by doing their whole Libya concentration camp thing everywhere. Meaning we can offshore our cruelty to Brussels
The zillion dollar payouts, in the US, often result in constructive bankruptcy. The classic is that a sub company of the group takes all the blame. Legally isolated and without sufficient funds, it goes under. The plantiffs get pennies of their settlements….
Rwanda population density: 1217 per square mile
Snowdonia authority tells hikers to visit toilet before climbing
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61138653
China is a low trust society. Draconian rules only partly compensate for that.
England is still "one of" the most densely populated in the world that claim was obviously correct, along with the Netherlands and Rwanda, but Rwanda is more I believe.
And then there’s the issue with the NI protocol hanging there .
The French won’t help until that’s resolved and the threat to trigger Article 16 is removed . It would have been cheaper to hand more money over to the French and seek a better agreement but this is being further hindered by the French elections .
Fundamentally the current processing of refugees isn’t working , outsourcing this to Rwanda won’t solve the issue and morally is unacceptable.
If post Brexit relations can be improved with the French the best solution is one that has the UK and France working together much more closely .
Also, the four nations comprising the UK do not have separate asylum policies. The UK is the relevant level to consider.
England population density* 432/sq km = 1118/sq mi < 1217/sq mi
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2019
As if she hasn't got enough earthly enemies....
If their government is happy to reach an agreement, then great.
It's a serious issue for the environment, all that wild defecation. Like the John Muir Trust had to ban the deposition of cremated ashes on the top of Ben Nevis etc because of the impact of all that fertiliser on the alpine/montane flora.
Highway Code changes bedding in?
Or was it Gandalf Corner?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUb1MFtEBZE
I have said we should do more to take people who are genuinely fleeing for their lives from conflict zones and their neighbours like Turkey, Poland etc through safe and legal means.
France is neither a conflict zone nor the neighbour to one. Anyone in France is there through choice and has ceased to flee for their lives already, if they ever were.
There also needs to be a general principle of time-limited refuge - in the majority of cases, war zones benefit from refugees returning once the war is over. See Ukraine as a good example, where the refugees are mostly women and children.
Some people also seem to forget that French politicians are under pressure and have their own voters to think about.
Without much better co-operation between the UK and France the problem will remain . Hopefully if Macron wins a page can be turned on the past and better post Brexit relations can come about which can facilitate a more joined up approach to refugees .
Bizarely some in the right wing press are cheering on Le Pen simply because she’s anti EU ignoring the fact she’ll be less likely to co-operate on the refugee issue , and at the same time pissing off no 10 with her stance on Russia and NATO.
At a time when UK EU relations have improved we need that to go further and the last thing we need is a Putin lapdog in the Elysee .
I note that:
1 - A Kalibr costs more like $1.5m than $6.5m.
2 - Accuracy over land is 50m-150m, which is a lot of space. A 150m circle is 20 acres. At normal densities that's a Housing Estate of 250 houses. Or 1/296842 of the area of Wales.
It must be embarrassing to the French that so many would risk their lives to escape from that God forsaken country.
It would increase the pull factor to France which would increase the amount of people making deadly crossings from Africa (often on rickety boats) to and through Europe to Calais and unless it was an open door policy from there, those who don't legally get past Calais would still take boats across the Channel.
If you perceive a "deficit" in us taking refugees, we should do so from conflict zones and states neighbouring conflict zones as we already do and as Cameron very rightly set up policies for which continue to this day. Not France.
But I agree relations have improved in some respects - eg the argument wrt fishing licenses has gone into quiescence in the last week.
There was a quiet period at the start of the Ukraine war, though the French Govt reignited things after a couple of weeks by starting shouting away about 'take more refugees', when their own numbers are remarkably similar to our own. I put that down to Mr Macron electioneering, or needing to distract from his humiliation by Mr Putin, or French companies continuing to operate in Russia.
I'd also point out that the last time we tried to cooperate with France, Mr Marcon had a tantrum and excluded us from the conference to talk about it.
In the eyes of most NATO countries, the more they can destroy the Russian military the better. It’s a once-in-a-generation chance to actually beat up the Russkis, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest they’re dealing with a paper bear, woefully short of equipment and unable to manufacture replacement weapons.
The first two categories are refugees, the latter are economic migrants who should be expected to apply through the usual formal immigration channels.
This means that France is a failed state.
They also have a small amount of oil production.
Hmmmm….
"Why is it blocked?"
"They want max disruption to stop the Govt extracting oil."
"That's cooking oil!"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2664365/Video-Man-informs-reporter-Just-Stop-Oil-targeting-wrong-type-oil.html