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.
The idea that there are two, distinct categories - economic migrants and refugees is wrong.
There is a continuum. For example, an Indian friend is a Christian. His church at home has been burnt down twice in the last ten years. He has come to the U.K. as a skilled worker, not claiming asylum. But part of his reason is being able to go to a church which he can depend on not being on fire.
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.
Yes, there are grey areas but we need the different definitions and should apply them best we can. Most refugees *are* refugees though. They are also people not just numbers or a problem. It's pure dumb luck that an indigenous Brit is a person with the right to live here and isn't in their position. Merit has nothing to do with it. I think this sentiment is not felt as widely or deeply as it should be. If it were we'd have a better take on the issue.
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 MLP wins she'll be stood on the beach at Grande-Synthe handing out free canoes.
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.
Actually you're inadvertently misquoting me (and Tony Blair) there - the point I was making is that there has to be a reasonable chance of success with a safe and legal route, as otherwise people will try alternative routes. Nor is it sensible to make them all queue up in Calais. If we made it clear that we'd give reasonable consideration to anyone approaching their local British Embassy or consulate wherever they are now, perhaps with an annual limit on people not eligible on asylum grounds, then it would disperse the issue to consulates around the world. They'd need to be beefed up to cope with the applications, but that'd probably be cheaper and certainly more orderly than battling the current flow of boats.
You say that we have safe and legal routes already, but that's not my understanding. If you can get to British soil, you'll get a hearing. If you can't and just turn up in the Embassy in (say) Damascus, I don't think you've much chance, if any, have you? So if you're a Syrian and want to com eto Britain, your only realistic option is to sign up with a people-smuggler to get you to France and then, with luck, across the Channel. Having magically touched British soil, you can either go underground or simply claim asylum then.
Governments could then quietly decide how many approvals to give, based on current emergencies and what they felt Britain can handle. There would be scope to vote for parties with more or less generous attitudes. The point is that we should be trying to divert the flow to local consulates, rather than make the test whether you have touched ground in Britain - because the latter really sends a signal that you need to find a smuggler.
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There is a continuum. For example, an Indian friend is a Christian. His church at home has been burnt down twice in the last ten years. He has come to the U.K. as a skilled worker, not claiming asylum. But part of his reason is being able to go to a church which he can depend on not being on fire.
You say that we have safe and legal routes already, but that's not my understanding. If you can get to British soil, you'll get a hearing. If you can't and just turn up in the Embassy in (say) Damascus, I don't think you've much chance, if any, have you? So if you're a Syrian and want to com eto Britain, your only realistic option is to sign up with a people-smuggler to get you to France and then, with luck, across the Channel. Having magically touched British soil, you can either go underground or simply claim asylum then.
Governments could then quietly decide how many approvals to give, based on current emergencies and what they felt Britain can handle. There would be scope to vote for parties with more or less generous attitudes. The point is that we should be trying to divert the flow to local consulates, rather than make the test whether you have touched ground in Britain - because the latter really sends a signal that you need to find a smuggler.
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