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Getting into a culture war with the RNLI looks pretty dumb – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    algarkirk said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    Yes, got a (former, too old now) mountain rescuer in the EF, too. And a couple of surf rescuers down in Cornwall. Admirable people, those who do that.

    Is Denmark getting a reduction in asylum seekers? Or do they get processed more quickly than here? In any event, apparently treated more humanely than appears to be the case in UK?
    What Denmark are doing is opening a migrant processing centre, likely to be in Rwanda. Anyone arriving in Denmark and claiming asylum is sent there, and if their application is successful they’re allowed to settle in Rwanda, with the Danish government paying the Rwandan government for each settled migrant. No-one arriving in Denmark by boat and claiming asylum, will be allowed to resettle in Denmark.

    Trying to find a link that isn’t screaming about the system one way or the other is difficult, this most impartial one I can quickly find.
    https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/28/migrants-who-want-to-come-to-uk-may-be-sent-to-processing-centres-in-africa-14836904/
    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    As for the idea that the Danes pay Rwanda for settled migrants, for how long? Imagine the headlines here "Your Taxpayers fund foreigners living abroad" - whatever agreement we managed to make with Madagascar would be torn up at the next budget review. "We negotiated and signed this deal, but we had no idea that it meant we had to keep paying".

    We know where "lets deport them somewhere else" came from. Its truly shameful that we have people advocating Nazi policies and yes that includes the idiots in the Danish government.
    What should we do to those arriving by boat?

    1. Allow them to settle in the U.K.?
    2. Deport them back to the safe country they came from (France or Belgium)?
    3. Process them offshore and allow the genuine refugees somewhere to live in a safe country?

    If we go with 1, should I buy a dingy and push my wife off the beach at Calais? Because that would save me shedloads of time and money, compared to trying to arrange legal migration through the proper channels.
    Lets go through these one at a time:
    1. Allow them to settle in the UK. If their claim is accepted, yes. If not, deport them. Asylum Seekers become a major problem because despite "take back control of our border" the smirking traitor has cut Border Force and the Police and the Home Office. We can't process claims with any speed so they get housed in "murder row" accommodation (e.g. on Teesside and in Sunderland the refugee houses were the ones that the housing association couldn't let), receive not enough to live on vouchers for sustenance and legally can't work. So they go into the black labour market.

    That is a problem of our own making. Accepting Asylum Seekers into the UK for processing is not a guarantee they can stay.

    2. The "safe country" myth. This is simply not present in the UN Refugee Convention, a position backed up by UK case law. So as there is no compulsion on refugees to settle in France there is no legal way to force the French to accept the deportees back. If we had international agreements to distribute refugees then perhaps we could, but Brexit killed that and we withdrew from the Dublin convention doing precisely that

    3. Process them offshore as the Nazis proposed for the Jews. A fantasy. Denmark has proposed it. The idea that Madagascar is willing to take our deportees for cash AND the deportees stay there and don't just try again is laughable. How long would the UK need to pay this foreign government to house our foreign undesirables? What happens when the UK stops paying the bill? Would the foreign government be required to imprison them there?
    1. The fact hat they’ve come from France or Belgium is enough to deny their asylum application. Those are not unsafe countries, and the migrants are not fleeing state persecution there.
    2. It’s impossible in practice to deport anyone who arrives with no papers, that’s the biggest problem.
    3. 8:30 in the morning and Godwin already? That doesn’t deserve a response.
    Except (1) is a bit of a nonsense. If refugees have to claim asylum in the 1st safe country they reach we'd get hardly any.
    Refugees have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.

    That’s international law, as defined by the 1951UN Refugee Convention, and the 1967 UN Refugee Protocol.
    Whereas Amnesty International says this:


    Neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor EU law requires a refugee to claim asylum in one country rather than another.

    There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive.


    Anyone fancy adjudicating? Fight? Best of three?
    @Sandpit I've looked at this in detail - there is nothing that says you need to claim asylum in the first safe country you arrive at. Which is why Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria etc make themselves as unwelcoming as possible to ensure they continue the journey.
    Hmm, I thought I’d looked at it too, but it does seem that UK a case law disagrees, and says that it’s possible to claim asylum providing you’ve not tried to claim asylum elsewhere.

    The obligation is on the first safe country they reach to hear their claim, but there’s no obligation to claim asylum in that first safe country.
    Which is why a lot of countries make it very difficult to claim.

    In Italy an asylum claim request is often misheard as can I have a free train ticket on the next train to the french border...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839
    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    Not for me. 1st dose = 48 hour flu. 2nd dose = nothing to speak of.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840
    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    For me:

    AZ first dose was 10% effect of covid.
    AZ second dose was 10% effect of first dose.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    MaxPB said:

    Charles said:

    MaxPB said:

    Charles said:

    DavidL said:

    Charles said:

    DavidL said:

    Did we not discuss this recently on a thread by @Cyclefree ? The position, AIUI, is that the draft legislation removed the criteria that the offence of assisting illegal immigration had to be "for profit". The context was that there was apparently a practice of prosecuting those who steered the boat if they got a discount in their fare for doing so. The purpose of that nonsense is presumably to make it easier to deport the steerers.

    The question is what does this have to do with the RNLI? I think their concern is that if they pick people up in distress in the channel and bring them ashore they could now be caught by the legislation. The government is clear that this is rescue work, not "assisting illegal immigration". This is so obviously so that I am frankly a bit suspicious that the person or persons raising the alarm has another agenda.

    On a separate point I agree with those criticising @Cocky_cockney for copying and pasting the latest Heath drivel in its entirety. Mike has had letters from lawyers about this before and has been clear that we should not do it. It really should be removed.

    They totally have another agenda @DavidL

    I’m surprised that you’re so naive that you just “a bit suspicious” 😉
    Well, I like to think the best of people Charles, especially in institutions such as the RNLI.
    I wasn’t actually meaning the RNLI (I think they are making a strategic mistake playing this game in public) but the assorted lawyers and campaigners who started this line of attack
    Once again we come back to Shakespeare's "let's kill all the lawyers" sentiment.
    Is that a criticism or a recommendation?
    It depends, are you a lawyer?
    That’s a very cagey answer!

    I’m not, but I am from a family of lawyers
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839
    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346

    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    For me:

    AZ first dose was 10% effect of covid.
    AZ second dose was 10% effect of first dose.
    mine was the same, no illness just slept for 22 hours the next day both times
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    DavidL said:

    DougSeal said:

    Toms said:

    At the risk of falling into a logical black hole I've just invented a word.
    It is "categorismus" to describe the process of making something seem real by putting a name to it.

    Eg. “the British Isles”.
    “Scotland”
    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image
    What I do find amusing about your love-in for Jim Murphy is that you keep reposting this photo of him in the referendum campaign suggesting that he was a negative influence.

    And yet No won...
    It illustrates one of the key fallacies of the BetterTogether platform: that Unionists love Scotland. As so often illustrated on these threads, Unionists often despise Scotland and do everything within their power to denigrate the country.
    Stuart, you really need to learn to differentiate between that embarrassing shambles that calls itself the Scottish government and the country. However much the SNP wish it were otherwise their administration is not the country and laughing at or despairing of their idiocy is not in any way denigrating the latter.
    And he insults most if not all of my Scottish family who just do not share that view, and by the way actually live in Scotland
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    All this talk of the RNLI reminds me that certain folk get very worked up about the RSPCA for some reason

    Lovely blokes, but never really seen eye to eye with them about what foxes are for.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839
    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    That isn't the driver for most who get their knickers in a twist about this issue. It's what I said.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021
    Charles said:

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just made a donation. If you’d like to too - and help save lives - please visit https://rnli.org/support-us/give-money/donate https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1420500685993480196/photo/1

    Because Grace fucking Darling deserves every penny we can spare her.

    The pot of charitable funding is not infinitely elastic, so why are we all cheering donations to an appallingly rich institution dedicated to smoothing the way of well heeled tossers who cannot read a tide table or work a diesel engine?
    Charitable expenditure of RNLI in 2019: £165 million. 2020: £144 million.
    Unrestricted Reserves at year end. 2019: £118 million. 2020: £122 million.
    https://rnli.org/about-us/how-the-rnli-is-run/annual-report-and-accounts

    That's not "appallingly rich", @Ishmael_Z.
    1 year’s reserves is a lot.

    The guidance is 3-5% of income in a year should be put into reserves
    It's worth noting that expenditure will go back up again next year, so coverage is 8 months under more normal circs.

    And for me for an organisation providing a national service high reserves are justified.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Office for National Statistics (ONS) @ONS
    Latest data on the behaviour of individuals required to self-isolate after testing positive for #COVID19 show adherence to requirements in July remained high (79%).

    This was the same level as June but lower than in May (86%)


    https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1420663557096681472?s=20
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    MattW said:

    Charles said:

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just made a donation. If you’d like to too - and help save lives - please visit https://rnli.org/support-us/give-money/donate https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1420500685993480196/photo/1

    Because Grace fucking Darling deserves every penny we can spare her.

    The pot of charitable funding is not infinitely elastic, so why are we all cheering donations to an appallingly rich institution dedicated to smoothing the way of well heeled tossers who cannot read a tide table or work a diesel engine?
    Charitable expenditure of RNLI in 2019: £165 million. 2020: £144 million.
    Unrestricted Reserves at year end. 2019: £118 million. 2020: £122 million.
    https://rnli.org/about-us/how-the-rnli-is-run/annual-report-and-accounts

    That's not "appallingly rich", @Ishmael_Z.
    1 year’s reserves is a lot.

    The guidance is 3-5% of income in a year should be put into reserves
    It's worth noting that expenditure will go back up again next year, so coverage is 8 months under more normal circs.

    And for me for an organisation providing a national service high reserves are justified.
    It should be publicly funded anyway.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    eek said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    I am so glad that PB was able to wake you up to this threat. Sometimes stupid legislation isn't done by accident, it is malicious. Like in this case where the angry forrin out end of the Brexiteer community has been upset by scenes of RNLI heroes rescuing drowning migrants. "Not a good look" as one of their supporters described on here.

    So the traitor Patel comes up with a wheeze. Draft a bill that leaves RNLI crews on the hook. Refuse to engage with critics, "it won't do that" when the bill clearly will. Show just enough support for the "drown the forrin" Tory supporters and hope the row makes people think anyone backing the RNLI are soft on migration.

    I hope it has backfired. Rescuing drowning migrants is not a play in their faux culture war. It is literal life and death, and highlights just how grotesque some of them are. A Tory Party that wanted to prosecute the RNLI for rescuing drowning children? "Not a good look"
    The RNLI rescues anyone and everyone no matter their circumstances when they are in peril on the sea and they place their own lives at risk

    Indeed, and we never questioned that. Only that the bill seeks to criminalise them doing their job.
    I would disagree with your ascertain the bill 'seeks to criminalise the RNLI' rather than it is poorly drafted

    As has previously been mentioned over the last few weeks, this anomaly will be addressed as the bill progresses through the HOC
    It's not poorly drafted because it's been weeks since the issue was highlighted and absolutely nothing has been done to say it's a mistake and will be redrafted.

    So I assume via the lack of apology and a lack of any promise to rewrite the law to provide a fix for the RNLI that the intention is to retain the law as is for dodgy reasons.
    They have stated that criminalising the RNLI is not their intention

    This was the easiest I could find (apologies for the Richard Murphy link but the response is clear)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1412755421845245957
    What is the road to hell paved with? Magistrates courts are not bound by what the home office said on Twitter.
    Let’s see what the bill says once it’s been through comment / parliament shall we?
    Just for the record on the 14th July I sent various 'PB comments on the subject of the RNLI' to my local MP who is a personal friend and he immediately responded by saying his researcher would investigate the issue and then it would be referred to Patel directly

    I have no reason to believe this has not been done
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021

    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    DougSeal said:

    Toms said:

    At the risk of falling into a logical black hole I've just invented a word.
    It is "categorismus" to describe the process of making something seem real by putting a name to it.

    Eg. “the British Isles”.
    “Scotland”
    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image
    What I do find amusing about your love-in for Jim Murphy is that you keep reposting this photo of him in the referendum campaign suggesting that he was a negative influence.

    And yet No won...
    It illustrates one of the key fallacies of the BetterTogether platform: that Unionists love Scotland. As so often illustrated on these threads, Unionists often despise Scotland and do everything within their power to denigrate the country.
    Stuart, you really need to learn to differentiate between that embarrassing shambles that calls itself the Scottish government and the country. However much the SNP wish it were otherwise their administration is not the country and laughing at or despairing of their idiocy is not in any way denigrating the latter.
    What is exasperating about all the devolved administrations is just how bad they are. You have effectively three fiefdoms of one-party states, where realistically only one party can win power no matter how awful they are or what they do - and they are awful and do many bad things - where the opposition is just as bad, and where the real underlying problems we were assured devolution would deal with are not only not dealt with but in many cases made worse.

    All so Tony Blair could win a few seats he was going to win anyway.

    It’s very depressing, and to be honest while Blair will forever be tainted by Iraq his actions on devolution were a far worse mistake. Not merely the effects, but the hubris. Remember his ‘parish council’ remark?
    I look forward to the next Conservative manifesto promising to abolish the three devolved legislatures.
    It would make a huge amount of sense to do some real reform, especially given Sturgeon's recent dodginess in Scotland wrt the processes of State.

    I don't think I see that happening too soon, however. :smile:

    My pet version has always been a single structure, and Westminster MPs meeting locally for 1-2 days a week to do devolved government, on the basis of as few politicians as is reasonably practicable.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    For me:

    AZ first dose was 10% effect of covid.
    AZ second dose was 10% effect of first dose.
    mine was the same, no illness just slept for 22 hours the next day both times
    My first left me slightly fatigued, and with a very sore arm.

    My second left me very fatigued: so much so that I dropped a mug on the floor whilst making coffee and fell trying to catch it. Nothing major, though, and I still ran. ;)

    There was a weirdness after the second jab, which was probably just coincidence. I do lots of running and walking, and I often get insect bites. Most of the time I just get a little bump, but in the first few days after the second jab, I had two bites that caused my arm and then my leg to swell up badly; the former for about four days. I can only recall two similar reactions to bites in a couple of decades of walking.

    I do wonder if the vaccine put my body's defences in overdrive, causing it to overreact to the bites? Or it could just be a coincidence...
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    At what point will this affect the Olympics?

    “Tokyo reports 3,865 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record”
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
    The other part of that issue is that we don't have anywhere suitable to put them - which is why the current plan seems to be to create centres in Rwanda alongside the Danish...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    At what point will this affect the Olympics?

    “Tokyo reports 3,865 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record”

    It already has. See this morning’s news about the Australian track and field team.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/29/entire-australian-athletics-team-in-isolation-at-tokyo-olympics-after-american-tests-covid-positive
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    IshmaelZ said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    It isn't usual to write Father like that unless you are referring to the Almighty. Of course there's no knowing who is who on the internet.
    "Big G" is pretty unambiguous, I'd have thought. Although it puts North Wales in a new and rather flattering light.
    @Big_G_NorthWales has something to be justly proud about. He is the father of someone who puts their life on the line for others. Makes him and his daughter/son vastly superior than a couple of pompous arseholes who want to mock him for using a capital letter incorrectly.
    Thank you @Nigel-Foremain

    I was quite upset at the comments when I mistakenly capitalised father

    My son is someone I am so proud off and what some on here may not realise is that my family have lost members at sea, some never having been recovered, and the sense of 'not knowing' lives for a lifetime
    You have every right to be proud. I think RNLI crews and other folk such as mountain rescue who risk their lives for no reward other than to be of service are the best of humanity. Enough said.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    Which is why Denmark has proposed what it has, and Australia has been doing for years. Make it very clear that no-one arriving in a boat will be allowed to settle in the U.K.

    Take refugees from camps close to conflict zones, allow routes to legal migration for those wishing to better themselves, but paying smugglers to endanger people’s lives on dinghys, no chance of staying in the U.K.

    Word will soon get back, and the crossings would reduce quickly. This is Australia’s experience in recent years.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    I had few effects from the first and none from the second. Sadly there's no hard and fast rule.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
    The other part of that issue is that we don't have anywhere suitable to put them - which is why the current plan seems to be to create centres in Rwanda alongside the Danish...
    I have a solution.

    - The RN is short of manpower
    - The migrants want jobs

    Just pass a law that anyone who enters the UK without documents has de facto volunteered for the Royal Navy.

    They get picked up by outgoing vessels in the Channel, and given immediate employment.....
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    This appeared on my YouTube feed and gives an indication of how the election 'experts' failed to foresee what would happen:

    https://youtu.be/8fu6-dyskQ8?t=9685

    BBC local election results 2006 Jeremy Vine:

    If they're going to break through they really need to have at least one councillor surely in Manchester, Knowsley, Liverpool, Gateshead, Newcastle - they're places with no Conservative councillors at all.

    And there haven't been any Conservative councillors in Manchester, Knowsley, Liverpool, Gateshead and Newcastle but there have been four Conservative general election wins based upon gains north of Birmingham.

    Luckily PB had people who did point out where the Conservative gains in the North would be happening.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    Which is why Denmark has proposed what it has, and Australia has been doing for years. Make it very clear that no-one arriving in a boat will be allowed to settle in the U.K.

    Take refugees from camps close to conflict zones, allow routes to legal migration for those wishing to better themselves, but paying smugglers to endanger people’s lives on dinghys, no chance of staying in the U.K.

    Word will soon get back, and the crossings would reduce quickly. This is Australia’s experience in recent years.
    Para 2 of that last reply is both logical and ethical, and I think the main aim of current policy.

    Rewarding the people trafficking process is insane, especially given the (in some places) deliberate obfuscation between "refugees" and "migrants".
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
    Australia's Pacific Solution is predicated on the fact that almost all of their arrivals come ashore at Christmas Island. CI is specifically excised from the Australian Migration Zone so refugees there have no legal recourse to the Australian courts. Thus they can, or rather could as nobody tries any more, be decanted to pestilential shitholes like PNG without judicial impediment. If the refugees were coming ashore at Bondi it would be a different and more difficult issue.

    The other and very strong deterrent in the Australian approach is to put the refugees in lifeboats with a marginal fuel state, tow them to just outside Indonesian territorial waters and give them a hearty FUCK THE FUCK OFF. There is absolutely no way Johnson and Patel have the backbone for that.

  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    MattW said:

    Charles said:

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just made a donation. If you’d like to too - and help save lives - please visit https://rnli.org/support-us/give-money/donate https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1420500685993480196/photo/1

    Because Grace fucking Darling deserves every penny we can spare her.

    The pot of charitable funding is not infinitely elastic, so why are we all cheering donations to an appallingly rich institution dedicated to smoothing the way of well heeled tossers who cannot read a tide table or work a diesel engine?
    Charitable expenditure of RNLI in 2019: £165 million. 2020: £144 million.
    Unrestricted Reserves at year end. 2019: £118 million. 2020: £122 million.
    https://rnli.org/about-us/how-the-rnli-is-run/annual-report-and-accounts

    That's not "appallingly rich", @Ishmael_Z.
    1 year’s reserves is a lot.

    The guidance is 3-5% of income in a year should be put into reserves
    It's worth noting that expenditure will go back up again next year, so coverage is 8 months under more normal circs.

    And for me for an organisation providing a national service high reserves are justified.
    It should be publicly funded anyway.
    In limited measure it already is, of course.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    IshmaelZ said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    It isn't usual to write Father like that unless you are referring to the Almighty. Of course there's no knowing who is who on the internet.
    "Big G" is pretty unambiguous, I'd have thought. Although it puts North Wales in a new and rather flattering light.
    @Big_G_NorthWales has something to be justly proud about. He is the father of someone who puts their life on the line for others. Makes him and his daughter/son vastly superior than a couple of pompous arseholes who want to mock him for using a capital letter incorrectly.
    Thank you @Nigel-Foremain

    I was quite upset at the comments when I mistakenly capitalised father

    My son is someone I am so proud off and what some on here may not realise is that my family have lost members at sea, some never having been recovered, and the sense of 'not knowing' lives for a lifetime
    Big G I am very sorry that my comment upset you. I assumed that the capitalisation was probably an autocorrect issue, and I thought the initial comment was lighthearted in nature, not aimed at denigrating you or minimising your son's service. My subsequent comment was certainly meant in that lighthearted vein.
    Once again, it is clear that tone and intention are not always clear online, I will try to bear that in mind in the future. FWIW, I have huge respect for the RNLI, my grandfather was in the merchant navy during the war and was always a big donor. And I also think you are by some distance the nicest Tory on this site, so for the absence of any doubt I will never intentionally denigrate you here.
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,701
    malcolmg said:

    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    As the "lets deport the forrin to Madagascar" proposal isn't realistic, we need to look at what is. Europe faces a massive refugee problem because of the burning mess on its borders. One way to stop the flow is to fix these problems. If Afghanistan, Libya, Syria were safe and functioning then less migrants need to flee.

    As that isn't very realistic then plan B - share the burden. Refugees can be distributed out amongst safe countries by agreement. But as its Britain Uber Alles these days we will enter no such agreement. Not that we need to considering we only get a small number of refugees anyway.

    Then we have Plan C. Make it so awful for refugees that the word gets to them not to come. Hence the "Drown the Migrants" bill.
    Plan D: take refugees from camps close to the crisis. Judge anyone else who arrives outside an airport by economic migrant standards and process them offshore.
    The problem is that no offshore country seems willing to take them. Rwanda keeps being mentioned, but is there any evidence that Rwanda has seriously been interested?

    Australia managed to send its to PNG and Nauru, but these have been defacto colonies for some time, and I think even PNG got fed up with being used this way.

    An internment camp in the UK seems the obvious solution, with asylum courts on site, as well as medical facilities etc. Far fewer would come if they couldn't dissappear into the underground economy.

    Performative cruelty is not going to work on people who have often walked a few hundred miles across deserts, and trapped by gangs in Libya etc. It is just not viable to be more cruel than what they have already suffered.
    Why not go the full hog and put prison hulks off the south coast, only need to send the odd tender out with food once a week. Some gunships to circle them and make sure no-one makes a dash for it.
    At last a possible use for the new "Flaggy McFlagface" royal yacht replacement?
  • CandyCandy Posts: 51



    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    Rwanda and Uganda are already accepting foreign migrants for cash. Israel has been sending them there for some time. See:

    https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israel-sends-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-1.5243981

    These are voluntary departures (i.e. the migrant has to agree to leave). They fly the migrants to Rwanda, give them $3,500 each, and pay the Rwandan government an undisclosed sum for each as well.

    Rwanda doesn't have a welfare state, so they don't care if migrants want to stay or if they leave (which is more likely). $3,500 gets you quite far in Africa, so the migrants concerned can make their way back to the original homes elsewhere and have a nice life.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    eek said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    I am so glad that PB was able to wake you up to this threat. Sometimes stupid legislation isn't done by accident, it is malicious. Like in this case where the angry forrin out end of the Brexiteer community has been upset by scenes of RNLI heroes rescuing drowning migrants. "Not a good look" as one of their supporters described on here.

    So the traitor Patel comes up with a wheeze. Draft a bill that leaves RNLI crews on the hook. Refuse to engage with critics, "it won't do that" when the bill clearly will. Show just enough support for the "drown the forrin" Tory supporters and hope the row makes people think anyone backing the RNLI are soft on migration.

    I hope it has backfired. Rescuing drowning migrants is not a play in their faux culture war. It is literal life and death, and highlights just how grotesque some of them are. A Tory Party that wanted to prosecute the RNLI for rescuing drowning children? "Not a good look"
    The RNLI rescues anyone and everyone no matter their circumstances when they are in peril on the sea and they place their own lives at risk

    Indeed, and we never questioned that. Only that the bill seeks to criminalise them doing their job.
    I would disagree with your ascertain the bill 'seeks to criminalise the RNLI' rather than it is poorly drafted

    As has previously been mentioned over the last few weeks, this anomaly will be addressed as the bill progresses through the HOC
    It's not poorly drafted because it's been weeks since the issue was highlighted and absolutely nothing has been done to say it's a mistake and will be redrafted.

    So I assume via the lack of apology and a lack of any promise to rewrite the law to provide a fix for the RNLI that the intention is to retain the law as is for dodgy reasons.
    They have stated that criminalising the RNLI is not their intention

    This was the easiest I could find (apologies for the Richard Murphy link but the response is clear)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1412755421845245957
    What is the road to hell paved with? Magistrates courts are not bound by what the home office said on Twitter.
    Let’s see what the bill says once it’s been through comment / parliament shall we?
    Just for the record on the 14th July I sent various 'PB comments on the subject of the RNLI' to my local MP who is a personal friend and he immediately responded by saying his researcher would investigate the issue and then it would be referred to Patel directly

    I have no reason to believe this has not been done
    But has he/have you got a reply from the Home Office?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
    The other part of that issue is that we don't have anywhere suitable to put them - which is why the current plan seems to be to create centres in Rwanda alongside the Danish...
    I have a solution.

    - The RN is short of manpower
    - The migrants want jobs

    Just pass a law that anyone who enters the UK without documents has de facto volunteered for the Royal Navy.

    They get picked up by outgoing vessels in the Channel, and given immediate employment.....
    In all seriousness a route to settlement/citizenship through military service is not a completely out there idea. Those with more knowledge of these matters can doubtless tell me it’s a stupid one but as a concept it’s not wholly outside rational discourse
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Did we not discuss this recently on a thread by @Cyclefree ? The position, AIUI, is that the draft legislation removed the criteria that the offence of assisting illegal immigration had to be "for profit". The context was that there was apparently a practice of prosecuting those who steered the boat if they got a discount in their fare for doing so. The purpose of that nonsense is presumably to make it easier to deport the steerers.

    The question is what does this have to do with the RNLI? I think their concern is that if they pick people up in distress in the channel and bring them ashore they could now be caught by the legislation. The government is clear that this is rescue work, not "assisting illegal immigration". This is so obviously so that I am frankly a bit suspicious that the person or persons raising the alarm has another agenda.

    On a separate point I agree with those criticising @Cocky_cockney for copying and pasting the latest Heath drivel in its entirety. Mike has had letters from lawyers about this before and has been clear that we should not do it. It really should be removed.

    We did indeed.

    The intention may not be to criminalise the RNLI or anyone else performing rescue work. But the draft legislation - as currently drafted - does have that consequence. If the government wanted it could easily and quickly amend the draft Bill. It hasn't.

    The Bill has a specific exemption for charities which exist to assist refugees. So the government has clearly at some level realised what the Bill will do and has thought about exemptions. But it has not included the RNLI within those exemptions.
    Where is the bill in the drafting process?

    If it’s out for comment it makes sense you’d make all the changes in one go rather than pull it for 1 change and then have to start the process again
    Given that the government has already thought about exemptions it is a little odd that they did not already include the RNLI in the existing exemption clause. Either they did not realise it was caught or they deliberately excluded it.

    The trouble is that if they exempt the RNLI and the Coastguard they need to exempt every other vessel which might come across people in a dinghy as well, not least because the Law of the Sea would probably override this legislation if it were ever challenged.

    It is also worth noting that the bill is not restricted to what one does at sea.
    I never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence
    And don't assume the two qualities are mutually exclusive.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Did we not discuss this recently on a thread by @Cyclefree ? The position, AIUI, is that the draft legislation removed the criteria that the offence of assisting illegal immigration had to be "for profit". The context was that there was apparently a practice of prosecuting those who steered the boat if they got a discount in their fare for doing so. The purpose of that nonsense is presumably to make it easier to deport the steerers.

    The question is what does this have to do with the RNLI? I think their concern is that if they pick people up in distress in the channel and bring them ashore they could now be caught by the legislation. The government is clear that this is rescue work, not "assisting illegal immigration". This is so obviously so that I am frankly a bit suspicious that the person or persons raising the alarm has another agenda.

    On a separate point I agree with those criticising @Cocky_cockney for copying and pasting the latest Heath drivel in its entirety. Mike has had letters from lawyers about this before and has been clear that we should not do it. It really should be removed.

    We did indeed.

    The intention may not be to criminalise the RNLI or anyone else performing rescue work. But the draft legislation - as currently drafted - does have that consequence. If the government wanted it could easily and quickly amend the draft Bill. It hasn't.

    The Bill has a specific exemption for charities which exist to assist refugees. So the government has clearly at some level realised what the Bill will do and has thought about exemptions. But it has not included the RNLI within those exemptions.
    Where is the bill in the drafting process?

    If it’s out for comment it makes sense you’d make all the changes in one go rather than pull it for 1 change and then have to start the process again
    Given that the government has already thought about exemptions it is a little odd that they did not already include the RNLI in the existing exemption clause. Either they did not realise it was caught or they deliberately excluded it.

    The trouble is that if they exempt the RNLI and the Coastguard they need to exempt every other vessel which might come across people in a dinghy as well, not least because the Law of the Sea would probably override this legislation if it were ever challenged.

    It is also worth noting that the bill is not restricted to what one does at sea.
    I never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence
    And don't assume the two qualities are mutually exclusive.
    To me the whole thing appears to come down to really really thoughtless drafting. Believe me I’ve done enough of that to know what it looks like.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    There is a solution that proved to work. Place those that make it in a place where, in effect, they have wasted their time crossing the Channel and would have been better off trying to get to the UK in a more conventional manner.

    This has worked for various countries around the world, such as Australia.

    Australia had a serious problem with people smugglers dumping people on the beach in the northern, tropical areas. The countryside is not hospitable there, and many, many died.

    The problem is that the solution is harsh and upsetting to many. See Nauru etc.
    Australia's Pacific Solution is predicated on the fact that almost all of their arrivals come ashore at Christmas Island. CI is specifically excised from the Australian Migration Zone so refugees there have no legal recourse to the Australian courts. Thus they can, or rather could as nobody tries any more, be decanted to pestilential shitholes like PNG without judicial impediment. If the refugees were coming ashore at Bondi it would be a different and more difficult issue.

    The other and very strong deterrent in the Australian approach is to put the refugees in lifeboats with a marginal fuel state, tow them to just outside Indonesian territorial waters and give them a hearty FUCK THE FUCK OFF. There is absolutely no way Johnson and Patel have the backbone for that.

    The Australian solution was legally engineered thus. If they came ashore at Bondi, the legal engineering would be different, I am sure.

    Your later suggestion is quite Russian - they actually did this to some alleged Somali pirates they captured.


  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    felix said:

    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    I had few effects from the first and none from the second. Sadly there's no hard and fast rule.
    My wife had AZ; effects from 1st, not the second. I had Pfizer; fine after the 1st, not so after the second.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Candy said:



    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    Rwanda and Uganda are already accepting foreign migrants for cash. Israel has been sending them there for some time. See:

    https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israel-sends-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-1.5243981

    These are voluntary departures (i.e. the migrant has to agree to leave). They fly the migrants to Rwanda, give them $3,500 each, and pay the Rwandan government an undisclosed sum for each as well.

    Rwanda doesn't have a welfare state, so they don't care if migrants want to stay or if they leave (which is more likely). $3,500 gets you quite far in Africa, so the migrants concerned can make their way back to the original homes elsewhere and have a nice life.
    Atin from Albania, or one of his friends asks me to say Hi!
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    malcolmg said:

    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    As the "lets deport the forrin to Madagascar" proposal isn't realistic, we need to look at what is. Europe faces a massive refugee problem because of the burning mess on its borders. One way to stop the flow is to fix these problems. If Afghanistan, Libya, Syria were safe and functioning then less migrants need to flee.

    As that isn't very realistic then plan B - share the burden. Refugees can be distributed out amongst safe countries by agreement. But as its Britain Uber Alles these days we will enter no such agreement. Not that we need to considering we only get a small number of refugees anyway.

    Then we have Plan C. Make it so awful for refugees that the word gets to them not to come. Hence the "Drown the Migrants" bill.
    Plan D: take refugees from camps close to the crisis. Judge anyone else who arrives outside an airport by economic migrant standards and process them offshore.
    The problem is that no offshore country seems willing to take them. Rwanda keeps being mentioned, but is there any evidence that Rwanda has seriously been interested?

    Australia managed to send its to PNG and Nauru, but these have been defacto colonies for some time, and I think even PNG got fed up with being used this way.

    An internment camp in the UK seems the obvious solution, with asylum courts on site, as well as medical facilities etc. Far fewer would come if they couldn't dissappear into the underground economy.

    Performative cruelty is not going to work on people who have often walked a few hundred miles across deserts, and trapped by gangs in Libya etc. It is just not viable to be more cruel than what they have already suffered.
    Why not go the full hog and put prison hulks off the south coast, only need to send the odd tender out with food once a week. Some gunships to circle them and make sure no-one makes a dash for it.
    At last a possible use for the new "Flaggy McFlagface" royal yacht replacement?
    I have no desire to use prison hulks but the current pressures on social accommodation here in Kent do make me wonder if a disused cruise ship could be parked in Dover Harbour as a processing and/or quarantine facility. Decent accommodation in an unused asset. I could see the “prison hulk” headlines but the reality would be far from that.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Candy said:



    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    Rwanda and Uganda are already accepting foreign migrants for cash. Israel has been sending them there for some time. See:

    https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israel-sends-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-1.5243981

    These are voluntary departures (i.e. the migrant has to agree to leave). They fly the migrants to Rwanda, give them $3,500 each, and pay the Rwandan government an undisclosed sum for each as well.

    Rwanda doesn't have a welfare state, so they don't care if migrants want to stay or if they leave (which is more likely). $3,500 gets you quite far in Africa, so the migrants concerned can make their way back to the original homes elsewhere and have a nice life.
    Yes - think of it as back to square one. The idea is that the all the money and effort in getting into the end country illegally has been wasted.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    eek said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    I am so glad that PB was able to wake you up to this threat. Sometimes stupid legislation isn't done by accident, it is malicious. Like in this case where the angry forrin out end of the Brexiteer community has been upset by scenes of RNLI heroes rescuing drowning migrants. "Not a good look" as one of their supporters described on here.

    So the traitor Patel comes up with a wheeze. Draft a bill that leaves RNLI crews on the hook. Refuse to engage with critics, "it won't do that" when the bill clearly will. Show just enough support for the "drown the forrin" Tory supporters and hope the row makes people think anyone backing the RNLI are soft on migration.

    I hope it has backfired. Rescuing drowning migrants is not a play in their faux culture war. It is literal life and death, and highlights just how grotesque some of them are. A Tory Party that wanted to prosecute the RNLI for rescuing drowning children? "Not a good look"
    The RNLI rescues anyone and everyone no matter their circumstances when they are in peril on the sea and they place their own lives at risk

    Indeed, and we never questioned that. Only that the bill seeks to criminalise them doing their job.
    I would disagree with your ascertain the bill 'seeks to criminalise the RNLI' rather than it is poorly drafted

    As has previously been mentioned over the last few weeks, this anomaly will be addressed as the bill progresses through the HOC
    It's not poorly drafted because it's been weeks since the issue was highlighted and absolutely nothing has been done to say it's a mistake and will be redrafted.

    So I assume via the lack of apology and a lack of any promise to rewrite the law to provide a fix for the RNLI that the intention is to retain the law as is for dodgy reasons.
    They have stated that criminalising the RNLI is not their intention

    This was the easiest I could find (apologies for the Richard Murphy link but the response is clear)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1412755421845245957
    What is the road to hell paved with? Magistrates courts are not bound by what the home office said on Twitter.
    Let’s see what the bill says once it’s been through comment / parliament shall we?
    Just for the record on the 14th July I sent various 'PB comments on the subject of the RNLI' to my local MP who is a personal friend and he immediately responded by saying his researcher would investigate the issue and then it would be referred to Patel directly

    I have no reason to believe this has not been done
    But has he/have you got a reply from the Home Office?
    It was only 2 weeks ago to be fair

    However, I will check next week as, to be honest my sons wedding on Saturday (yes the lifeboat crew member) is rather taking up a lot of time notwithstanding I am still managing the odd post, though expecting for the summons from my dearest to help with something or another beyond my skills
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880


    Your later suggestion is quite Russian - they actually did this to some alleged Somali pirates they captured.


    That was the MV Moscow University incident. The MPR squad just shot them and threw them over the side. The lifeboat story was toss.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    MattW said:

    Charles said:

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just made a donation. If you’d like to too - and help save lives - please visit https://rnli.org/support-us/give-money/donate https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1420500685993480196/photo/1

    Because Grace fucking Darling deserves every penny we can spare her.

    The pot of charitable funding is not infinitely elastic, so why are we all cheering donations to an appallingly rich institution dedicated to smoothing the way of well heeled tossers who cannot read a tide table or work a diesel engine?
    Charitable expenditure of RNLI in 2019: £165 million. 2020: £144 million.
    Unrestricted Reserves at year end. 2019: £118 million. 2020: £122 million.
    https://rnli.org/about-us/how-the-rnli-is-run/annual-report-and-accounts

    That's not "appallingly rich", @Ishmael_Z.
    1 year’s reserves is a lot.

    The guidance is 3-5% of income in a year should be put into reserves
    It's worth noting that expenditure will go back up again next year, so coverage is 8 months under more normal circs.

    And for me for an organisation providing a national service high reserves are justified.
    I’m not going to argue specifics about reserve levels - we tend to suppose more disruptive charities than RNLI (such as when we were part of the founding of the [R]SPCA in 1824) but sustainability is a key strategic focus for us in determining which charities we back.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Candy said:



    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    Rwanda and Uganda are already accepting foreign migrants for cash. Israel has been sending them there for some time. See:

    https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israel-sends-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-1.5243981

    These are voluntary departures (i.e. the migrant has to agree to leave). They fly the migrants to Rwanda, give them $3,500 each, and pay the Rwandan government an undisclosed sum for each as well.

    Rwanda doesn't have a welfare state, so they don't care if migrants want to stay or if they leave (which is more likely). $3,500 gets you quite far in Africa, so the migrants concerned can make their way back to the original homes elsewhere and have a nice life.
    Yes - think of it as back to square one. The idea is that the all the money and effort in getting into the end country illegally has been wasted.
    No, it hasn't. Or well may not have been, totally. What would US$3,500 get one in, for example, Mali?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    Not for me. Very mild headache, that's all.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,006

    Candy said:



    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    Rwanda and Uganda are already accepting foreign migrants for cash. Israel has been sending them there for some time. See:

    https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israel-sends-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-1.5243981

    These are voluntary departures (i.e. the migrant has to agree to leave). They fly the migrants to Rwanda, give them $3,500 each, and pay the Rwandan government an undisclosed sum for each as well.

    Rwanda doesn't have a welfare state, so they don't care if migrants want to stay or if they leave (which is more likely). $3,500 gets you quite far in Africa, so the migrants concerned can make their way back to the original homes elsewhere and have a nice life.
    Yes - think of it as back to square one. The idea is that the all the money and effort in getting into the end country illegally has been wasted.
    So I started off fleeing Libya, make it to the UK, end up in Rwanda. I'll just start again then - the money being wasted in that by the foreign government.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    Alternatively, it’s caring about the hundreds or thousands of people dying every year, in the Med and the Channel, to fund organised people smuggling rings.
    The issue is one of how do we, using the powers under our control (non existent) to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel, before seeking asylum.

    And there is no easy answer to that.
    You have to reduce the pull factor. Some factors - like a tolerant society and prosperous economy as well as language we can’t, but the perception we are a soft touch we can address.

    It’s why offshore processing is such an appealing idea - I haven’t assessed the viability but there’s always a way to make something like that work with enough money.

    It means that people can’t “disappear” into the UK black economy if their application is rejected.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    To my anecdote earlier, I should add that most of the effects were probably because I tried to maintain my usual routine despite feeling very tired.

    Get vaxed, everyone!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    eek said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    I am so glad that PB was able to wake you up to this threat. Sometimes stupid legislation isn't done by accident, it is malicious. Like in this case where the angry forrin out end of the Brexiteer community has been upset by scenes of RNLI heroes rescuing drowning migrants. "Not a good look" as one of their supporters described on here.

    So the traitor Patel comes up with a wheeze. Draft a bill that leaves RNLI crews on the hook. Refuse to engage with critics, "it won't do that" when the bill clearly will. Show just enough support for the "drown the forrin" Tory supporters and hope the row makes people think anyone backing the RNLI are soft on migration.

    I hope it has backfired. Rescuing drowning migrants is not a play in their faux culture war. It is literal life and death, and highlights just how grotesque some of them are. A Tory Party that wanted to prosecute the RNLI for rescuing drowning children? "Not a good look"
    The RNLI rescues anyone and everyone no matter their circumstances when they are in peril on the sea and they place their own lives at risk

    Indeed, and we never questioned that. Only that the bill seeks to criminalise them doing their job.
    I would disagree with your ascertain the bill 'seeks to criminalise the RNLI' rather than it is poorly drafted

    As has previously been mentioned over the last few weeks, this anomaly will be addressed as the bill progresses through the HOC
    It's not poorly drafted because it's been weeks since the issue was highlighted and absolutely nothing has been done to say it's a mistake and will be redrafted.

    So I assume via the lack of apology and a lack of any promise to rewrite the law to provide a fix for the RNLI that the intention is to retain the law as is for dodgy reasons.
    They have stated that criminalising the RNLI is not their intention

    This was the easiest I could find (apologies for the Richard Murphy link but the response is clear)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1412755421845245957
    What is the road to hell paved with? Magistrates courts are not bound by what the home office said on Twitter.
    Let’s see what the bill says once it’s been through comment / parliament shall we?
    Just for the record on the 14th July I sent various 'PB comments on the subject of the RNLI' to my local MP who is a personal friend and he immediately responded by saying his researcher would investigate the issue and then it would be referred to Patel directly

    I have no reason to believe this has not been done
    But has he/have you got a reply from the Home Office?
    It was only 2 weeks ago to be fair

    However, I will check next week as, to be honest my sons wedding on Saturday (yes the lifeboat crew member) is rather taking up a lot of time notwithstanding I am still managing the odd post, though expecting for the summons from my dearest to help with something or another beyond my skills
    I know the feeling, Mr G, I know the feeling. Fortunately we've got well beyond the stage of 'helping' with children's weddings, and said children can sort out their own children's weddings!
    Although we've had one of those, and there don't appear to be any more on the horizon!

    Anyway, as I recall it, it's down to the bride and her parents to deal with the wedding. 'All' Mrs G has to do, AIUI, is buy some new clothes and a big hat, and both of you turn up!
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.
  • CandyCandy Posts: 51
    edited July 2021



    So I started off fleeing Libya, make it to the UK, end up in Rwanda. I'll just start again then - the money being wasted in that by the foreign government.

    You are missing the point. Money is already being wasted by our government on the migrant issue. They have to be housed, fed, educated etc. Then there is the cost of all those lawsuits to remain, even after their claims have been denied.

    It is cheaper to send them to Rwanda or elsewhere. And the Rwandan government gets a revenue stream. Win-win.

    The only losers are the people traffickers and their friends/publicists in the western media who are anxious that we accept migrants otherwise the people-trafficking business model will go kaput.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    But how do you do that - the people at the top are going to be wealthy in a place that won't care and won't have an extradition treaty.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Dura_Ace said:


    Your later suggestion is quite Russian - they actually did this to some alleged Somali pirates they captured.


    That was the MV Moscow University incident. The MPR squad just shot them and threw them over the side. The lifeboat story was toss.
    I'm pretty sure I saw a video of them being cast adrift - or was that staged/bollocks?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    Didn't you send my header on this to your Tory MP? Did you get any response?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,457
    It's unlikely, I guess, that there are any Rwandans reading PB. But if there were, they might be pretty pissed off at the casual willingness of many on here to dump our problems on them.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Just come up on my FB page, from something called March for Change. It's from today's Times.

    "The head of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has condemned people who have abused the charity’s volunteers for helping overstretched Border Force agents to rescue migrants in the Channel.

    Mark Dowie, chief executive of the RNLI, said that the actions were “completely unacceptable” and he “felt for” his volunteers and staff. Last week police were called to the charity’s Tower station at Waterloo Bridge in London when a crew was “verbally assaulted” while reporting for duty."

    Obviously not officially condoned, but it's climate of opinion, especially when there's no Government condemnation.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Dura_Ace said:

    promoting electric cars properly

    What the fuck does this even mean in a Telegraph context? Use them to run over refugees?
    Substantively ? Nothing.
    Just vice signalling to the technophobes.

    Interesting snippet from the Tesla results yesterday was Musk's forecast for his battery manufacturing: “...most likely, we’ll hit an annualized rate of 100 GWh per year by the end of next year".
    Large pinch of salt, but if Tesla does crack the 4680 bulk manufacturing problems, the format will mean much (around 50%) cheaper batteries within two to three years. And other big producers like Panasonic will adopt / are adopting it, too.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    AZ First dose: Absolutely floored, complete wreck
    AZ second dose: Felt a bit grotty.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
    Tony Blair, who even the severest critics have never accused of lack of political instinct, once said at a private meeting (quoting from memory): "The public will support a reasonable programme to resettle a moderate flow of refugees here in an orderly fashion. What they will never tolerate is a perception of chaos - refugees hanging onto the undercarriage in Eurotunnel, being smuggled in lorries, and so on. If they feel the Government has a grip they will accept it being a reasonably generous grip. If they feel we've lost control they won't accept anything."
    And the problem for this Government is the fear that that chaos is now occurring via small boats and control has (or is rapidly starting to look like it has) been lost.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840

    It's unlikely, I guess, that there are any Rwandans reading PB. But if there were, they might be pretty pissed off at the casual willingness of many on here to dump our problems on them.

    Rwanda accepts cash and investment, the roads have improved since they've accepted Jiping's renminbi.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    edited July 2021
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    algarkirk said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    Yes, got a (former, too old now) mountain rescuer in the EF, too. And a couple of surf rescuers down in Cornwall. Admirable people, those who do that.

    Is Denmark getting a reduction in asylum seekers? Or do they get processed more quickly than here? In any event, apparently treated more humanely than appears to be the case in UK?
    What Denmark are doing is opening a migrant processing centre, likely to be in Rwanda. Anyone arriving in Denmark and claiming asylum is sent there, and if their application is successful they’re allowed to settle in Rwanda, with the Danish government paying the Rwandan government for each settled migrant. No-one arriving in Denmark by boat and claiming asylum, will be allowed to resettle in Denmark.

    Trying to find a link that isn’t screaming about the system one way or the other is difficult, this most impartial one I can quickly find.
    https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/28/migrants-who-want-to-come-to-uk-may-be-sent-to-processing-centres-in-africa-14836904/
    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    As for the idea that the Danes pay Rwanda for settled migrants, for how long? Imagine the headlines here "Your Taxpayers fund foreigners living abroad" - whatever agreement we managed to make with Madagascar would be torn up at the next budget review. "We negotiated and signed this deal, but we had no idea that it meant we had to keep paying".

    We know where "lets deport them somewhere else" came from. Its truly shameful that we have people advocating Nazi policies and yes that includes the idiots in the Danish government.
    What should we do to those arriving by boat?

    1. Allow them to settle in the U.K.?
    2. Deport them back to the safe country they came from (France or Belgium)?
    3. Process them offshore and allow the genuine refugees somewhere to live in a safe country?

    If we go with 1, should I buy a dingy and push my wife off the beach at Calais? Because that would save me shedloads of time and money, compared to trying to arrange legal migration through the proper channels.
    Lets go through these one at a time:
    1. Allow them to settle in the UK. If their claim is accepted, yes. If not, deport them. Asylum Seekers become a major problem because despite "take back control of our border" the smirking traitor has cut Border Force and the Police and the Home Office. We can't process claims with any speed so they get housed in "murder row" accommodation (e.g. on Teesside and in Sunderland the refugee houses were the ones that the housing association couldn't let), receive not enough to live on vouchers for sustenance and legally can't work. So they go into the black labour market.

    That is a problem of our own making. Accepting Asylum Seekers into the UK for processing is not a guarantee they can stay.

    2. The "safe country" myth. This is simply not present in the UN Refugee Convention, a position backed up by UK case law. So as there is no compulsion on refugees to settle in France there is no legal way to force the French to accept the deportees back. If we had international agreements to distribute refugees then perhaps we could, but Brexit killed that and we withdrew from the Dublin convention doing precisely that

    3. Process them offshore as the Nazis proposed for the Jews. A fantasy. Denmark has proposed it. The idea that Madagascar is willing to take our deportees for cash AND the deportees stay there and don't just try again is laughable. How long would the UK need to pay this foreign government to house our foreign undesirables? What happens when the UK stops paying the bill? Would the foreign government be required to imprison them there?
    1. The fact hat they’ve come from France or Belgium is enough to deny their asylum application. Those are not unsafe countries, and the migrants are not fleeing state persecution there.
    2. It’s impossible in practice to deport anyone who arrives with no papers, that’s the biggest problem.
    3. 8:30 in the morning and Godwin already? That doesn’t deserve a response.
    Except (1) is a bit of a nonsense. If refugees have to claim asylum in the 1st safe country they reach we'd get hardly any.
    Refugees have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.

    That’s international law, as defined by the 1951UN Refugee Convention, and the 1967 UN Refugee Protocol.
    Whereas Amnesty International says this:


    Neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor EU law requires a refugee to claim asylum in one country rather than another.

    There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive.


    Anyone fancy adjudicating? Fight? Best of three?
    @Sandpit I've looked at this in detail - there is nothing that says you need to claim asylum in the first safe country you arrive at. Which is why Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria etc make themselves as unwelcoming as possible to ensure they continue the journey.
    Hmm, I thought I’d looked at it too, but it does seem that UK a case law disagrees, and says that it’s possible to claim asylum providing you’ve not tried to claim asylum elsewhere.

    The obligation is on the first safe country they reach to hear their claim, but there’s no obligation to claim asylum in that first safe country.
    The EU sought to impose that obligation upon refugees by the Dublin III regulations but it was always questionable whether this agreement between states could derogate from the rights of refugees under the UN Convention. The scope of Dublin III and its practical impact is also something that is frequently exaggerated. This came from a briefing note provided to the House of Commons last year:

    "The UK received 2,236 requests from EU member states to accept
    transfers of individuals to the UK, and 714 transfers took place.
    The majority of these (496) were from Greece.
    • The UK made 3,259 transfer requests to EU member states, and
    263 transfers took place. 40% (104) went to Germany and 20%
    (53) went to France."

    So, in that period, Dublin allowed us to transfer back 263 potential asylum seekers, a frankly trivial number. Dublin III did give rights to prioritise the unification of families and as can be seen rather more people came to the UK on that basis.

    The real problem here is that the UN Convention for Refugees is not fit for purpose in a highly unstable and mobile world. It was written to reflect the problems Jews had fleeing the Nazis and a desire that that should not happen again. The modern reality is that there are hundreds of millions, probably billions of people living in absolute shit holes and many who may be particularly at risk because they throw gays off high buildings, for example. We have in theory signed up to give these people refuge but no government really wants to honour that obligation and I strongly suspect that most of the residents of these islands don't either.

    Edit, the period in question was 2019.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
    Tony Blair, who even the severest critics have never accused of lack of political instinct, once said at a private meeting (quoting from memory): "The public will support a reasonable programme to resettle a moderate flow of refugees here in an orderly fashion. What they will never tolerate is a perception of chaos - refugees hanging onto the undercarriage in Eurotunnel, being smuggled in lorries, and so on. If they feel the Government has a grip they will accept it being a reasonably generous grip. If they feel we've lost control they won't accept anything."
    I remember the Blue Peter campaign for Vietnamese boat people from when I was about 5. Funny how attitudes change.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    edited July 2021
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Does the second dose of AZ generally cause the same side effects as the first?

    Not for me. 1st dose = 48 hour flu. 2nd dose = nothing to speak of.
    First dose no reaction for me 2nd dose v sore arm for a week.
    Father in law, 91, no reaction whatsoever.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    Whilst I don't disagree this is exactly the same sort of thinking that gave us the war on drugs: catch those preying on the vulnerable by supplying this filth and the problem will be solved. Well, we lost and there will be a similarly endless supply of people who are willing to get involved in people trafficking too. So by all means punish these evil people but don't assume that is ever going to resolve the problem.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    DougSeal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
    Tony Blair, who even the severest critics have never accused of lack of political instinct, once said at a private meeting (quoting from memory): "The public will support a reasonable programme to resettle a moderate flow of refugees here in an orderly fashion. What they will never tolerate is a perception of chaos - refugees hanging onto the undercarriage in Eurotunnel, being smuggled in lorries, and so on. If they feel the Government has a grip they will accept it being a reasonably generous grip. If they feel we've lost control they won't accept anything."
    I remember the Blue Peter campaign for Vietnamese boat people from when I was about 5. Funny how attitudes change.
    I remember supporting the campaign to support the Ugandan Asians.

    Hmmm.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Charles said:

    eek said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    I am so glad that PB was able to wake you up to this threat. Sometimes stupid legislation isn't done by accident, it is malicious. Like in this case where the angry forrin out end of the Brexiteer community has been upset by scenes of RNLI heroes rescuing drowning migrants. "Not a good look" as one of their supporters described on here.

    So the traitor Patel comes up with a wheeze. Draft a bill that leaves RNLI crews on the hook. Refuse to engage with critics, "it won't do that" when the bill clearly will. Show just enough support for the "drown the forrin" Tory supporters and hope the row makes people think anyone backing the RNLI are soft on migration.

    I hope it has backfired. Rescuing drowning migrants is not a play in their faux culture war. It is literal life and death, and highlights just how grotesque some of them are. A Tory Party that wanted to prosecute the RNLI for rescuing drowning children? "Not a good look"
    The RNLI rescues anyone and everyone no matter their circumstances when they are in peril on the sea and they place their own lives at risk

    Indeed, and we never questioned that. Only that the bill seeks to criminalise them doing their job.
    I would disagree with your ascertain the bill 'seeks to criminalise the RNLI' rather than it is poorly drafted

    As has previously been mentioned over the last few weeks, this anomaly will be addressed as the bill progresses through the HOC
    It's not poorly drafted because it's been weeks since the issue was highlighted and absolutely nothing has been done to say it's a mistake and will be redrafted.

    So I assume via the lack of apology and a lack of any promise to rewrite the law to provide a fix for the RNLI that the intention is to retain the law as is for dodgy reasons.
    They have stated that criminalising the RNLI is not their intention

    This was the easiest I could find (apologies for the Richard Murphy link but the response is clear)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1412755421845245957
    What is the road to hell paved with? Magistrates courts are not bound by what the home office said on Twitter.
    Let’s see what the bill says once it’s been through comment / parliament shall we?
    Just for the record on the 14th July I sent various 'PB comments on the subject of the RNLI' to my local MP who is a personal friend and he immediately responded by saying his researcher would investigate the issue and then it would be referred to Patel directly

    I have no reason to believe this has not been done
    But has he/have you got a reply from the Home Office?
    It was only 2 weeks ago to be fair

    However, I will check next week as, to be honest my sons wedding on Saturday (yes the lifeboat crew member) is rather taking up a lot of time notwithstanding I am still managing the odd post, though expecting for the summons from my dearest to help with something or another beyond my skills
    I know the feeling, Mr G, I know the feeling. Fortunately we've got well beyond the stage of 'helping' with children's weddings, and said children can sort out their own children's weddings!
    Although we've had one of those, and there don't appear to be any more on the horizon!

    Anyway, as I recall it, it's down to the bride and her parents to deal with the wedding. 'All' Mrs G has to do, AIUI, is buy some new clothes and a big hat, and both of you turn up!
    Indeed but we have family down from NE Scotland, so of course we have to arrange a garden buffet and get togethers, then the wedding itself then Sunday bbqs etc

    And of course all within covid regulations and the hoops and regulations my son and his partner have had to jump through are all consuming and energy draining

    As I said to him the other day why did they not get wed a few years ago pre covid, after all they have been together for 12 years and have two adorable children, but then I suppose that is hindsight
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    RIP Fergus Millar.
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/30/sir-fergus-millar-obituary

    @Morris_Dancer would benefit from perusing some of his works.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    DavidL said:

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    Whilst I don't disagree this is exactly the same sort of thinking that gave us the war on drugs: catch those preying on the vulnerable by supplying this filth and the problem will be solved. Well, we lost and there will be a similarly endless supply of people who are willing to get involved in people trafficking too. So by all means punish these evil people but don't assume that is ever going to resolve the problem.
    The other problem is that the drug dealer/people smuggler often starts out as user/refugee. It is a cycle of abuse that is complex.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    DougSeal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
    Tony Blair, who even the severest critics have never accused of lack of political instinct, once said at a private meeting (quoting from memory): "The public will support a reasonable programme to resettle a moderate flow of refugees here in an orderly fashion. What they will never tolerate is a perception of chaos - refugees hanging onto the undercarriage in Eurotunnel, being smuggled in lorries, and so on. If they feel the Government has a grip they will accept it being a reasonably generous grip. If they feel we've lost control they won't accept anything."
    I remember the Blue Peter campaign for Vietnamese boat people from when I was about 5. Funny how attitudes change.
    I am surprised a very young and precocious Nigel Farage didn't write in and complain.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535

    Shaming the anti-vaxxers: A study published in the Lancet this week found similar safety profiles for the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, and drove a coach and horses through concerns about the safety of the AZ jab by finding that incidences of blood clots were far higher among COVID cases than people who had the vaccine. The real-world study of more than a million people found the number of blood clots among AZ and Pfizer recipients was similar. It concluded that either way, you were far more likely to get a blood clot if you rejected a vaccine and caught COVID.

    Blood on their hands: British government officials reacted with genuine fury at the actions of those who needlessly destroyed the reputation of the AstraZeneca vaccine — the jab that had the best chance of vaccinating the developing world but now suffers from low uptake. Earlier this week, POLITICO’s Jillian Deutsch and Ashleigh Furlong quoted a European official who “faulted EU countries for making decisions based on ’emotion’ rather than science,” revealing that “scientists and politicians quietly blamed Brexit” for the row over the AZ jab. A government official told Playbook: “The European leaders who trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine have blood on their hands. We now know what we all suspected is true, that they did it out of spite for Britain because of Brexit.” The official added: “When the history books are written, they’ll say these people were directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in developing countries who won’t take AZ because of their anti-vaxx scare stories.”


    https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-doves-last-stand-sombreros-out-boffin-bunfight/

    As I've mentioned before the head of the German intensive care doctors union, so quite a senior German medic, thought that the 2 week pause to assess AZ in German would cause more deaths due to delayed vaccination, than it could potentially save from blood clots, even if AZ was used across the entire German population. So on a global basis the trashing of AZ will almost certainly lead to tens to perhaps even hundreds of thousands of excess deaths due to the damage done to vaccination programmes.

    The loose words of some politicians and journalists will prove far more harmful than well known disasters like Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Fukushima.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    Cyclefree said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    Didn't you send my header on this to your Tory MP? Did you get any response?
    Yes I did send the entire header (I hope you do not mind) and he acknowledged it saying he was asking his researcher to investigate and he will contact Patel himself once he is aware of the detail

    As I have said this morning, once my sons wedding has concluded this Saturday I will contact him again, (he is a personal friend), to ascertain his thoughts which I will share with PB in due course
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    Foxy said:

    pigeon said:

    Olympics Covid latest: entire Australian track & field team in isolation and awaiting test results. Would appear to be consequence of one member being a close contact of the American pole vault world champion Sam Kendricks, who was ruled out by a positive test earlier today.

    The athletics programme starts tomorrow. Oh dear.

    British media: DOES THIS INCREASE TEAM GB MEDAL CHANCES?!!!
    I remember being in NZ for the Commonwealth games in 1990. The coverage was spectacularly local, but all countries do that.

    "Now we go to the finals of the 100m and an interview with the 7th place NZ runner..."

    Not to be beaten by the Leicester Mercury who once led with the headline:

    "Bali bombing death toll reaches 200, Leicester family's holiday ruined"

    Or ‘Aberdeen Man Drowns at Sea’ in April 1912.
    More or less apocryphal which is sad.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    promoting electric cars properly

    What the fuck does this even mean in a Telegraph context? Use them to run over refugees?
    Substantively ? Nothing.
    Just vice signalling to the technophobes.

    Interesting snippet from the Tesla results yesterday was Musk's forecast for his battery manufacturing: “...most likely, we’ll hit an annualized rate of 100 GWh per year by the end of next year".
    Large pinch of salt, but if Tesla does crack the 4680 bulk manufacturing problems, the format will mean much (around 50%) cheaper batteries within two to three years. And other big producers like Panasonic will adopt / are adopting it, too.
    The most effective promotion of the electric car in history was the promise, and delivery, of a 4 second car by Tesla.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    DavidL said:

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    Whilst I don't disagree this is exactly the same sort of thinking that gave us the war on drugs: catch those preying on the vulnerable by supplying this filth and the problem will be solved. Well, we lost and there will be a similarly endless supply of people who are willing to get involved in people trafficking too. So by all means punish these evil people but don't assume that is ever going to resolve the problem.
    The other problem is that the drug dealer/people smuggler often starts out as user/refugee. It is a cycle of abuse that is complex.
    That’s something that’s seen in other scenarios too.

    The police investigating Epstein had great difficulty working out if the twenty-something women on the island were being abused or were abusers themselves. What was happening, was that they were using one generation of victim to attract the next.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    glw said:

    Shaming the anti-vaxxers: A study published in the Lancet this week found similar safety profiles for the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, and drove a coach and horses through concerns about the safety of the AZ jab by finding that incidences of blood clots were far higher among COVID cases than people who had the vaccine. The real-world study of more than a million people found the number of blood clots among AZ and Pfizer recipients was similar. It concluded that either way, you were far more likely to get a blood clot if you rejected a vaccine and caught COVID.

    Blood on their hands: British government officials reacted with genuine fury at the actions of those who needlessly destroyed the reputation of the AstraZeneca vaccine — the jab that had the best chance of vaccinating the developing world but now suffers from low uptake. Earlier this week, POLITICO’s Jillian Deutsch and Ashleigh Furlong quoted a European official who “faulted EU countries for making decisions based on ’emotion’ rather than science,” revealing that “scientists and politicians quietly blamed Brexit” for the row over the AZ jab. A government official told Playbook: “The European leaders who trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine have blood on their hands. We now know what we all suspected is true, that they did it out of spite for Britain because of Brexit.” The official added: “When the history books are written, they’ll say these people were directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in developing countries who won’t take AZ because of their anti-vaxx scare stories.”


    https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-doves-last-stand-sombreros-out-boffin-bunfight/

    As I've mentioned before the head of the German intensive care doctors union, so quite a senior German medic, thought that the 2 week pause to assess AZ in German would cause more deaths due to delayed vaccination, than it could potentially save from blood clots, even if AZ was used across the entire German population. So on a global basis the trashing of AZ will almost certainly lead to tens to perhaps even hundreds of thousands of excess deaths due to the damage done to vaccination programmes.

    The loose words of some politicians and journalists will prove far more harmful than well known disasters like Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Fukushima.
    The reactions of various European health regulators are in some cases at least defensible.
    Comments like those made by those like Macron (in particular) are simply not, in any manner.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,006
    DavidL said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    algarkirk said:

    Sandpit said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    Yes, got a (former, too old now) mountain rescuer in the EF, too. And a couple of surf rescuers down in Cornwall. Admirable people, those who do that.

    Is Denmark getting a reduction in asylum seekers? Or do they get processed more quickly than here? In any event, apparently treated more humanely than appears to be the case in UK?
    What Denmark are doing is opening a migrant processing centre, likely to be in Rwanda. Anyone arriving in Denmark and claiming asylum is sent there, and if their application is successful they’re allowed to settle in Rwanda, with the Danish government paying the Rwandan government for each settled migrant. No-one arriving in Denmark by boat and claiming asylum, will be allowed to resettle in Denmark.

    Trying to find a link that isn’t screaming about the system one way or the other is difficult, this most impartial one I can quickly find.
    https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/28/migrants-who-want-to-come-to-uk-may-be-sent-to-processing-centres-in-africa-14836904/
    Surely there is a simple step - take a breath, ignore the froth on either side, and think. Denmark has *proposed* such a thing. It doesn't exist yet hence "likely to be in Rwanda". The likelihood of a foreign government accepting someone else's migrants for cash seems so unlikely as to be absurd. "They're allowed to settle in Rwanda" - are they imprisoned there? Won't they just leave and head somewhere they want to settle?

    As for the idea that the Danes pay Rwanda for settled migrants, for how long? Imagine the headlines here "Your Taxpayers fund foreigners living abroad" - whatever agreement we managed to make with Madagascar would be torn up at the next budget review. "We negotiated and signed this deal, but we had no idea that it meant we had to keep paying".

    We know where "lets deport them somewhere else" came from. Its truly shameful that we have people advocating Nazi policies and yes that includes the idiots in the Danish government.
    What should we do to those arriving by boat?

    1. Allow them to settle in the U.K.?
    2. Deport them back to the safe country they came from (France or Belgium)?
    3. Process them offshore and allow the genuine refugees somewhere to live in a safe country?

    If we go with 1, should I buy a dingy and push my wife off the beach at Calais? Because that would save me shedloads of time and money, compared to trying to arrange legal migration through the proper channels.
    Lets go through these one at a time:
    1. Allow them to settle in the UK. If their claim is accepted, yes. If not, deport them. Asylum Seekers become a major problem because despite "take back control of our border" the smirking traitor has cut Border Force and the Police and the Home Office. We can't process claims with any speed so they get housed in "murder row" accommodation (e.g. on Teesside and in Sunderland the refugee houses were the ones that the housing association couldn't let), receive not enough to live on vouchers for sustenance and legally can't work. So they go into the black labour market.

    That is a problem of our own making. Accepting Asylum Seekers into the UK for processing is not a guarantee they can stay.

    2. The "safe country" myth. This is simply not present in the UN Refugee Convention, a position backed up by UK case law. So as there is no compulsion on refugees to settle in France there is no legal way to force the French to accept the deportees back. If we had international agreements to distribute refugees then perhaps we could, but Brexit killed that and we withdrew from the Dublin convention doing precisely that

    3. Process them offshore as the Nazis proposed for the Jews. A fantasy. Denmark has proposed it. The idea that Madagascar is willing to take our deportees for cash AND the deportees stay there and don't just try again is laughable. How long would the UK need to pay this foreign government to house our foreign undesirables? What happens when the UK stops paying the bill? Would the foreign government be required to imprison them there?
    1. The fact hat they’ve come from France or Belgium is enough to deny their asylum application. Those are not unsafe countries, and the migrants are not fleeing state persecution there.
    2. It’s impossible in practice to deport anyone who arrives with no papers, that’s the biggest problem.
    3. 8:30 in the morning and Godwin already? That doesn’t deserve a response.
    Except (1) is a bit of a nonsense. If refugees have to claim asylum in the 1st safe country they reach we'd get hardly any.
    Refugees have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.

    That’s international law, as defined by the 1951UN Refugee Convention, and the 1967 UN Refugee Protocol.
    Whereas Amnesty International says this:


    Neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor EU law requires a refugee to claim asylum in one country rather than another.

    There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive.


    Anyone fancy adjudicating? Fight? Best of three?
    @Sandpit I've looked at this in detail - there is nothing that says you need to claim asylum in the first safe country you arrive at. Which is why Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria etc make themselves as unwelcoming as possible to ensure they continue the journey.
    Hmm, I thought I’d looked at it too, but it does seem that UK a case law disagrees, and says that it’s possible to claim asylum providing you’ve not tried to claim asylum elsewhere.

    The obligation is on the first safe country they reach to hear their claim, but there’s no obligation to claim asylum in that first safe country.
    The EU sought to impose that obligation upon refugees by the Dublin III regulations but it was always questionable whether this agreement between states could derogate from the rights of refugees under the UN Convention. The scope of Dublin III and its practical impact is also something that is frequently exaggerated. This came from a briefing note provided to the House of Commons last year:

    "The UK received 2,236 requests from EU member states to accept
    transfers of individuals to the UK, and 714 transfers took place.
    The majority of these (496) were from Greece.
    • The UK made 3,259 transfer requests to EU member states, and
    263 transfers took place. 40% (104) went to Germany and 20%
    (53) went to France."

    So, in that period, Dublin allowed us to transfer back 263 potential asylum seekers, a frankly trivial number. Dublin III did give rights to prioritise the unification of families and as can be seen rather more people came to the UK on that basis.

    The real problem here is that the UN Convention for Refugees is not fit for purpose in a highly unstable and mobile world. It was written to reflect the problems Jews had fleeing the Nazis and a desire that that should not happen again. The modern reality is that there are hundreds of millions, probably billions of people living in absolute shit holes and many who may be particularly at risk because they throw gays off high buildings, for example. We have in theory signed up to give these people refuge but no government really wants to honour that obligation and I strongly suspect that most of the residents of these islands don't either.

    Edit, the period in question was 2019.
    It is very sad how hardened people have become to human suffering. As long as it isn't them they largely no longer care. Our "lets send them to Madagascar like the Jews" idea is about as reactionary as it gets - lets not fix the problem, lets just send it elsewhere. The problem elsewhere is why Europe has a refugee crisis!

    As other threads have commented, the UK has a growing structural problem where there is a growing percentage of pensioners needing to be kept by a shrinking number of workers. We need migration more than ever but a lengthy campaign by the right has hardened people's attitudes.

    The next one will be Hong Kong. We absolutely have obligations to the people there and have given 5.4m people the right to a visa to live and work in the UK. Even though the Home Office only forecast 300k in the next few years (and we know how accurate their past forecasts have been...) they will be coming at a time when people are acutely hardened to non-Brits coming here - even though they have been invited!

    If we are going to be heartless to asylum seekers from elsewhere in the world are we really going to be welcoming to the BNOs and their dependants as they settle here?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840
    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Sandpit said:

    DavidL said:

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    Whilst I don't disagree this is exactly the same sort of thinking that gave us the war on drugs: catch those preying on the vulnerable by supplying this filth and the problem will be solved. Well, we lost and there will be a similarly endless supply of people who are willing to get involved in people trafficking too. So by all means punish these evil people but don't assume that is ever going to resolve the problem.
    The other problem is that the drug dealer/people smuggler often starts out as user/refugee. It is a cycle of abuse that is complex.
    That’s something that’s seen in other scenarios too.

    The police investigating Epstein had great difficulty working out if the twenty-something women on the island were being abused or were abusers themselves. What was happening, was that they were using one generation of victim to attract the next.
    It wasn't, I understand, uncommon to have an ex-prostitute as a madam in a brothel in Georgian/Victorian times.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Pulpstar said:

    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.

    Wish her well. Not a good time to be in hospital with something like that!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,592
    Nigelb said:

    glw said:

    Shaming the anti-vaxxers: A study published in the Lancet this week found similar safety profiles for the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, and drove a coach and horses through concerns about the safety of the AZ jab by finding that incidences of blood clots were far higher among COVID cases than people who had the vaccine. The real-world study of more than a million people found the number of blood clots among AZ and Pfizer recipients was similar. It concluded that either way, you were far more likely to get a blood clot if you rejected a vaccine and caught COVID.

    Blood on their hands: British government officials reacted with genuine fury at the actions of those who needlessly destroyed the reputation of the AstraZeneca vaccine — the jab that had the best chance of vaccinating the developing world but now suffers from low uptake. Earlier this week, POLITICO’s Jillian Deutsch and Ashleigh Furlong quoted a European official who “faulted EU countries for making decisions based on ’emotion’ rather than science,” revealing that “scientists and politicians quietly blamed Brexit” for the row over the AZ jab. A government official told Playbook: “The European leaders who trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine have blood on their hands. We now know what we all suspected is true, that they did it out of spite for Britain because of Brexit.” The official added: “When the history books are written, they’ll say these people were directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in developing countries who won’t take AZ because of their anti-vaxx scare stories.”


    https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-doves-last-stand-sombreros-out-boffin-bunfight/

    As I've mentioned before the head of the German intensive care doctors union, so quite a senior German medic, thought that the 2 week pause to assess AZ in German would cause more deaths due to delayed vaccination, than it could potentially save from blood clots, even if AZ was used across the entire German population. So on a global basis the trashing of AZ will almost certainly lead to tens to perhaps even hundreds of thousands of excess deaths due to the damage done to vaccination programmes.

    The loose words of some politicians and journalists will prove far more harmful than well known disasters like Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Fukushima.
    The reactions of various European health regulators are in some cases at least defensible.
    Comments like those made by those like Macron (in particular) are simply not, in any manner.
    Actually, the EU level regulators behaved quite sensibly - that very measured presentation on the AZN blood clot issue, for example.

    It was national level regulators/institutions that went batshit insane. Looking at you, Germany, France, Italy....
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I expect the well meaning videos of the RNLI and so forth are making it across various Whatsapps and encouraging further attempts.
    When push and shove comes we are a nation of bleeding hearts compared to France in particular. As the lives of those crossing are saved and seen to be saved, more will attempt to make the crossing - this is irrefutable fact, human nature and kindness rolled into one.

    We don't take many refugees and the ones we do take are a small fraction of immigration. I think this issue is primarily emotional. The notion of our country being "penetrated" and "taken for fools" etc. It gets people's backs up.
    The consequences of two decades of failure to control immigration in general.

    There would be more willingness to take refugees if economic migration was under control.

    That applies to refugees not 'refugees' - I've heard multiple times over the years "if they're refugees why are they all young men, where are the women and children ?" - trust has long gone on this issue.
    Tony Blair, who even the severest critics have never accused of lack of political instinct, once said at a private meeting (quoting from memory): "The public will support a reasonable programme to resettle a moderate flow of refugees here in an orderly fashion. What they will never tolerate is a perception of chaos - refugees hanging onto the undercarriage in Eurotunnel, being smuggled in lorries, and so on. If they feel the Government has a grip they will accept it being a reasonably generous grip. If they feel we've lost control they won't accept anything."
    A pitch perfect response.

    And lets add to that, it is absurdly perilous to human life to do anything but discourage illegal crossings.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    Didn't you send my header on this to your Tory MP? Did you get any response?
    Yes I did send the entire header (I hope you do not mind) and he acknowledged it saying he was asking his researcher to investigate and he will contact Patel himself once he is aware of the detail

    As I have said this morning, once my sons wedding has concluded this Saturday I will contact him again, (he is a personal friend), to ascertain his thoughts which I will share with PB in due course
    Of course not. Thank you for your response.

    I hope all goes well with your son's wedding.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.

    Wish her well. Not a good time to be in hospital with something like that!
    She's been double vaccinated so hopefully that'll help.
    Best wishes to her. And you.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Pulpstar said:

    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.

    Wish her well. Not a good time to be in hospital with something like that!
    My mother had the ill fortune to go into hospital for an x-ray on a suspected hip fracture (it wasn't) at the very start of the pandemic when hospitals were covid incubators. She was dead 11 days later.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    malcolmg said:

    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    As the Father of a lifeboat crew member I completely endorse the thread header and it is intolerable the issue has even arisen

    Patel needs to deal with this

    In her head she has. Incredibly.

    A member of my extended family is a lifeboat crew member in another country; his father describes the situation as 'his alarm goes and he's off out. Immediately!"

    Yes, lifeboatmen do meet idiots who should never have gone to sea. That doesn't mean they should be left to drown.
    I know a couple of people who do mountain rescue. They’re forever risking their own lives, to pick up people dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops with severe hypothermia, or who went for a walk and got completely lost as weather closed in. Idiots the lot of them, but still humans.

    The only way the boat crossings stop, is if the demand goes away. It’s clear that the French government doesn’t care, and is turning a blind eye to people eager to leave France to live in a safe country. We need to take the Denmark route, of facilitating settlement in a safe third country, and let it be known that anyone arriving by boat from France will be resettled elsewhere.
    As the "lets deport the forrin to Madagascar" proposal isn't realistic, we need to look at what is. Europe faces a massive refugee problem because of the burning mess on its borders. One way to stop the flow is to fix these problems. If Afghanistan, Libya, Syria were safe and functioning then less migrants need to flee.

    As that isn't very realistic then plan B - share the burden. Refugees can be distributed out amongst safe countries by agreement. But as its Britain Uber Alles these days we will enter no such agreement. Not that we need to considering we only get a small number of refugees anyway.

    Then we have Plan C. Make it so awful for refugees that the word gets to them not to come. Hence the "Drown the Migrants" bill.
    Plan D: take refugees from camps close to the crisis. Judge anyone else who arrives outside an airport by economic migrant standards and process them offshore.
    The problem is that no offshore country seems willing to take them. Rwanda keeps being mentioned, but is there any evidence that Rwanda has seriously been interested?

    Australia managed to send its to PNG and Nauru, but these have been defacto colonies for some time, and I think even PNG got fed up with being used this way.

    An internment camp in the UK seems the obvious solution, with asylum courts on site, as well as medical facilities etc. Far fewer would come if they couldn't dissappear into the underground economy.

    Performative cruelty is not going to work on people who have often walked a few hundred miles across deserts, and trapped by gangs in Libya etc. It is just not viable to be more cruel than what they have already suffered.
    Why not go the full hog and put prison hulks off the south coast, only need to send the odd tender out with food once a week. Some gunships to circle them and make sure no-one makes a dash for it.
    At last a possible use for the new "Flaggy McFlagface" royal yacht replacement?
    Using a figment of British nationalist fever dreams to counter a problem that is only ‘major’ in the imaginations of same would certainly be fitting.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited July 2021
    Dura_Ace said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.

    Wish her well. Not a good time to be in hospital with something like that!
    My mother had the ill fortune to go into hospital for an x-ray on a suspected hip fracture (it wasn't) at the very start of the pandemic when hospitals were covid incubators. She was dead 11 days later.
    Nasty. Similar thing happened the husband of an ex-colleague of my wife's. She's still very bitter about it.

    Every sympathy.

    I've got a consultant appointment early this afternoon, by telephone. Why can't they use Zoom or Skype or similar?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    eek said:

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    But how do you do that - the people at the top are going to be wealthy in a place that won't care and won't have an extradition treaty.
    It has to be international. There should be no safe haven for people smugglers.

    The international slave trade went from being internationally acceptable in 1800 to being seen as evil by 1900 in almost all countries, and certainly be 2000. It has been replaced by an equally evil trade.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840
    Dura_Ace said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mum's in hospital with shortness of breath. If she's diagnosed Covid it'll be a "diagnosis with covid whilst in hospital". I can assure the Telegraph readers here she hasn't gone in with a broken leg.

    Wish her well. Not a good time to be in hospital with something like that!
    My mother had the ill fortune to go into hospital for an x-ray on a suspected hip fracture (it wasn't) at the very start of the pandemic when hospitals were covid incubators. She was dead 11 days later.
    That's really shit :(
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    DavidL said:

    With respect to refugees, I want to see much more focus on tackling and prosecuting people smugglers. Scum are making millions out of the heartache of the refugees, killing hundreds or thousands in the process, and selling many into servitude.

    Whilst I don't disagree this is exactly the same sort of thinking that gave us the war on drugs: catch those preying on the vulnerable by supplying this filth and the problem will be solved. Well, we lost and there will be a similarly endless supply of people who are willing to get involved in people trafficking too. So by all means punish these evil people but don't assume that is ever going to resolve the problem.
    I don't think the parallels with the drugs trade is quite accurate. But if you think it is, then what is your solution?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    It's unlikely, I guess, that there are any Rwandans reading PB. But if there were, they might be pretty ypissed off at the casual willingness of many on here to dump our problems on them.

    Someone will no doubt come up with an anecdote about a Rwandan acquaintance who coincidentally entirely agrees with whatever happens to be their view is of the subject.
This discussion has been closed.