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The Channel Migrant tragedy on many of the front pages – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,773

    TOPPING said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    What's wrong with what we are doing today. Strenuously (!) discouraging migrants, having laws and processes in place to filter out genuine asylum seekers, while at the same time humanely dealing with those that ignore the warnings and come anyway.

    Now of course the Tories, the party of Laura Norder, don't seem very good at the laws and processes to filter out and act upon non-genuine asylum seekers but in principle the system is just about doing what it was once designed to do. A few thousand people trying to cross the channel which they always will do regardless of illusory deals with Albania.

    I don't see that the current situation is particularly broken aside from headlines in the Daily Express if you are Boris Johnson.
    What's wrong with what we are doing today is we are tacitly facilitating the transportation of tens of thousands in a very deadly and dangerous crossing that will inevitably result in many, many deaths.

    If anyone who crosses the Channel is immediately put on a plane and sent to a third party nation like Rwanda then the Channel crossings would drop to zero almost overnight. Its only because once they're here, they stay here, that people are doing these deadly crossings.

    We should have safe, humane and legal routes into this country that take place via planes and legal boats, not sinking dinghies and rafts.
    As I keep pointing out, to render boat people to *anywhere* we need to detain them and that means catching them. Plenty of footage out there of boats landing and people just wandering off with no authorities in sight.

    Rendering to wherever is a virtue-signal to the people who want the forrin well away from them. There are hard-to-do steps before you can do that as as the "diplomacy" overnight demonstrated that lot are clueless.
    We only need to detain them if they don't intend to apply for asylum and wish to disappear altogether.

    If they present themselves for asylum, or are met by people as they arrive on shore, then they can be taken straight to the asylum processing centre wherever that may be.
    You need to detain them in all circumstances. Applying for asylum? Off you go to the processing centre wherever that is. Planning to disappear? Off you go returned to either where you came from or to the processing centre until we determine where you came from.

    The problem remains that we do not have the police or home office resources to meet people nor the navy and coast guard resources to track them.
    Simple solution to lack of manpower - make it compulsory for anyone who successfully gains asylum to work for home office/border force. They get a worthwhile job, they will surely be happy to be based wherever we put processing centres as they will be happy to be safe and not picky about which part of the country they live in and judging by Ms Patel successful immigrants are harder on other immigrants so it’s not like they will just waive everyone through….!!
  • Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    The ultimate QTWTAIN.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    It depends on how much dilution there is in binding efficiency and whether the new variant has got the same hospitalisation rate as delta or the delta subvariant. If it has less binding efficiency but also hospitalises at a tenth of the rate it may end up being the end game for COVID, it literally becomes endemic within a few months. We just don't have enough data to say what is going to happen yet, though we should start getting modelled vaccine efficacy within the next two to three weeks once the likes of Porton Down and other labs get their hands on the variant. Remember modelled vaccine efficacy for Beta was not as bad as people initially feared. Even with Delta there was a lot of blue tick wankery about it evading vaccines, we know that not to be the case now despite the E484Q mutation that people seem to be very worried about.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    I suspect it's the unavoidable Trans issue - that some people after trans rights are (no matter what others may think) very awkward to deal with sex offenders using any trick they can find.
  • Red wind warning for the NE coast. The last time I experienced a red wind warning was at a castle in County Galway on 29th February 2020.

    So the Nu variant is giving me a sense of deja vu. Still missing is the music, food and an engagement party (all the fun stuff). There's still time, I guess.

    "I thought this would never run"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzhPzHhnFl0
  • Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    The ultimate QTWTAIN.
    OCIFW - Of Course It F*cking Wasn't?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    I liked this that I found on last night's thread. Particularly in this age of the simple (otherwise known as the Hartlepool) soundbite. This is a train worth jumping on.....

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-government-will-push-for-a-european-federation/
    Roger, why do you want a European federal state?
    It would ensure the likes of Johnson would never again have unfettered power and more important I like free movement and a common currency.
    It would ensure that whatever politicians get to the top in the EU would have more and more power in Europe as a whole.

    Why do you assume that means people you would like?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,855
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    No, that is the million dollar question now
    I'm going to save the panic and the blues for if the answer is Yes and Yes.
  • HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    No, that is the million dollar question now
    Really struggling to be optimistic this morning. Have to say this news has hit me hard.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    Leon said:

    It amazes me as a non-scientist, that a variant could be several orders more infectious than Delta.

    What the fuck does it do? Land on your face and crawl down your throat?

    Seriously - we don't know that it is several orders more infectious. Calm down.
    Delta has an R of 5+

    Orders of magnitude would mean 50, 500, or 5000 - all of which are ridiculous/impossible

    Measles is 15 or something??
    A guy on Twitter yesterday did some napkin-maths and estimated that Nu has a R0 of 24 (Delta is R6). Seemed mad back then in the golden age of, er, yesterday afternoon, but now seems quite plausible
    Delta has R0 of six, and in the UK R(effective) is about 1 (and thats mainly down to the unvaccinated kids). I seriously doubt Nu has an R0 of 24, and even if it does, in the UK at least most people are not Covid naive so the risk of serious illness and death is much reduced. Mutations, even lots like Nu has, do not make it a new organism. T-cells and antibodies are complex things, so even with some immune escape, there will be protection.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    No, that is the million dollar question now
    Somewhat higher than a million dollars, I'd say!
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Worth reading Johnson's letter in full, not just the edited highlights:

    https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1463973204456878080?s=20

    It’s a good letter.
    Boris’s mistake here was to make it public.
    Macron’s mistake is to be a churlish twat.

    A meeting is to be held on the France-U.K. border and the U.K. is disinvited?

    Twat.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    Is she really a woman? Should she be sent to an all female prison?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    Porton Down are apparently testing it right now for virulence, vaccine escape, infectiousness etc

    Any numbers you see until they, or a similar laboratory, runs a full analysis, have been pulled out of someones arse.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    I am guessing the boringly statistical one that there are many orders of magnitude more devious predatory heterosexual male shits in the world than there are women trapped in mens' bodies, and that anyone defending this arse's utterly ludicrous claim to be a woman with a penis is enabling predatory heterosexual male shittery under cover of particularly ill thought out wokery.

    And severely damaging the cause of genuine trans women btw.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Politicians on all sides turned down far better forms of BREXIT Change UK and LDs particularly opposed Ken Clarkes iteration that would otherwise have passed
    You forgot Corbyn, who memorably insisted Article 50 be declared the day after the vote.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    I liked this that I found on last night's thread. Particularly in this age of the simple (otherwise known as the Hartlepool) soundbite. This is a train worth jumping on.....

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-government-will-push-for-a-european-federation/
    Roger, why do you want a European federal state?
    It would ensure the likes of Johnson would never again have unfettered power and more important I like free movement and a common currency.
    From frying pan into fire, by the sounds of it.

    What we had (pre-Brexit) was mostly fine. Could have been better, but wasn’t too bad. For the most part, in this messy world, it worked.

    Fully federal Europe? Fugeddaboutit.
    Given that various treaties at the end of Big Mistake II promised that Austria and Germany would never, ever, enter into any kind of federation.... It certainly seems an interesting idea.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    That it’s too easy for men to be treated as women when they self evidently aren’t
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725
    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Because FBPE MPs had many opportunities to pass a better version but thought they could subvert democracy with a 2nd Referendum
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Spot on.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725
    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    No, that is the million dollar question now
    Really struggling to be optimistic this morning. Have to say this news has hit me hard.
    It’s a shitter.

    But I haven’t cancelled my Xmas plans on the Algarve quite yet.

    Have courage.

    First, we don’t know what effect this has on the vaccinated. We also don’t know how lethal it is.

    Second, we know a lot more about covid protection, and treatment, than we did nearly two years ago.

    The road back is never without mis-steps.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    1. Illegally invade Iraq
    2. Abuse French as cheese-eating surrender monkeys for not breaking international law
    3. Pull out, leaving vacuum filled by Islamic State
    4. Use subsequent wave of asylum seekers to stoke xenophobia as means to leave EU to take back control of border
    >>>

    5. Blame French for not dealing with said wave of asylum seekers
    6. End up ceding control of your border to the organisation you just left on the pretext of taking back control of border
    7. Throw toys out of pram


    https://twitter.com/ottocrat/status/1464190253305061379
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    The point is that there is a massive difference between a liberal society recognising an individual'rs right to self-identify as any gender they wish but this does not mean you can conflate gender with sex and thus obtain access to places which are determined by sex.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,010
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
    Trying to look on the bright side, whatever happens will probably be quick, and then it will probably be over.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,235
    edited November 2021

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    They'll definitely come a time when Brexit is no longer fashionable amongst the British Right. It'll probably be framed in terms of silly old Boris and Frosty having squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Leon said:

    Thread:

    Here's what I predict will happen in next few weeks wrt Nu - (wading back into #CovidTwitter after a looong time.. big risk indeed)
    1. Within days, many countries close borders to SA and Botswana - personal rating 7/10, maybe reasonable decision but big picture impact?


    https://twitter.com/iamgkadam/status/1463942620015742986?s=20

    What a ridiculous, pointless thread by that guy
    Thing is at this point we dont know There have been other variants that appear and then disappear. I posted last night about the enhanced testing that has happened in a number of locations in the last year, mainly variant hunting, including one of the SA ones. In the end they fizzled. Delta has been hugely successful, so Nu will have to do even better. It might do, but it also might not. I think some on here enjoy the drama of it all, the rest just want to get on with our lives.
    You think I don’t want to get on with my life??

    I had a really nice 2022 all planned. Good commissions coming in. Plenty of intriguing foreign travel. As of yesterday, life was really looking up

    The Nunu has the potential to fuck most of that, and do much much more. And the implications are bleak: will this cleverly engineered virus just keep one step ahead for a decade? Or forever?

    The Israelis have been good on covid. They are taking this deeply seriously

    ‘ISRAEL As arrival from Malawi becomes FIRST CASE of highly mutated B.1.1.529 variant detected in country, PM says health officials need to be ready for ‘work around the clock’’

    https://twitter.com/fcukierman/status/1464187882562752515?s=21


    It’s not good
  • Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Well, we obviously rejected Project Fear as a pack of lies most of which was never going to come to pass, and hasn't either
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
    Trying to look on the bright side, whatever happens will probably be quick, and then it will probably be over.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited November 2021

    I don't really buy the argument that Boris is rationally, if cynically, playing to his base with that idiotic letter to Macron. Yes, it might play well in the short term to blame the French, but he's not facing an election in the short term. Instead, in pure electoral terms (even leaving aside the humanitarian and policy objectives), what he should be doing is trying to get to a position where this issue is seen as having been well handled by the time he is facing election, to defuse the issue during the next couple of years. There's no easy way to do that, of course, but one absolute certainty is that making any progress at all is completely dependent on good relations with and maximum cooperation by France and the EU in general.

    In other words, this looks like not only a major blunder of government, but also a major blunder of politics. Boris has the reputation of being good at winning elections, but I'm not sure that reputation is going to last.

    Johnson never ever listened to Foreign Office officials (who I’m fairly sure would have told him that diplomacy via Twitter screenshot would be anathema to the French) when he was in post there, so why would anyone expect him to start now?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    No, that is the million dollar question now
    It depends on a given population’s pre-existing exposure through vaccination and infection. And that society’s risk tolerance. I’m hopeful that in this country, we’ll be able to more or less muddle through with the very high background immunity levels now (including from boosters).

    In APAC meanwhile, it’s hard to see anything other than a slamming shut of the borders and society at large.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    They'll definitely come a time when Brexit is no longer fashionable amongst the British Right. It'll probably be framed in terms of silly old Boris and Frosty having squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
    Yes.

    But it’s a bit like Communism (as cliched as the comparison is), and will continue to flare up in response to real world problems that are too hard to be solved on the front page of the Daily Mail.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587

    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    12 GW being generated by wind of 32 GW total demand. It's not good enough, it ought to be at least double that when there's a moderate storm about.

    In the longer run what we would actually need is something like 45GW (to pick a number at random) and the capacity to store the surplus efficiently for use when it is not windy. Whilst 24 GW would clearly be an improvement it too is not sufficient. Still, at least our gas consumption is temporarily reduced.
    Given the increase in electricity consumption implied by electrifying land transport and domestic heating and industry I would think we need to aim for closer to ten times our current wind capacity.

    And add tidal, mini-nukes, interconnectors to Moroccan solar...
    There's 24GW of installed wind in the UK. Unless you are planning absolutely massive storage facilities, I don't see how the UK could possibly just that much - even including the electrification of domestic heating and road transport.

    It may be 24GW in theory but most of the time it is 20% of that.

    If it were up to me I would indeed be aiming for 10x that figure, which would increase our general wind from the 5-10GW range to the 50-100GW range and when we have more wind than we need then we should be able to export it via interconnectors.

    Furthermore we should have a lot of storage (which will inevitably come once cars are plugged into a smart network they would act as a distributed storage network too).

    Finally for those times when we really have more cheap power than we can need then there should be some low-labour, high-energy on-demand businesses that can consume that energy and turn it into something productive, while shutting down when energy is low and expensive. One example could be the electrolysis of water into hydrogen.
    We don't need quite so much excess capacity, though we will need some. Far more cost effective would be investment in trans-European and North African high voltage interconnects.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,010
    Leon said:

    It amazes me as a non-scientist, that a variant could be several orders more infectious than Delta.

    What the fuck does it do? Land on your face and crawl down your throat?

    Seriously - we don't know that it is several orders more infectious. Calm down.
    Delta has an R of 5+

    Orders of magnitude would mean 50, 500, or 5000 - all of which are ridiculous/impossible

    Measles is 15 or something??
    A guy on Twitter yesterday did some napkin-maths and estimated that Nu has a R0 of 24 (Delta is R6). Seemed mad back then in the golden age of, er, yesterday afternoon, but now seems quite plausible
    You'd need to know how much of the competitive advantage is immune escape and how much is intrinsic transmissibility. It seems much likelier that immune escape is at work, rather than that R0 is 24.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    French Interior Ministry: ‘We consider Boris Johnson’s public letter unacceptable and in opposition with discussions between counterparts. As a consequence, Priti Patel is not invited anymore to the meeting on Sunday.’

    https://twitter.com/simonjonesnews/status/1464130103630344197?s=21

    So the French are still trying to play politics, rather than conduct talks with the intention of stopping people drowning in the Channel.
    To be frank, it looks as though our PM is the one playing politics, setting out a suggestion which he knew in advance would be unacceptable.

    Most, if not all, of those presently waiting in N. France would be an asset to this country, although, of course we have, in concert with the EU, to do 'something' about the continued drift of people to Northern and Western Europe.
    On what basis are you making the judgement in the second paragraph? (The one about being an asset to the country). Interested in your evidentiary support.
    Young or relatively young people keen to to provide better lives for themselves and their dependents. And prepared to go through considerable difficulties to do so.
    Like the guy who blew himself in Liverpool?

    If these are people keen to make a better life for themselves and a potential asset to the country then let's consider their application in the normal way. They can compete with everyone else seeking to migrate here. But they get no advantage because they can make an asylum claim and have been able to raise the money to pay people traffickers.
    Point noted. However, hard cases and all that. Similar applies to paying people traffickers vs being able to afford fares.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    They'll definitely come a time when Brexit is no longer fashionable amongst the British Right. It'll probably be framed in terms of silly old Boris and Frosty having squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

    Yes, BoZo's legacy not so much the man who "got Brexit done", more the man who fucked it up.

    Karmic...
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,596
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:



    Scott_xP said:

    The UK had the right to return asylum seekers to other EU countries as an EU member state. Then Boris Johnson campaigned to take back control. https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/1464156778166423552

    And other EU countries also had the right to send asylum seekers to the UK and we also had free movement from the EU not the points based system we have now
    Quite right! And the current arrangement is working so well at the moment, isn't it?
    Macron is leaking votes to Le Pen compared to 2017, Boris needs to shore up his core vote from 2019, both are playing to their base.

    Once the French election is over next year I expect some agreement will be reached, at the moment both leaders are playing to the gallery to try and look as tough as possible with the other over border control
    Um, what should the French be doing - they don't want these refugees and the refugees don't want to be in France?

    There is zero incentive for the French to do anything about it which you can see from the fact the only reason the French patrol the border is because we are paying them to do so.
    They have to get to France first before they come to the UK, the main problem is the boats coming from Africa to southern Europe.

    Hence Brothers of Italy or Salvini's Lega Nord are ahead in some Italian polls now and hence Le Pen is now on 45% of the vote in France, unless Europe gets control of its southern border the populist right will continue to grow.

    That may mean islands in the Mediterranean specifically to process asylum claims and all refugee camps in Europe closed other than those on said islands
    Yeah, the good citizens of Lampedusa and Lesbos are going to love that.

    If we in the West didn't screw over North African and Middle Eastern countries in our role as the world's policeman (Blair and Cameron, I am looking at you) maybe this situation wouldn't be as desperate as it is.

    Take Lebanon, a failing state, that fails even further after an accidental explosion that took out the Port if Beirut. What are we doing to help other than pointing and laughing?
    Yes because Libya was so great under Gaddaffi and Iraq was so great under Saddam? Refugees still came from Syria even when we didn't intervene.

    The fact is as long as you can earn far more in western Europe than African migrants will still come even if they are peaceful democracies. What we need is somewhere to process the claims so we only allow in those in genuine fear of persecution and those whose skills we genuinely need
    Gadaffi and Saddam were evil dictators. However they kept a relative peace through their autocracy. I am not suggesting that is good, but what followed both of them was a whole lot worse. Regime change may be admirable, but if one doesn't know what the ramifications of regime change may be, perhaps it is best waiting for regime change until one does.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,794
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
    Just looking forward to more skittish posters taking a look.

    Risks 15 + 25 so far today. 19 would be very interesting - do aliens fall under that too?

    38 if plan b comes in too early. I would suggest 8 is seriously under valued.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725

    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...
    Motion C: customs union – defeated
    Defeated by 276 to 273, a majority of 3

    The Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke’s customs union plan requires any Brexit deal to include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a “permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU”. This was defeated by the smallest margin in the first round, falling just six votes short.

    CHANGE UK and most LDs voted this down didnt they?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,883
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
    I'm increasingly drawn to the conclusion that everything is completely and utterly fucked.

    We VHEMT adherents are going to get our way.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    What's wrong with what we are doing today. Strenuously (!) discouraging migrants, having laws and processes in place to filter out genuine asylum seekers, while at the same time humanely dealing with those that ignore the warnings and come anyway.

    Now of course the Tories, the party of Laura Norder, don't seem very good at the laws and processes to filter out and act upon non-genuine asylum seekers but in principle the system is just about doing what it was once designed to do. A few thousand people trying to cross the channel which they always will do regardless of illusory deals with Albania.

    I don't see that the current situation is particularly broken aside from headlines in the Daily Express if you are Boris Johnson.
    What's wrong with what we are doing today is we are tacitly facilitating the transportation of tens of thousands in a very deadly and dangerous crossing that will inevitably result in many, many deaths.

    If anyone who crosses the Channel is immediately put on a plane and sent to a third party nation like Rwanda then the Channel crossings would drop to zero almost overnight. Its only because once they're here, they stay here, that people are doing these deadly crossings.

    We should have safe, humane and legal routes into this country that take place via planes and legal boats, not sinking dinghies and rafts.
    I don't see what the big fuss is. Process them here, process them in Rwanda it's a facility. Why is there a difference? The key issue is to process them.

    They aren't marching in in their hundreds of thousands and there will always to an extent be porous borders. Ask Donald Trump.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,587
    Leon said:

    It amazes me as a non-scientist, that a variant could be several orders more infectious than Delta.

    What the fuck does it do? Land on your face and crawl down your throat?

    Seriously - we don't know that it is several orders more infectious. Calm down.

    ⚠️My god—the new #B11259 variant being possibly ~500% more competitively infectious is the most staggering stat yet. Also, #NuVariant has more than >2x the number of bad spike mutations than Delta. Here’s an updated 🧵👇

    Model by @JPWeiland matches up with graph by @jburnmurdoch”

    https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1464120315806691354?s=21

    YES this guy has a reputation as an alarmist. Perhaps this is more alarmism. But he is citing reliable sources
    Thus far that's just extrapolation from very limited data, and therefore subject to very large uncertainty.
    Chill for a couple of days.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Thread:

    Here's what I predict will happen in next few weeks wrt Nu - (wading back into #CovidTwitter after a looong time.. big risk indeed)
    1. Within days, many countries close borders to SA and Botswana - personal rating 7/10, maybe reasonable decision but big picture impact?


    https://twitter.com/iamgkadam/status/1463942620015742986?s=20

    What a ridiculous, pointless thread by that guy
    Thing is at this point we dont know There have been other variants that appear and then disappear. I posted last night about the enhanced testing that has happened in a number of locations in the last year, mainly variant hunting, including one of the SA ones. In the end they fizzled. Delta has been hugely successful, so Nu will have to do even better. It might do, but it also might not. I think some on here enjoy the drama of it all, the rest just want to get on with our lives.
    You think I don’t want to get on with my life??

    I had a really nice 2022 all planned. Good commissions coming in. Plenty of intriguing foreign travel. As of yesterday, life was really looking up

    The Nunu has the potential to fuck most of that, and do much much more. And the implications are bleak: will this cleverly engineered virus just keep one step ahead for a decade? Or forever?

    The Israelis have been good on covid. They are taking this deeply seriously

    ‘ISRAEL As arrival from Malawi becomes FIRST CASE of highly mutated B.1.1.529 variant detected in country, PM says health officials need to be ready for ‘work around the clock’’

    https://twitter.com/fcukierman/status/1464187882562752515?s=21


    It’s not good
    There is nothing that these Israeli scientists can tell us about the pox that the PB Brains Trust have not. Covid Is Over. Unlock. Party on.

    etc
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Scott_xP said:

    They'll definitely come a time when Brexit is no longer fashionable amongst the British Right. It'll probably be framed in terms of silly old Boris and Frosty having squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

    Yes, BoZo's legacy not so much the man who "got Brexit done", more the man who fucked it up.

    Karmic...
    Both, even.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,748

    Fionna O'Leary, 🕯Flag of European Union
    @fascinatorfun
    ·
    48m
    Flight arriving in London from Gauteng (the most affected Flag of South Africa province) this morning

    So…the passengers did what? Just got on the Trains or into taxis after an 11.5 hour flight, plus all the mixing in the airport before and after?

    How many? 300?

    but they were 'encouraged to take an NHS PCR test', so all is well then.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...

    Except we knew at the time of the vote there was no better Brexit deal that BoZo rejected (apart from May's)

    All flavours of Brexit are shit.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,776

    Dr Duncan Robertson
    @Dr_D_Robertson
    ·
    18m
    *At the very minimum* Plan B should be implemented now.

    F**k that s**t. 👎
    I entirely agree. This is a time to hold our nerve.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,855

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    Yes, those are clear extreme alternatives. Although (1) is probably impossible politically (don't you think?) and (2) for me reeks of a kind of twisted colonialism and I (thankfully) find it hard to envisage something like that actually occurring.

    But the main point I'd make is that the issue in general - people fleeing places ravaged by poverty and war and wishing to settle in the rich and stable west - cries out for co-operation between countries rather than competition as to who can take the least and make it the hardest to reach their soil.
    2 is much more realistic than you think, Denmark has a deal with Rwanda

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/denmark-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-unconscionable-and-potentially-unlawful/

    Patel was talking about joining in in June.
    Well I share the negative view on it of Amnesty in your link but, ok, I see Denmark are actually going that route. Hadn't realized that. Can you really see us doing it though? Shipping refugees who want to come here to a poor African country and throwing them some change to deal with it? Just seems wrong to me.
    Got a better idea?
    Not really. Above my paygrade! My main point is that a sustainable solution is impossible unless the rich target countries co-operate to get an international agreement.

    But in a binary referendum on PT's options, (A) provide safe and legal passage here vs (B) ship them all to Africa for processing, I'd vote for (A).
  • Jeremy Vine and that Boris anecdote on this week's Spectator TV (about 20 mins in; link should hit the spot):-
    https://youtu.be/FwyjRfUsgZQ?t=1177s

    Spoiler: Vine speculates that the speech was a dead cat to divert from social care (as posited on pb) but that he did lose his place).

    If it was a dead cat, it worked in one sense but has undermined Boris's reputation with his party, so that would be a net loss for the Prime Minister.

    Now, about that migrants tweet to Macron... Another dead cat to rally Party support?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited November 2021

    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...
    He would have been next PM.

    But lest we forget, we were publicly warned by Boris’s close political ally that Boris was a fucking muppet.

    But Brexit truly was the madness that the gods visited upon us, having decided first to destroy us.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724

    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Well, we obviously rejected Project Fear as a pack of lies most of which was never going to come to pass, and hasn't either
    Completely. Yet!
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,776
    Stocky said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Spot on.
    Most predictions of Project Fear never came to pass.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,596
    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    Following Boris's letter to France, France has cancelled Priti's meeting

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10245249/France-CANCELS-meeting-Priti-Patel-wake-deaths-27-migrants.html

    nice to see UK / French political relationships at their usual levels.

    I suspect the meeting may have gone ahead if the PM hadn't published his letter to Macron, but kept it private. So why did he publish it? For domestic consumption, obviously, to tickle the fancy of the anti-French lot. Megaphone diplomacy is unbecoming on matters as sensitive as this. Frost is similar on the EU negotiations. I'm all in favour of transparency, but sometimes matters are better dealt with though traditional diplomatic channels.
    "Why did he publish it?" A question that will be answered by the incoming opinion poll (re) crossover.
    I really hope that's not the case - that the polls swing strongly Con again - or if it is that migrants are not the reason. I can see it though. As I've said before, I don't think this mess in the Channel is good for Labour even if the government get the blame for it right now. Fact is, 'strong borders' and 'no soft touch for migrants and refugees' is fundamentally Tory and populist right territory. I can't see many people with that Daily Express take on this issue switching to Labour at the election because of it, regardless of how Starmer plays things.
    My point is Mr Johnson doesn't appear to give a flying **** for those drowned in the Channel, a wizard wheeze letter slapping down Macron on the other hand...

    Macron, by the way is no better. There is no high ground here.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    darkage said:

    Fionna O'Leary, 🕯Flag of European Union
    @fascinatorfun
    ·
    48m
    Flight arriving in London from Gauteng (the most affected Flag of South Africa province) this morning

    So…the passengers did what? Just got on the Trains or into taxis after an 11.5 hour flight, plus all the mixing in the airport before and after?

    How many? 300?

    but they were 'encouraged to take an NHS PCR test', so all is well then.
    They also had to have booked a private test to be taken in the next 2 days and given its reference number on a passenger locator form before boarding the aircraft.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    There was one vaguely less shit flavour of Brexit.

    It was called Flexcit, positioned EEA as a holding pattern, and was expected to last years.

    It would have minimised the disruption, and likely a lot of the friction with the neighbours.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,724
    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    What was the tenor of public opinion re immigrants around 1900? I seem to have read that there was considerable hostility to, for example, Jewish immigration into the East End of London, and, perchance, Manchester.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    There was one vaguely less shit flavour of Brexit.

    It was called Flexcit, positioned EEA as a holding pattern, and was expected to last years.

    It would have minimised the disruption, and likely a lot of the friction with the neighbours.

    But that's not Brexit!!!

    (c) all the fuckwit Brexiteers in Parliament...
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    Yes, those are clear extreme alternatives. Although (1) is probably impossible politically (don't you think?) and (2) for me reeks of a kind of twisted colonialism and I (thankfully) find it hard to envisage something like that actually occurring.

    But the main point I'd make is that the issue in general - people fleeing places ravaged by poverty and war and wishing to settle in the rich and stable west - cries out for co-operation between countries rather than competition as to who can take the least and make it the hardest to reach their soil.
    2 is much more realistic than you think, Denmark has a deal with Rwanda

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/denmark-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-unconscionable-and-potentially-unlawful/

    Patel was talking about joining in in June.
    Well I share the negative view on it of Amnesty in your link but, ok, I see Denmark are actually going that route. Hadn't realized that. Can you really see us doing it though? Shipping refugees who want to come here to a poor African country and throwing them some change to deal with it? Just seems wrong to me.
    Got a better idea?
    Not really. Above my paygrade! My main point is that a sustainable solution is impossible unless the rich target countries co-operate to get an international agreement.

    But in a binary referendum on PT's options, (A) provide safe and legal passage here vs (B) ship them all to Africa for processing, I'd vote for (A).
    Go for A and it's a magnet that will attract more and more to Calais continually. You need B in place just to remove the magnet you've just created.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...
    Motion C: customs union – defeated
    Defeated by 276 to 273, a majority of 3

    The Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke’s customs union plan requires any Brexit deal to include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a “permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU”. This was defeated by the smallest margin in the first round, falling just six votes short.

    CHANGE UK and most LDs voted this down didnt they?
    Yes, but that's a different point to how in 2016 you were supposed to have known that you were voting for a crap deal by someone who wasn't Prime Minister at that time.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725
    Scott_xP said:

    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...

    Except we knew at the time of the vote there was no better Brexit deal that BoZo rejected (apart from May's)

    All flavours of Brexit are shit.
    Is Ken Clarkes Custom Union version as shit as Johnsons

    If you answer yes that is the mindset that got us here

    If you answer no why were FBPE types cheering as they voted it down

    So basically either way its your fault Scott!!
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    You have had to truncate my post that says WHY
    To be fair to BJO its hard to blame leave voters for having "any right to expect anything else" than Johnson's crap deal.

    After all, Johnson wasn't Prime Minister at the time. He wasn't even the next Prime Minister...
    Motion C: customs union – defeated
    Defeated by 276 to 273, a majority of 3

    The Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke’s customs union plan requires any Brexit deal to include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a “permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU”. This was defeated by the smallest margin in the first round, falling just six votes short.

    CHANGE UK and most LDs voted this down didnt they?
    Thank goodness.

    A customs union makes no sense.
  • Mr. Borough, while the news isn't good, don't forget we're in a much better position to withstand things now due to the experience, and the vaccinations, of the last couple of years.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    New variant + extreme weather.

    Busy day for the national risk register.

    End Times.

    I've called it wrong before, but this is the big one. The balloon has gone up.
    Armageddon outta here.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Why?

    "Project Fear" told you what to expect.

    Why did you have any right to expect anything else?
    Because FBPE MPs had many opportunities to pass a better version but thought they could subvert democracy with a 2nd Referendum
    A second referendum on the actual terms achieved after negotiation would hardly be a subversion of democracy.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,855
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    "We're getting better at understanding this virus." (Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute)

    Therein lies our best hope viz a viz this most significant and worst variant yet. Despite three flights arriving this morning, the UK Gov't have acted swiftly.

    But I do note that three people in Israel found covid positive with the variant were all vaccinated.

    It is not whether they test Covid positive we should be worried about, so much as if even the vaccinated get hospitalised and die from it
    This is the far right tory lie

    For a start we already know that vaccinated people are now getting admitted to hospital. But as significantly, they act as viral vectors, thus spreading the virus to others who are vulnerable. So one apparently non-hospitalised "I'm alright Jack" covid positive tory is potentially killing loads of other people. Which is about par for the course for self-centred nasty capitalists.

    But the other even more significant issue is that this variant looks like it's a lot more deadly. Vaccine protection is lower.

    For that latter reason it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that we act hard and fast.

    And not selfishly like you.
    What are you on about? HYUFD is just making a perfectly sensible point: we know this wretchedly infective Nu strain will sweep the world, the big question is: can it hurt or kill the vaxxed in large numbers?
    Exactly, complete ignorance of the main point ie does double vaccination still stop you getting hospitalised and dying from Covid in large numbers even if you get Nu or not. Even double vaccination now is much less effective reducing case spread than it is reducing rates of hospitalisation and Covid death even without Nu.

    However only if rates of hospitalisation and death rise rapidly again because double vaccination does not stop serious ill effects from Nu if you get it would we need another lockdown
    Thinking about this Nu variant, there's just the one big question for me as regards the impact here - does it mean we'll need a nu vaccine and if so will we have to lockdown again until it's rolled out? Don't think we know this yet, do we?
    It depends on how much dilution there is in binding efficiency and whether the new variant has got the same hospitalisation rate as delta or the delta subvariant. If it has less binding efficiency but also hospitalises at a tenth of the rate it may end up being the end game for COVID, it literally becomes endemic within a few months. We just don't have enough data to say what is going to happen yet, though we should start getting modelled vaccine efficacy within the next two to three weeks once the likes of Porton Down and other labs get their hands on the variant. Remember modelled vaccine efficacy for Beta was not as bad as people initially feared. Even with Delta there was a lot of blue tick wankery about it evading vaccines, we know that not to be the case now despite the E484Q mutation that people seem to be very worried about.
    Right. A tense few weeks then. Covid had become rather a background issue for me but I'll certainly be following this one.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    So basically either way its your fault Scott!!

    And I am paying the penance...
  • Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    Well I voted for BREXIT and had every right to expect we wouldn't end up with Johnsons crap deal.

    Politicians on all sides turned down far better forms of BREXIT Change UK and LDs particularly opposed Ken Clarkes iteration that would otherwise have passed
    You forgot Corbyn, who memorably insisted Article 50 be declared the day after the vote.
    So on the one side we had Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May, who might have been Leavers posing as Remainers, fighting (or rather going missing during the referendum debates) Boris Johnson, a Remainer posing as a Leaver in order to promote himself as Cameron's heir apparent.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,405
    I misread the Guardian headline as 'Six Counties on Red List' and thought that it would make for a very hard border in the Irish Sea.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    Yes, those are clear extreme alternatives. Although (1) is probably impossible politically (don't you think?) and (2) for me reeks of a kind of twisted colonialism and I (thankfully) find it hard to envisage something like that actually occurring.

    But the main point I'd make is that the issue in general - people fleeing places ravaged by poverty and war and wishing to settle in the rich and stable west - cries out for co-operation between countries rather than competition as to who can take the least and make it the hardest to reach their soil.
    2 is much more realistic than you think, Denmark has a deal with Rwanda

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/denmark-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-unconscionable-and-potentially-unlawful/

    Patel was talking about joining in in June.
    Well I share the negative view on it of Amnesty in your link but, ok, I see Denmark are actually going that route. Hadn't realized that. Can you really see us doing it though? Shipping refugees who want to come here to a poor African country and throwing them some change to deal with it? Just seems wrong to me.
    Got a better idea?
    Not really. Above my paygrade! My main point is that a sustainable solution is impossible unless the rich target countries co-operate to get an international agreement.

    But in a binary referendum on PT's options, (A) provide safe and legal passage here vs (B) ship them all to Africa for processing, I'd vote for (A).
    Go for A and it's a magnet that will attract more and more to Calais continually. You need B in place just to remove the magnet you've just created.
    What is the difference between an asylum processing centre in Rwanda and an asylum processing centre in Rhyl.

    Asylum seekers are processed and if accepted can live in the UK and if not then "sent back" (to where?).

    It is the processing that is the issue not the location or severity of the disincentive.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,776

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    I think that any party would win if it adopted the sort of policies that Cyclefree puts forward, most of which are models of good sense.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Scott_xP said:

    There was one vaguely less shit flavour of Brexit.

    It was called Flexcit, positioned EEA as a holding pattern, and was expected to last years.

    It would have minimised the disruption, and likely a lot of the friction with the neighbours.

    But that's not Brexit!!!

    (c) all the fuckwit Brexiteers in Parliament...
    Historians need to look at the period from May’s ascension to PM to her speech in ?Florence.

    May had the opportunity to define Brexit in a more sensible way, but she did not have the courage to defy her backbench ultras.

    I’m also interested in how the ultras became so very ultra so quickly.

    I guess they were high on their own supply, as I recall overheating even on the street even in late summer 16 pensioners grumbling about why we hadn’t “Brexited already”.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288
    TOPPING said:

    eek said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    Yes, those are clear extreme alternatives. Although (1) is probably impossible politically (don't you think?) and (2) for me reeks of a kind of twisted colonialism and I (thankfully) find it hard to envisage something like that actually occurring.

    But the main point I'd make is that the issue in general - people fleeing places ravaged by poverty and war and wishing to settle in the rich and stable west - cries out for co-operation between countries rather than competition as to who can take the least and make it the hardest to reach their soil.
    2 is much more realistic than you think, Denmark has a deal with Rwanda

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/denmark-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-unconscionable-and-potentially-unlawful/

    Patel was talking about joining in in June.
    Well I share the negative view on it of Amnesty in your link but, ok, I see Denmark are actually going that route. Hadn't realized that. Can you really see us doing it though? Shipping refugees who want to come here to a poor African country and throwing them some change to deal with it? Just seems wrong to me.
    Got a better idea?
    Not really. Above my paygrade! My main point is that a sustainable solution is impossible unless the rich target countries co-operate to get an international agreement.

    But in a binary referendum on PT's options, (A) provide safe and legal passage here vs (B) ship them all to Africa for processing, I'd vote for (A).
    Go for A and it's a magnet that will attract more and more to Calais continually. You need B in place just to remove the magnet you've just created.
    What is the difference between an asylum processing centre in Rwanda and an asylum processing centre in Rhyl.

    Asylum seekers are processed and if accepted can live in the UK and if not then "sent back" (to where?).

    It is the processing that is the issue not the location or severity of the disincentive.
    Why do you think Australia’s offshore processing scheme is successful? Why do you think almost no-one attempts to enter Oz, as they know they will be sent to Nauru?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    The problem is that the a significant chunk of the Labor party would lose their shit over such a policy.

    A mirror image of the "zero immigrants" types on the Right.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Sean_F said:

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    I think that any party would win if it adopted the sort of policies that Cyclefree puts forward, most of which are models of good sense.
    Weirdly I agree with you on this, even i though I disagree with you on everything.

    Is Cyclefree a kind of universal ideological adaptor?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,855
    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    The point is that there is a massive difference between a liberal society recognising an individual'rs right to self-identify as any gender they wish but this does not mean you can conflate gender with sex and thus obtain access to places which are determined by sex.
    There is indeed a big difference between those 2 things. But how does this story play into it?
  • Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    I liked this that I found on last night's thread. Particularly in this age of the simple (otherwise known as the Hartlepool) soundbite. This is a train worth jumping on.....

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-government-will-push-for-a-european-federation/
    Roger, why do you want a European federal state?
    It would ensure the likes of Johnson would never again have unfettered power and more important I like free movement and a common currency.
    You mean it stops the voters from having unfettered power.

    The likes of Johnson etc only have power if the voters give it to him - and if he uses it in a way we dislike then the voters can entrust someone else with that power instead.

    By giving the power to unelected bodies instead you're not disempowering Johnson who'll be retired before long, you're disempowering the voters instead.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    The problem is that the a significant chunk of the Labor party would lose their shit over such a policy.

    A mirror image of the "zero immigrants" types on the Right.
    Fuck ‘em.
    Clause 4 moment.
  • City news. The markets are being hammered and suddenly the BoE not raising interest rates looks like genius.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59428927
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Scott_xP said:

    There was one vaguely less shit flavour of Brexit.

    It was called Flexcit, positioned EEA as a holding pattern, and was expected to last years.

    It would have minimised the disruption, and likely a lot of the friction with the neighbours.

    But that's not Brexit!!!

    (c) all the fuckwit Brexiteers in Parliament...
    Historians need to look at the period from May’s ascension to PM to her speech in ?Florence.

    May had the opportunity to define Brexit in a more sensible way, but she did not have the courage to defy her backbench ultras.

    I’m also interested in how the ultras became so very ultra so quickly.

    I guess they were high on their own supply, as I recall overheating even on the street even in late summer 16 pensioners grumbling about why we hadn’t “Brexited already”.
    "Overheating" is really a wonderfully appropriate typo ......!
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    There is absolutely no way in which the Labour Party will adopt policies which would necessarily involve withdrawing from existing refugee conventions.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    The problem is that the a significant chunk of the Labor party would lose their shit over such a policy.

    A mirror image of the "zero immigrants" types on the Right.
    Fuck ‘em.
    Clause 4 moment.
    A free thinking friend of mine, who often makes uncannily accurate predictions, texted me this just now:

    “my prediction: Farage MP within 12 months. PM within 3 years.”
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Cyclefree said:



    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    Is she really a woman? Should she be sent to an all female prison?
    No, of course not.

    Let me repost what I posted last night when this was first posted.

    There is more to this story.

    This man was convicted of sexual offences against children and was ordered to be put on the sexual offenders' register. He was also made subject to various notification requirements. In breach of these he set up a Tik Tok account aimed at children in the female name he is now using. But failed to notify the police. This was brought to the attention of the court.

    The formal name change only occurred after all these offences. It is not even clear if this man is claiming to be trans. There has been no medical diagnosis or treatment. This man is a sex offender who is using the trans label or, rather, the gullibility and stupidity of the authorities to try and gain access to children and women.

    And, sadly, there are politicians and others who think this is ok, who think that men like him - male sex offenders - should be allowed easy access to women and children, to their spaces, should be allowed to be housed in a womens' prison, should be called a woman in statistics etc.

    This is not just stupid. It is wrong. It is evil because it allows evil men to get away with harm to others, to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

    No. Just no.
    It is a method that a sex offender uses to offend. It seems in this case to have been using a female identity. And then the sex offender claimed that he is a woman. That she is a woman as we now say.

    She is a criminal and criminals will be criminals. You are shooting the messenger or seeking to ban the sale of matches for fear that a pyromaniac might buy them.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    There is absolutely no way in which the Labour Party will adopt policies which would necessarily involve withdrawing from existing refugee conventions.
    I’m sure that’s true.

    But the existing refugees conventions are causing a humanitarian issue.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861
    Roger said:

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.



    I liked this that I found on last night's thread. Particularly in this age of the simple (otherwise known as the Hartlepool) soundbite. This is a train worth jumping on.....'The Traffic Light Coalition'

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-government-will-push-for-a-european-federation/
    The phrase Traffic Light Coalition is well established in this part of the world and It sounds a lot better in German because Ampel is a lot snappier to say than traffic light. Many of the other coalitions are named after Flags, so Jamaica Coalition is Black, Green and Yellow, while a Kenya Coalition is Black, Red and Green.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,626
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    At the end of the day there's only two viable solutions to stop people crossing by boats.

    1: Provide safe transport for everyone who wants it, no restrictions. Hundreds of thousands would take up the offer, but if you're OK with that then that's safe and humane.

    2: Provide off shore processing. Anyone who crosses by boat is immediately, without access to any courts, deported straight to a third party country for processing. If their claim is denied, then they remain in the nation they're deported to. Most notable Rwanda already offer this service for other countries and for the United Nations Human Rights Council themselves.

    Neither option is superficially attractive, but both would work. You simply have to pick your poison. Talking about or to France won't do anything at all, its up to the UK to resolve this by themselves.

    What's wrong with what we are doing today. Strenuously (!) discouraging migrants, having laws and processes in place to filter out genuine asylum seekers, while at the same time humanely dealing with those that ignore the warnings and come anyway.

    Now of course the Tories, the party of Laura Norder, don't seem very good at the laws and processes to filter out and act upon non-genuine asylum seekers but in principle the system is just about doing what it was once designed to do. A few thousand people trying to cross the channel which they always will do regardless of illusory deals with Albania.

    I don't see that the current situation is particularly broken aside from headlines in the Daily Express if you are Boris Johnson.
    What's wrong with what we are doing today is we are tacitly facilitating the transportation of tens of thousands in a very deadly and dangerous crossing that will inevitably result in many, many deaths.

    If anyone who crosses the Channel is immediately put on a plane and sent to a third party nation like Rwanda then the Channel crossings would drop to zero almost overnight. Its only because once they're here, they stay here, that people are doing these deadly crossings.

    We should have safe, humane and legal routes into this country that take place via planes and legal boats, not sinking dinghies and rafts.
    I don't see what the big fuss is. Process them here, process them in Rwanda it's a facility. Why is there a difference? The key issue is to process them.

    They aren't marching in in their hundreds of thousands and there will always to an extent be porous borders. Ask Donald Trump.
    The advantage that some see in Rwanda (etc) is this.

    If you lock up the migrants, then there will be continued and sustained political attacks on the condition in the camps they are held in, the imprisonment of children etc etc

    If you fly them to Rwanda, the government there won't lock them up. Which makes it harder to turn it into a political cause.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,855
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Same person

    “A woman accused of indecent exposure, masturbating in public and using a sex toy in a public place, will stand trial early next year.

    Chloe Thompson, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday after denying the offences.

    She is charged with committing a public nuisance by indecently exposing her penis to other members of the public, whilst masturbating from a property window.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-woman-accused-using-sex-22260053

    Ten years earlier…

    “ A FORMER serviceman who touched a pre-teenage schoolgirl was jailed for a year, prompting loud gasps in court.

    Andrew Douglas McNab, 31, took advantage of the underage girl when he sexually assaulted her.

    He said he molested her in a “moment of madness” while weak and mentally scarred from his Army service, Teesside Crown Court heard.”

    https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/sex-assault-shame-teesside-ex-soldier-3692966

    Interesting. But your point is? ...
    That it’s too easy for men to be treated as women when they self evidently aren’t
    How does this story show that iyo? Not a loaded question. I'm interested in how you're looking at it.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725
    Scott_xP said:

    So basically either way its your fault Scott!!

    And I am paying the penance...
    Only pulling your plonker Scott

    I think we should all reflect on how we got here, not good is it?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    There is absolutely no way in which the Labour Party will adopt policies which would necessarily involve withdrawing from existing refugee conventions.
    I’m sure that’s true.

    But the existing refugees conventions are causing a humanitarian issue.
    In the end the British people will vote for a party that WILL grasp this nettle. Farage lurks, as my perceptive friend noted
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Oh dear, Fraser Nelson is asking in the Telegraph whether Brexit was “worth it after all”.

    I liked this that I found on last night's thread. Particularly in this age of the simple (otherwise known as the Hartlepool) soundbite. This is a train worth jumping on.....

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-government-will-push-for-a-european-federation/
    Roger, why do you want a European federal state?
    It would ensure the likes of Johnson would never again have unfettered power and more important I like free movement and a common currency.
    You mean it stops the voters from having unfettered power.

    The likes of Johnson etc only have power if the voters give it to him - and if he uses it in a way we dislike then the voters can entrust someone else with that power instead.

    By giving the power to unelected bodies instead you're not disempowering Johnson who'll be retired before long, you're disempowering the voters instead.
    "By giving the power to..." = by electing someone who wants to....

    Just as democratic as any other process in the UK. We voted to join the EU and then we voted to leave.

    I fail to see where there is a compromise in sovereignty. As does of course David Davis.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    The problem is that the a significant chunk of the Labor party would lose their shit over such a policy.

    A mirror image of the "zero immigrants" types on the Right.
    Fuck ‘em.
    Clause 4 moment.
    A free thinking friend of mine, who often makes uncannily accurate predictions, texted me this just now:

    “my prediction: Farage MP within 12 months. PM within 3 years.”
    Or Keir. If he was as Machiavellian as great statesman must be.

    (Which he isn’t).

    If Farage does return to “Reform”, it could be profound.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,288

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    The problem is that the a significant chunk of the Labor party would lose their shit over such a policy.

    A mirror image of the "zero immigrants" types on the Right.
    Fuck ‘em.
    Clause 4 moment.
    A free thinking friend of mine, who often makes uncannily accurate predictions, texted me this just now:

    “my prediction: Farage MP within 12 months. PM within 3 years.”
    Or Keir. If he was as Machiavellian as great statesman must be.

    (Which he isn’t).

    If Farage does return to “Reform”, it could be profound.
    So by 2024 we will have President Trump and Prime Minister Farage. Scenes
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,725

    Cyclefree said:

    eek said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    On immigration the relevant factors to me seem to be:

    (1) that the proposition that a refugee who reaches a safe country A has no right to seek asylum in a further country B but is obliged to make their application in A is simply wrong in fact and law. It is incompatible with the UN Convention on refugees.

    (2) The Dublin Convention sought, despite that, to require the receiving Member States to process the application. The logic of this, such as it was, was that once a refugee was given asylum within the EU freedom of movement entitled them to go anywhere within it. The right of the refugee given by the UN Convention was accordingly not prejudiced.

    (3) The EU refused to continue the Dublin Convention with the UK on Brexit. That was their right because the scenario had changed. Determination of the right to asylum in, say, Greece, no longer gave that person freedom of movement to the UK.

    (4) The proposition that France has any obligation to process these refugees and, if appropriate, to grant them asylum in the EU is therefore wrong. Similarly, if they do make the UK or make an application to our authorities we have duties under the UN Convention to determine their application to us.

    (5) The UK government is therefore being deliberately misleading in at least two respects. Firstly, their argument that the French are somehow failing in their duty has no basis. They have no duty to determine the right of these
    refugees if no application is made to them. Secondly, even if they did, this would not abrogate our duty to make our determination on the merits of the refugee's case should an application be made to us.

    There are much broader questions as to whether the UN Convention is fit for purpose in circumstances where very large number of people have become much more mobile; where countries may have legitimate concerns about whether these refugees carry dangerous illnesses or have malicious intent and whether the right to asylum needs to be curtailed. These are very difficult questions to answer. But the way the story of these refugees in boats is being portrayed by both our government and our media is simply misleading.

    Your last paragraph nails it and echoes something I wrote yesterday. There is no numerical limit on the number of refugees a country has to accept. If they qualify they get asylum. That is simply untenable because it removes all democratic control away from the receiving country. If the Convention is not changed then pretty soon countries will start ignoring it, formally as well as in practice.

    If some of the people arriving are immigrants that a country would want - as some claim - and the difference between economic migrant and refugee is becoming increasingly hard to identify - then maybe - and I'm thinking the unthinkable here - it is time to fold asylum into normal immigration applications i.e. let them apply in the normal way. Fleeing a failed state no longer comes with an automatic right of entry - but only one of the factors which a country can take into account when determining who is allowed to migrate here.
    I don't think it's unthinkable, I think given the general easy of movement (across Europe) and the sheer number of potential asylum seekers, the existing rules are unfit for the modern day and over the next few years the pressure is going to be unbearable as migrant numbers increase.
    It would involve withdrawing from various refugee conventions which is I think unthinkable for our political class and others. But it will have to be done I suspect.

    What is needed is something along the following lines:

    1.Good quality immigrants are an asset and Britain welcomes them.
    2. What qualifies as "good quality" is a range of factors: skills, willingness and ability to integrate etc
    3. But there has to be a numerical limit to the number welcomed in every year.
    4. The number of asylum seekers is potentially unlimited and conflicts with point 3 above and also point 2.
    5. The difference between being a refugee and an economic migrant is now so often so blurred as to be meaningless and leads to people trying to shoehorn themselves into particular categories and/or entrusting themselves to people smugglers. This perpetuates an evil trade and is unfair to others who may be better immigrants from Britain's perspective but are not able or willing to use the people-smuggling route.
    6. So a claim to refugee status will no longer be deemed to lead to automatic entry to Britain. Other factors will be needed. In some limited cases Britain may choose to have exemptions to this rule eg Afghani interpreters.
    7. All applications for a visa for Britain will be processed at British embassies and consulates. Not in Britain. There will be a number every year and all those who are successful will be flown safely into Britain.
    8. Any appeals against a refusal will have to happen outside Britain. There will only be one appeal at the potential migrant's expense.
    9. Patrolling of the British coastline and territorial waters will be massively increased and anyone caught will be deported or detained. If the latter, their attempt to evade migration controls will count massively against them should they later seek to apply legally.

    Points 7, 8 and 9 will require oodles of money to be spent but should save money in the long run.

    None of this will happen of course and it is not a short-term solution.
    If Keir wants to win the election, he (or maybe his invisible shadow Home Secretary) just needs to say a cut down version of above.
    Unfortunately the silent majority really want no more brown people at all i fear hence a Tory bounce everytime they sound tough on immigration
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