To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
I don’t think we’ve quite reached “Children Of Men” levels of depravity yet, thankfully.
Off course we have.
But we do it under headings such as war or conflict.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
I don’t think we’ve quite reached “Children Of Men” levels of depravity yet, thankfully.
Off course we have.
But we do it under headings such as war or conflict.
Tell you what love. You should lead the way. Demand a machine gun and let's watch you mass murder people. It'll be live on the internet, wave at your mum as you murder.
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
Surely the idea is that those incapable of rational thought end up in an asylum?
Maybe the solution is to build prisons with an open offer to pay for a ticket home if they disclose their actual nationality. Otherwise you’re in prison indefinitely. I appreciate we don’t have prison spaces (nor will anyone want prisons such as these in their constituency) but if it’s illegal and we make it very clear to people that if they arrive by boat they will not be considered for asylum at any point then I am not sure how much appeal that would have.
To be frank I don’t trust Reform to do this properly but it is going to take big change and courage to solve the issue, not just tinkering.
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
I don’t think we’ve quite reached “Children Of Men” levels of depravity yet, thankfully.
Off course we have.
But we do it under headings such as war or conflict.
Tell you what love. You should lead the way. Demand a machine gun and let's watch you mass murder people. It'll be live on the internet, wave at your mum as you murder.
I think using drones would be a tidier way of doing it.
And more fun.
I could see stag parties participating.
And you know what ?
For all the huffing and puffing most people would be happy that the issue had been sorted.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
Going after the employers would effective end certain areas of business.
After COVID exposed conditions in the garment trade there, it partially collapsed. The high street brands dropped them.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
You simply cannot do that under Maritime law
I assume you are joking though
No, apparently he isn't. We protect our civilisation by engaging in murder as a sport. With watch parties.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
I haven’t proposed to scrap the rule of law. Quite the opposite in fact.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
Going after the employers would effective end certain areas of business.
After COVID exposed conditions in the garment trade there, it partially collapsed. The high street brands dropped them.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
That it might work as a deterrent is what upset some.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
Just deporting them to somewhere is eminently workable.
That you dislike it it doesn't make it unworkable.
It is what Australia did, anyone crossing by boat gets a one way ticket to another place to be processed. Which means that people don't bother doing it.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
That it might work as a deterrent is what upset some.
Exactly right. The left was desperate to stop it in case it worked, thus destroying a mini industry of charities and hand wringing
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The main reason you think that Rwanda was shite is that it was proposed by Tories.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
Going after the employers would effective end certain areas of business.
After COVID exposed conditions in the garment trade there, it partially collapsed. The high street brands dropped them.
Good?
Given the wholesale abuse that went on, yes.
But it’s a brave politician who deliberately aims at shuttering “dynamic, entrepreneurial businesses”. That pay taxes…
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The main reason you think that Rwanda was shite is that it was proposed by Tories.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
I haven’t proposed to scrap the rule of law. Quite the opposite in fact.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The main reason you think that Rwanda was shite is that it was proposed by Tories.
Tbf it was shite as well. How much cash did the crafty Kigali rake in for doing the square root of fck all?
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
I think we are essentially humbugged by international law, and our own ethics.
The French will never stop them leaving, or allow us to patrol their shores to stop them leaving, and we are obligated to escort them as soon as they enter British waters because otherwise they will either drown or land anywhere they like in Kent, and scarper. And, as soon as they are in British waters, they can claim asylum. And there are no international waters in the Pas de Calais, because it's too narrow. So we can't do an Australia.
Turnback should be an option, but if the French won't take them, turnback to where? The only options I can think of:
(1) Escort them out past Brittany (which could take 1-2 days) and then release them in international waters with enough fuel to get to the French shore and only there. I doubt we'd have the bollocks to do it. One fatality and it would stop. (2) Make the claims inadmissible if arriving by boat. And then suspend ECHR/HRA so they can all be immediately deported - no rights, no appeals - and if they won't say where they came from do a "best guess" using HUMINT/SIGINT - everyone will know - and frogmarch them onto a flight under escort.
So when you look at it you sort of understand why Rishi was trying (2) and Rwanda so hard.
Another of those curious incidents of what didn't happen. Sunak went to huge political lengths to make Rwanda happen. The Rwanda (up is down) act got Royal assent on April 25. A government that was serious about using its powers would surely have got a flight off before the election.
And yet they didn't.
I don't think that's fair, though. The Government were desperate to get a flight off and, indeed, tried but they were crippled by lawfare.
It's a bit rich for their critics to condemn them on the one hand for the policy and then condemn them on the other for not making it work, when they and their ilk were doing everything possible to stop it.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
Just deporting them to somewhere is eminently workable.
That you dislike it it doesn't make it unworkable.
It is what Australia did, anyone crossing by boat gets a one way ticket to another place to be processed. Which means that people don't bother doing it.
I've said repeatedly I am not adverse to the concept of processing asylum claims outside the UK. The best solution is process them in the countries people are coming in from, but if we can't do that that then people arrive and thus need to be processed.
The harsh reality is that British people are not prepared to have asylum seekers processed here. Even where "lock them up" is proposed we get huge objections with "I didn't mean where I live, I meant somewhere else".
So let's explore offshore if its genuinely processing applications. There were two major problems that stopped Rwanda being viable - we weren't processing claims there, and Rwanda could only takes a fraction of the people we have to process.
The way to balance out the legal barriers is to process asylum seekers off-shore but not abroad. Which Leon's Falklands idea far better than some of the appalling suggestions on here recently such as murder or scrap legal process.
There's *major* problems which can't be dismissed, the key one being that public mood now demands every crazier instant fixes which are unworkable. Let's assume that we announce a £5bn contract tomorrow to build Goose Green camp. Easy enough to write the outrage that we're spending anything, and thats before the place opens and the scandals begin.
Again, deport them to *where*. Unless its our territory then it has to be to a place where we can legally send them, where they are willing to accept unlimited numbers, where a process can be managed to make it happen quickly and reliably.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
That it might work as a deterrent is what upset some.
Exactly right. The left was desperate to stop it in case it worked, thus destroying a mini industry of charities and hand wringing
In the end, the person who stopped the scheme was Rishi Sunak. He had a window of legal opportunity, which he chose not to use. He could have got a flight off before the election. Or, at the very least, cynically electrified the election by raising the issue and challenging the forces of woke to defy him.
I can't get beyond my preconceived notion that the entire "plan" was 99.9% MacGuffin- had it ever happened, flight one would have flown, Hotel Rwanda would have filled up and then what? And, for all the words, I think the top table of government kind of knew that would happen. It worked in words, but couldn't work in reality- certainly not in the form constructed. So it had to stay as a promise/threat, never to be delivered.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
Having visited the Falklands it would be ideal, not least after a couple of well publiised flights the boats would stop
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
Exactly.
If "STOP THE BOATS" was easily achievable it would already have been done. I know that its just "common sense" what to do when you know nothing and people are getting angry because "common sense" hasn't just been done.
But in the real world? The magic wand isn't available, and every simplistic solution is impossible.
You stop the boats by sinking them.
It wouldn't take many and it wouldn't take long.
And after than there would be no boats.
It could even become a nice money earner by selling licences to sink them.
That would mean murdering or at the very least acquiescing in the manslaughter of unarmed civilians.
We aren't that sort of country. And I could never support it.
I agree it would stop them, of course, and - even worse - there's a real risk that's where we one day end up with a far-right/crypto-fascist government if the Open Border zealots and their legions of lawyers don't learn to compromise with the electorate.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
I think legally there's a difference between "we don't let non-citizens in without the right visa" and "we won't let in our own citizens if we don't like how or why they came back". Everybody has some version of the former (and you can get effects like passport checks before boarding just by having local laws to fine airlines if they bring in passengers who are denied entry), but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return suggests that the latter would be a breach of international law principles.
@RochdalePioneers the problem is that people have lost patience with the “process them” part of it. Ultimately it is a very valid viewpoint that nobody truly in need of asylum is crossing the channel from France in a boat. They are coming here for either economic reasons or because they want to. That’s understandable, but ultimately it’s not our problem. Asylum law cannot be on a pick and choose basis. You are either in need or you’re not. I personally think we should take in some asylum seekers but not via boats. Let people apply in embassies across the world. But not by boats. You can’t start a route to citizenship with a criminal act.
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
I think we are essentially humbugged by international law, and our own ethics.
The French will never stop them leaving, or allow us to patrol their shores to stop them leaving, and we are obligated to escort them as soon as they enter British waters because otherwise they will either drown or land anywhere they like in Kent, and scarper. And, as soon as they are in British waters, they can claim asylum. And there are no international waters in the Pas de Calais, because it's too narrow. So we can't do an Australia.
Turnback should be an option, but if the French won't take them, turnback to where? The only options I can think of:
(1) Escort them out past Brittany (which could take 1-2 days) and then release them in international waters with enough fuel to get to the French shore and only there. I doubt we'd have the bollocks to do it. One fatality and it would stop. (2) Make the claims inadmissible if arriving by boat. And then suspend ECHR/HRA so they can all be immediately deported - no rights, no appeals - and if they won't say where they came from do a "best guess" using HUMINT/SIGINT - everyone will know - and frogmarch them onto a flight under escort.
So when you look at it you sort of understand why Rishi was trying (2) and Rwanda so hard.
I dunno. I think you could make a big difference by (1) cutting off illegal employment (as discussed by rcs1000 numerous times), (2) resourcing and enforcing the asylum system in an efficient way, potentially with a few tweaks to eligibility as you've proposed before, (3) then deporting people with a failed asylum claim.
I would imagine ministers have been told that any serious attempt to tackle (1) will lead to an explosion of service sector inflation, and they'd rather tolerate the illegal migration.
(2) is precisely the same issue as with tracking shoplifting, etc - simply make the system work as it should, quickly, rather than with a delay of multiple years.
Reportedly the French and other European countries are less accommodating to asylum seekers than Britain, so if (3) requires a few clarifying tweaks to the ECHR to make it clear that people who've had an asylum claim rejected and have no legal basis for residence can be deported, then which country is going to disagree?
You don't have to undermine the court system, or display a reckless attitude to life by putting people at risk at sea. Just enforce the system properly.
If it were that simple then I'd plump for it.
I can't believe it is, though, governments seem totally incapable of solving this issue.
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
I think we are essentially humbugged by international law, and our own ethics.
The French will never stop them leaving, or allow us to patrol their shores to stop them leaving, and we are obligated to escort them as soon as they enter British waters because otherwise they will either drown or land anywhere they like in Kent, and scarper. And, as soon as they are in British waters, they can claim asylum. And there are no international waters in the Pas de Calais, because it's too narrow. So we can't do an Australia.
Turnback should be an option, but if the French won't take them, turnback to where? The only options I can think of:
(1) Escort them out past Brittany (which could take 1-2 days) and then release them in international waters with enough fuel to get to the French shore and only there. I doubt we'd have the bollocks to do it. One fatality and it would stop. (2) Make the claims inadmissible if arriving by boat. And then suspend ECHR/HRA so they can all be immediately deported - no rights, no appeals - and if they won't say where they came from do a "best guess" using HUMINT/SIGINT - everyone will know - and frogmarch them onto a flight under escort.
So when you look at it you sort of understand why Rishi was trying (2) and Rwanda so hard.
Rwanda was always a distraction because of the significant difficulties in actually getting people through a process to get them on a plane to a Rwanda who could only take a fraction of the number needed.
France has a bigger problem with migration than we do, with more migrants staying than coming to us. A solution is needed across nations, but post-Brexit we seem to have deluded ourselves with this idea that we are the boss now and just tell the foreigners what to do.
The British government is not going to do towbacks because we aren't going to risk - or worse - drowning people.
And ECHR is not the blockage claimed by Tory politicians who know this because they did nothing about it in government. The blockage are our basic principles of law and who we are as a society.
Someone commits a crime in front of the police. Caught bang to rights. They do not go straight to jail. We have legal process, where people are innocent until proven guilty. Especially when its self-evident they will be found guilty.
What you propose is that we have no legal process under English law. That people can be rounded up off the streets and have the law bypassed. Which is a scary principle to establish because then any government can just grab people they don't like off the streets and do whatever they like.
And your rendering flights. Deporting them to somewhere. The somewhere country doesn't have a say? We just land a plane and throw people off and say "your problem?"
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
We don’t just ‘tell the forrin’ (sic) what to do. We do give them some cash to do it too.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
You may have to work on the ‘huge concentration camp’ branding.
For the purposes of informing PB I just checked some relevant facts
West Falkland is actually pretty big. It is 1,700 square miles. It is a fair bit bigger than Majorca (population 1 million) and roughly ten times the size of the Isle of Wight (population 140,000)
So you could house an AWFUL lot of people there in safe but dismal, chilly and boring conditions
And of course - in the end - you wouldn’t have to house that many at all because as soon as it became known that if you try to illegally seek asylum in the UK you actually end up at the arse end of the south Atlantic, then crossing attempts would fall to zero overnight
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
That it might work as a deterrent is what upset some.
Exactly right. The left was desperate to stop it in case it worked, thus destroying a mini industry of charities and hand wringing
It was deterring. Not massively, but it was a bit.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
You may have to work on the ‘huge concentration camp’ branding.
No. That’s PART of the branding. This is meant to be a deterrent
We have to toughen up. These people are taking the piss, coming in at the rate of a thousand a day, costing us BILLIONS and threatening to destabilise the entire country and kick off civil disorder
So we will have to be mean and nasty for a few months. So be it. It’s better than actually shooting people dead in the Channel which is actually where we will end up if we don’t sort the problem soon, because voters will eventually elect a government cruel and desperate enough to do that
It’s already happening in Greece and Poland. Live rounds have been used. People have drowned or died
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
For the purposes of informing PB I just checked some relevant facts
West Falkland is actually pretty big. It is 1,700 square miles. It is a fair bit bigger than Majorca (population 1 million) and roughly ten times the size of the Isle of Wight (population 140,000)
So you could house an AWFUL lot of people there in safe but dismal, chilly and boring conditions
And of course - in the end - you wouldn’t have to house that many at all because as soon as it became known that if you try to illegally seek asylum in the UK you actually end up at the arse end of the south Atlantic, then crossing attempts would fall to zero overnight
Port Howard has about 25 people and Fox Bay about 35-40 people. They are the largest settlements.
Beside which, the infiltrators wouldn't just be free to wonder around. They would be in a secure camp.
An RAF Mount Pleasant all of their own, if you will, with decent facilities sure, but they're not going anywhere - we should make it very easy for them to vote for the "flight home" option and pay for it too.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
I don't think that's a flaw. They are all detectable and interceptable.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
I doubt it
Once a real deterrent is in place the numbers will drop dramatically
For the purposes of informing PB I just checked some relevant facts
West Falkland is actually pretty big. It is 1,700 square miles. It is a fair bit bigger than Majorca (population 1 million) and roughly ten times the size of the Isle of Wight (population 140,000)
So you could house an AWFUL lot of people there in safe but dismal, chilly and boring conditions
And of course - in the end - you wouldn’t have to house that many at all because as soon as it became known that if you try to illegally seek asylum in the UK you actually end up at the arse end of the south Atlantic, then crossing attempts would fall to zero overnight
Port Howard has about 25 people and Fox Bay about 35-40 people. They are the largest settlements.
Beside which, the infiltrators wouldn't just be free to wonder around. They would be in a secure camp.
An RAF Mount Pleasant all of their own, if you will, with decent facilities sure, but they're not going anywhere - we should make it very easy for them to vote for the "flight home" option and pay for it too.
Better off paying for their flights home. Will be cheaper than people simply languishing there for years.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
The south coast is very densely populated. There is nowhere to land unseen. This is preposterously feeble
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Are there not countless small islands in the British Isles we could use?
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
I think we are essentially humbugged by international law, and our own ethics.
The French will never stop them leaving, or allow us to patrol their shores to stop them leaving, and we are obligated to escort them as soon as they enter British waters because otherwise they will either drown or land anywhere they like in Kent, and scarper. And, as soon as they are in British waters, they can claim asylum. And there are no international waters in the Pas de Calais, because it's too narrow. So we can't do an Australia.
Turnback should be an option, but if the French won't take them, turnback to where? The only options I can think of:
(1) Escort them out past Brittany (which could take 1-2 days) and then release them in international waters with enough fuel to get to the French shore and only there. I doubt we'd have the bollocks to do it. One fatality and it would stop. (2) Make the claims inadmissible if arriving by boat. And then suspend ECHR/HRA so they can all be immediately deported - no rights, no appeals - and if they won't say where they came from do a "best guess" using HUMINT/SIGINT - everyone will know - and frogmarch them onto a flight under escort.
So when you look at it you sort of understand why Rishi was trying (2) and Rwanda so hard.
Another of those curious incidents of what didn't happen. Sunak went to huge political lengths to make Rwanda happen. The Rwanda (up is down) act got Royal assent on April 25. A government that was serious about using its powers would surely have got a flight off before the election.
And yet they didn't.
I don't think that's fair, though. The Government were desperate to get a flight off and, indeed, tried but they were crippled by lawfare.
It's a bit rich for their critics to condemn them on the one hand for the policy and then condemn them on the other for not making it work, when they and their ilk were doing everything possible to stop it.
Sounds a bit like getting a Brexit deal through parliament, both of them stymied by the current PM
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
You may have to work on the ‘huge concentration camp’ branding.
No. That’s PART of the branding. This is meant to be a deterrent
We have to toughen up. These people are taking the piss, coming in at the rate of a thousand a day, costing us BILLIONS and threatening to destabilise the entire country and kick off civil disorder
So we will have to be mean and nasty for a few months. So be it. It’s better than actually shooting people dead in the Channel which is actually where we will end up if we don’t sort the problem soon, because voters will eventually elect a government cruel and desperate enough to do that
It’s already happening in Greece and Poland. Live rounds have been used. People have drowned or died
Labour simply must stop the boats. Whatever it costs.
How?
I think we are essentially humbugged by international law, and our own ethics.
The French will never stop them leaving, or allow us to patrol their shores to stop them leaving, and we are obligated to escort them as soon as they enter British waters because otherwise they will either drown or land anywhere they like in Kent, and scarper. And, as soon as they are in British waters, they can claim asylum. And there are no international waters in the Pas de Calais, because it's too narrow. So we can't do an Australia.
Turnback should be an option, but if the French won't take them, turnback to where? The only options I can think of:
(1) Escort them out past Brittany (which could take 1-2 days) and then release them in international waters with enough fuel to get to the French shore and only there. I doubt we'd have the bollocks to do it. One fatality and it would stop. (2) Make the claims inadmissible if arriving by boat. And then suspend ECHR/HRA so they can all be immediately deported - no rights, no appeals - and if they won't say where they came from do a "best guess" using HUMINT/SIGINT - everyone will know - and frogmarch them onto a flight under escort.
So when you look at it you sort of understand why Rishi was trying (2) and Rwanda so hard.
Rwanda was always a distraction because of the significant difficulties in actually getting people through a process to get them on a plane to a Rwanda who could only take a fraction of the number needed.
France has a bigger problem with migration than we do, with more migrants staying than coming to us. A solution is needed across nations, but post-Brexit we seem to have deluded ourselves with this idea that we are the boss now and just tell the foreigners what to do.
The British government is not going to do towbacks because we aren't going to risk - or worse - drowning people.
And ECHR is not the blockage claimed by Tory politicians who know this because they did nothing about it in government. The blockage are our basic principles of law and who we are as a society.
Someone commits a crime in front of the police. Caught bang to rights. They do not go straight to jail. We have legal process, where people are innocent until proven guilty. Especially when its self-evident they will be found guilty.
What you propose is that we have no legal process under English law. That people can be rounded up off the streets and have the law bypassed. Which is a scary principle to establish because then any government can just grab people they don't like off the streets and do whatever they like.
And your rendering flights. Deporting them to somewhere. The somewhere country doesn't have a say? We just land a plane and throw people off and say "your problem?"
How does that work?
It's simplistic unworkable nonsense.
No-one cares about your liberal niceties anymore.
They want the boats stopped.
You have proposed that our government be able to pick people off the street and deport them without process. Which is great until they start picking you and yours off the street.
Then people care about "liberal niceties".
What else is left? Shall we remove "liberal niceties" like stopping racist gangs smashing up houses or burning people to death?
As a Conservative can you understand that the breakdown in law and order - or "liberal niceties" as you now put it - is one of the reasons you lost the election so badly?
For the purposes of informing PB I just checked some relevant facts
West Falkland is actually pretty big. It is 1,700 square miles. It is a fair bit bigger than Majorca (population 1 million) and roughly ten times the size of the Isle of Wight (population 140,000)
So you could house an AWFUL lot of people there in safe but dismal, chilly and boring conditions
And of course - in the end - you wouldn’t have to house that many at all because as soon as it became known that if you try to illegally seek asylum in the UK you actually end up at the arse end of the south Atlantic, then crossing attempts would fall to zero overnight
Port Howard has about 25 people and Fox Bay about 35-40 people. They are the largest settlements.
Beside which, the infiltrators wouldn't just be free to wonder around. They would be in a secure camp.
An RAF Mount Pleasant all of their own, if you will, with decent facilities sure, but they're not going anywhere - we should make it very easy for them to vote for the "flight home" option and pay for it too.
Better off paying for their flights home. Will be cheaper than people simply languishing there for years.
I think Denmark/Sweden does that and offers £25k, equivalent, to leave.
Expensive, sure, but cheaper than processing and the social costs.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
The south coast is very densely populated. There is nowhere to land unseen. This is preposterously feeble
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
“Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) carried out this sabotage operation, which is considered one of the most damaging losses for Russia in terms of cost and impact on its strategic nuclear forces.
According to sources, 41 Russian aircraft—including strategic bombers and military transport planes—were hit at four different bases. Part of the drones used autonomous target guidance, with results to be confirmed via satellite imagery.
An SBU agent group covertly transported 150 small attack drones and 300 munitions into Russia. Out of these, 116 drones were launched.
The drones were controlled via Russian telecommunications networks, with automated guidance systems. Several mobile launch points were established near the bases of Russia’s strategic aviation.
The drones attacked from close range during daylight hours, deep behind Russian lines. Despite the presence of layered air defenses—SAM systems, electronic warfare, and armed patrols—the Russian military was caught off-guard, having expected nighttime attacks by larger drones, not small quadcopters in broad daylight.
The most successful strike occurred at the Olenya airbase, where Tu-95 bombers were stationed. Several aircraft were completely destroyed after drones hit fully fueled tanks. Key results:
•Billions of dollars in combat equipment destroyed •Loss of strategic bombers that Russia can no longer replace •A weakened strike capability for future attacks on Ukrainian cities •Russia will now have to invest heavily in base security
Importantly, all SBU agents involved have safely returned to Ukraine, and there were no reported Ukrainian losses.This was a large-scale, high-tech operation with no known global precedent in terms of execution and effect.” https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1929176293355966580
No known precedent? Obviously planned by someone who's just binge-watched SAS Rogue Heroes careering about the desert.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
Having visited the Falklands it would be ideal, not least after a couple of well publiised flights the boats would stop
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
The south coast is very densely populated. There is nowhere to land unseen. This is preposterously feeble
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
ok. So now we are saying we need to send them to the Falklands and also have the beaches of the south coast all patrolled at all time with people and/or drones.
The boats will head to another english coast and most wont make it would be my guess.
Actually processing the people who cross and either expelling them or letting them work would help. Getting to England and doing a runner into the black economy just creates more problems. On both sides.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
Over the next 30 to 50 years its estimated there will be 100s of millions of migrants due to climate change, some estimates but it as high as a couple of billion. It could even be europeans being the migrants if the gulf stream shuts down.
Regardless of humanity, international law etc the countries targeted by this migration are going to go fortress style because simply those countries won't be able to cope with migration on that scale and politically will be under pressure by their citizens to take a citizens first approach.
One of the safe countries usually mentioned is new zealand, current population 5.3 million I see countries like that certainly having a migration policy under those circumstances that we might think of as harsh and inhumane with 99% of people not even getting an assessment just turned back at the shoreline with no one caring if they die.
Its coming regardless of whether you like it. There will just be too many migrants and as I said those migrants may well be us
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
I doubt it
Once a real deterrent is in place the numbers will drop dramatically
I dunno, these people seem pretty desperate to come to England for various reasons.
The government says it costs £41,000 to house and feed one asylum seeker for one year
So the 1200 arrivals yesterday - just one day’s worth - one single day - will cost the rest of us £50 million for one year. And remember we are already spending £5 billion and this is rising. And the numbers are growing
We don’t have any choice but to find a radical solution which stops this, or we go bankrupt - or the nation erupts into civil strife as voters refuse to foot the bill and suffer the social decay
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
That’s what’s happening at the moment
- the cheap option is the RIBs - A more expensive option is buying passage on a yacht or private plane. Lots of tiny ports and small airfields in the uk. - The really pricey option is buying visa for a job that may or may not exist. But the visa gets you a seat on a commercial flight.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Are there not countless small islands in the British Isles we could use?
The government says it costs £41,000 to house and feed one asylum seeker for one year
So the 1200 arrivals yesterday - just one day’s worth - one single day - will cost the rest of us £50 million for one year. And remember we are already spending £5 billion and this is rising. And the numbers are growing
We don’t have any choice but to find a radical solution which stops this, or we go bankrupt - or the nation erupts into civil strife as voters refuse to foot the bill and suffer the social decay
I think it will actually fuel discrimination and racial division if we don't, not "enrich" or provide opportunities to "celebrate diversity".
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Lets play the scenario. We would then need to ensure that we catch everyone coming on these boats and then detain them securely and then process them through the home office officials and then through the courts and then send them away to a place willing to accept them.
As we know people do not want to have refugees warehoused anywhere - we can't jail them, local Tory MPs object to disused airbases, the "put them in tents" argument needs a gulag creating somewhere and nobody will want it where they are. And then we need to pay an army of officials to quickly process the paperwork and then asylum courts to formally declare them illegal and then a diplomatic agreement to rent planes to send people off.
Even if we ban people using that route it will still be expensive and a public spectacle and politically messy. Why would people still come? Because they know that some people will slip away from the authorities to work illegally as they already are doing. We could go after the employers but apparently don't want to.
I support going after employers I don’t really understand why we don’t - vested interests I imagine.
Ultimately an asylum court should be simple to operate if the only question the court needs to consider is “how did this person arrive in the country”. You could even make it the default assumption in absence of evidence of coming through a port or an airport.
I agree on the deportation logistics but short of machine gunning boats there isn’t really an alternative.
I'm disappointed in your last comment - of course there is an alternative. Its supply and demand.
Supply is plentiful. Despite our whining we take fewer asylum seekers than France does. Its not a British issue its an international issue. We need to work with our partners to find a solution for everyone. Post Brexit we seem to think we just tell the forrin what to do and wonder why they refuse.
Demand is also plentiful. We have endless employment opportunities because we don't enforce the law. So even if asylum was automatically to be refused people would still come on the assumption that there would be opportunities to disappear.
What is it about asylum that stops rational thought?
“Working with our partners” has achieved absolutely nothing. We have been doing that for decades. The only way forward on that particular front is (at the very least) a new European wide agreement on how to handle the issue. If that’s not happening then you’re left with going after employers (which I support wholeheartedly) and making it not worth the risk to try to cross the channel in a small boat.
Asylum claims have shot up since we stopped working with our partners. Demonstrably. Hence the crisis we now have.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included Murder them Scrap the rule of law Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
The numbers returned to 'the first safe country' under the Dublin agreement were minuscule.
You are doing an excellent job of complaining how ignorant everyone else is on this issue whilst demonstrating how ignorant you are on it.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
The south coast is very densely populated. There is nowhere to land unseen. This is preposterously feeble
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
ok. So now we are saying we need to send them to the Falklands and also have the beaches of the south coast all patrolled at all time with people and/or drones.
The boats will head to another english coast and most wont make it would be my guess.
Then that’s their choice. We can police those coasts too. And again pack them off to goose green
I mean we could just try having a lower asylum grant rate than continental Europe and not ones that's THREE TIMES AS HIGH. That would be a good start in disincentivising the crossings.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Are there not countless small islands in the British Isles we could use?
I mean we could just try having a lower asylum grant rate than continental Europe and not ones that's THREE TIMES AS HIGH. That would be a good start in disincentivising the crossings.
Yep:
There is a lot we can do that can happen now, and make a difference now.
There is a curious blindness on this board towards the little things.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
The south coast is very densely populated. There is nowhere to land unseen. This is preposterously feeble
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
ok. So now we are saying we need to send them to the Falklands and also have the beaches of the south coast all patrolled at all time with people and/or drones.
The boats will head to another english coast and most wont make it would be my guess.
Then that’s their choice. We can police those coasts too. And again pack them off to goose green
I don't really see the point of having them on an island. The beauty of Rwanda was that they'd all have absconded as soon as they'd got there. They can't do that on an Island.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
The Falklanders will have no choice. They entirely rely on the uk to stop them being Argentinian. Mainland Brits died to defend that right of theirs
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
Having visited the Falklands it would be ideal, not least after a couple of well publiised flights the boats would stop
Why not South Georgia? No locals at all.
South Georgia is magnificent and was one of the highlights of our Antarctica voyage
However, as you say only between 8 and 40 scientists live there and their is no runway or landing strip
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
You get an explosion of numbers if you can claim at embassies abroad
Maybe the solution is to build prisons with an open offer to pay for a ticket home if they disclose their actual nationality. Otherwise you’re in prison indefinitely. I appreciate we don’t have prison spaces (nor will anyone want prisons such as these in their constituency) but if it’s illegal and we make it very clear to people that if they arrive by boat they will not be considered for asylum at any point then I am not sure how much appeal that would have.
To be frank I don’t trust Reform to do this properly but it is going to take big change and courage to solve the issue, not just tinkering.
Build it on west Falkland. Population 160, several thousand square miles.
Over 1000 in a day is absolutely toxic for starmer. He has so clearly NOT “smashed the gangs”. And he cancelled the one idea anyone had for stopping them humanely, even if it was absurd and expensive and extreme - it might still have worked
And, besides, what have Labour tried since? Offshore processing hubs - like Rwanda. Except unlike the Tories starmer couldn’t even get the agreement of the host country - in his case Albania, which humiliatingly turned him down live, on air
Can Starmer’s and Labour’s polling go lower?
Yes
It surprised me that people criticised details of the Rwanda scheme as impractical etc, when I thought it was a deterrent rather than a practical solution. So we’d only have to send a few dozen there and potential illegal immigrants would think better of crossing the channel. A system we’d barely have to use, but knowing it was there would do the job
Yes of course. It was a deterrent. And it might well have worked AS A DETERRENT
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
Nah Rwanda was shite. It was more tinkering. A holding prison on the Falklands is a more plausible option provided that people have an option to voluntarily return home, in my view. Not sure whether the Falklands will want such a prison on their island though.
We have decent leverage with the Falklanders though.
Seems to me that the rules of old and existing principles don’t apply in today’s world. How are you going to stop the boats when the whole system isn’t set up to deal with it
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
West Falkland. Almost no one lives there.
Sorry yes west. Failing that, the South Sandwich Islands. Just do it
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
Seems to me that the flaw, or at least a flaw, in all these 'let's just ship them to a remote island or Rwanda', is that the people on the small boats will then seek to evade being helped across by the coast guard or picked up by RNLI etc. They will try and get across unaided and head for a random beach on the south coast and then run, probably never to be found again.
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
And that makes it riskier and hence will reduce the number of trips.
Ultimately neither Starmer or Hermer are going to do anything to recluse the ECHR or any other treaty as they are both human right lawyers who cannot imagine any challenge to the law, even though these laws are being questioned by many in Europe and not just on the right
It would go against everything Starmer has been trained to believe but ultimately it will be his downfall if he does not stop the boats
And I would just say to those arguing this is anti foreigner, it does not help your case as this is far from that but in most peoples eyes it is unfair and this is now even being expressed by Labour politicians who know they cannot make excuses anymore
Ultimately neither Starmer or Hermer are going to do anything to recluse the ECHR or any other treaty as they are both human right lawyers who cannot imagine any challenge to the law, even though these laws are being questioned by many in Europe and not just on the right
It would go against everything Starmer has been trained to believe but ultimately it will be his downfall if he does not stop the boats
And I would just say to those arguing this is anti foreigner, it does not help your case as this is far from that but in most peoples eyes it is unfair and this is now being expressed by even Labour politicians who know they cannot make excuses anymore
I agree with both your points - leaving the EHCR and cracking down meaningfully on immigration (as opposed to a few token gestures and taking credit for the effects of Sunak's measures) won't happen.
And the most important thing that he won't do because it goes against his and his party's beliefs is display economic competence and take the measures for growth that this country so desperately needs - cutting spending, cutting taxes and cutting unnecessary or counter-productive regulation significantly. His only answer to any problem is more government, though big government is often the cause and rarey the solution.
The government says it costs £41,000 to house and feed one asylum seeker for one year
So the 1200 arrivals yesterday - just one day’s worth - one single day - will cost the rest of us £50 million for one year. And remember we are already spending £5 billion and this is rising. And the numbers are growing
We don’t have any choice but to find a radical solution which stops this, or we go bankrupt - or the nation erupts into civil strife as voters refuse to foot the bill and suffer the social decay
Roughly equivalent to prison costs, which makes sense. It would be a lot more than that per refugee on West Falkland, though if it works as a deterrent...
Ultimately neither Starmer or Hermer are going to do anything to recluse the ECHR or any other treaty as they are both human right lawyers who cannot imagine any challenge to the law, even though these laws are being questioned by many in Europe and not just on the right
It would go against everything Starmer has been trained to believe but ultimately it will be his downfall if he does not stop the boats
And I would just say to those arguing this is anti foreigner, it does not help your case as this is far from that but in most peoples eyes it is unfair and this is now even being expressed by Labour politicians who know they cannot make excuses anymore
Starmer is exactly the kind of person who could sell a revised refugee convention to a domestic and international audience. Generous, robust and sensible.
A bit like how the Conservatives did gay marriage.
Ultimately neither Starmer or Hermer are going to do anything to recluse the ECHR or any other treaty as they are both human right lawyers who cannot imagine any challenge to the law, even though these laws are being questioned by many in Europe and not just on the right
It would go against everything Starmer has been trained to believe but ultimately it will be his downfall if he does not stop the boats
And I would just say to those arguing this is anti foreigner, it does not help your case as this is far from that but in most peoples eyes it is unfair and this is now even being expressed by Labour politicians who know they cannot make excuses anymore
Starmer is exactly the kind of person who could sell a revised refugee convention to a domestic and international audience. Generous, robust and sensible.
A bit like how the Conservatives did gay marriage.
You may be right but that would take years and he doesn't have years to stop the boats
And remarkably we are only a month away from Labour commencing their second year in office and owning their decisions
Well, no. The last thing the Ukrainians would want to do is tip the Russians' allies off about a surprise attack.
Ukraine certainly had one of its "superb, nay sublime" moments today. Definitely worthy successors to the Finns in 1939.
I think that crippling a large part of Russia's nuclear bombers may be worth another couple of hundred from my savings. If they get Putin I may kick in a grand.
To be frank simply making it impossible to claim asylum if you arrive by boat across the channel is simple legally and morally justifiable, I think.
Didn’t Braverman propose that?
No idea
The whole idea was incompatible with the UN convention on asylum. It would be impossible to implement without either leaving or renegotiating that treaty.
Don’t really care either way on that front. What are they going to do? To me that seems the fairest way. If you want to claim asylum you can do so through British embassies. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t complicated - if you arrive by small boat you can’t have asylum. If you go through the proper channels then maybe you can.
Just pointing out that your claim that it is “simple legally” is not entirely accurate. Our current treaty obligations say that any claim for asylum can be made regardless of how they entered the national territory.
I mean simple legally in terms of domestic administration. I don’t really care about international law myself as frankly it’s entirely voluntary.
Is it?
OK, so we decide to break the law in a specific and limited way. We have our planeload of asylum seekers ready to deport.
To.....?
We rely on international agreements for said plane of asylum seekers to be allowed to land and then be offloaded.
Tell me which international agreement relating to asylum we rely on to send people back to their own countries? I don’t know the answer but I am asking you if you know.
You know when you go to the airport and you don't have a ticket? Or a passport? Or a visa where needed? You aren't allowed to board because you won't be allowed to disembark.
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
Build a huge concentration camp for them in east Falkland. Safe but basic and cold and bleak
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Are there not countless small islands in the British Isles we could use?
The government says it costs £41,000 to house and feed one asylum seeker for one year
So the 1200 arrivals yesterday - just one day’s worth - one single day - will cost the rest of us £50 million for one year. And remember we are already spending £5 billion and this is rising. And the numbers are growing
We don’t have any choice but to find a radical solution which stops this, or we go bankrupt - or the nation erupts into civil strife as voters refuse to foot the bill and suffer the social decay
Roughly equivalent to prison costs, which makes sense. It would be a lot more than that per refugee on West Falkland, though if it works as a deterrent...
It would be an expensive gamble.
Allow them in, as long as they work in care homes, the NHS, or the Home Office. The Home Office seems particularly short staffed. Offer them jobs in Scotland and call the Scottish Government’s bluff.
Comments
I can't tell you what the specific agreements are but its self-evident that sovereign nations do not allow other sovereign nations to just dump people in their territory without due process.
What do you envisage? We stick a load of people from random nations onto a plane and fly them to France? And they are allowed to land and throw people off the plane with no paperwork or process?
But we do it under headings such as war or conflict.
I assume you are joking though
To be frank I don’t trust Reform to do this properly but it is going to take big change and courage to solve the issue, not just tinkering.
And more fun.
I could see stag parties participating.
And you know what ?
For all the huffing and puffing most people would be happy that the issue had been sorted.
So far the proposals we have on here in the last few minutes have included
Murder them
Scrap the rule of law
Just deport them to *somewhere* because we can do that
None of this is remotely workable. What is the point in proposing unworkable solutions?
At least you have a less murderous idea to ban asylum claims. But that still means catching them and warehousing them and processing them and legally disavowing them and having other countries prepared to accept them. And all the way through that people are slipping through the cracks because we don't want to go after the black economy which is the pull for so many.
After COVID exposed conditions in the garment trade there, it partially collapsed. The high street brands dropped them.
As soon as these migrants realise they really ain’t getting into Britain the boats will stop immediately
You just need to punish the first few thousand and deterrence will take care of the rest for eternity
No one bothers to try and get to Australia any more because they know they can’t get in
Which is why Labour - having criticised Rwanda for being heartless and useless for years - are now desperately seeking to do versions of their own. Like Albania
That you dislike it it doesn't make it unworkable.
It is what Australia did, anyone crossing by boat gets a one way ticket to another place to be processed. Which means that people don't bother doing it.
The prospect of going to the sub Antarctic for several years would - I suggest - stop all the boats in about a week
But it’s a brave politician who deliberately aims at shuttering “dynamic, entrepreneurial businesses”. That pay taxes…
https://x.com/bellacaledonia/status/1929197391573397901?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
How much cash did the crafty Kigali rake in for doing the square root of fck all?
So they owe the mother country, big time
Also
1. Falklanders are now seriously rich (fishing licenses). They will cope
2. No one lives on west Falkland - as @Sean_F notes. We wouldn’t be dispossessing anyone (and if we end up doing that, it will be a few bleak sheep farms, so whatever - compensate them)
Yes it will be expensive and difficult initially. But right now we are spending FIVE BILLION A YEAR hosting these people and the bill is only rising, fast
And again the point is: we wouldn’t have to do it for long. Because the deterrent effect would be immediate and massive and the boats would stop very quick
It's a bit rich for their critics to condemn them on the one hand for the policy and then condemn them on the other for not making it work, when they and their ilk were doing everything possible to stop it.
The harsh reality is that British people are not prepared to have asylum seekers processed here. Even where "lock them up" is proposed we get huge objections with "I didn't mean where I live, I meant somewhere else".
So let's explore offshore if its genuinely processing applications. There were two major problems that stopped Rwanda being viable - we weren't processing claims there, and Rwanda could only takes a fraction of the people we have to process.
The way to balance out the legal barriers is to process asylum seekers off-shore but not abroad. Which Leon's Falklands idea far better than some of the appalling suggestions on here recently such as murder or scrap legal process.
There's *major* problems which can't be dismissed, the key one being that public mood now demands every crazier instant fixes which are unworkable. Let's assume that we announce a £5bn contract tomorrow to build Goose Green camp. Easy enough to write the outrage that we're spending anything, and thats before the place opens and the scandals begin.
Again, deport them to *where*. Unless its our territory then it has to be to a place where we can legally send them, where they are willing to accept unlimited numbers, where a process can be managed to make it happen quickly and reliably.
I can't get beyond my preconceived notion that the entire "plan" was 99.9% MacGuffin- had it ever happened, flight one would have flown, Hotel Rwanda would have filled up and then what? And, for all the words, I think the top table of government kind of knew that would happen. It worked in words, but couldn't work in reality- certainly not in the form constructed. So it had to stay as a promise/threat, never to be delivered.
I may be wrong, but I don't see how.
We aren't that sort of country. And I could never support it.
I agree it would stop them, of course, and - even worse - there's a real risk that's where we one day end up with a far-right/crypto-fascist government if the Open Border zealots and their legions of lawyers don't learn to compromise with the electorate.
I can't believe it is, though, governments seem totally incapable of solving this issue.
They want the boats stopped.
West Falkland is actually pretty big. It is 1,700 square miles. It is a fair bit bigger than Majorca (population 1 million) and roughly ten times the size of the Isle of Wight (population 140,000)
So you could house an AWFUL lot of people there in safe but dismal, chilly and boring conditions
And of course - in the end - you wouldn’t have to house that many at all because as soon as it became known that if you try to illegally seek asylum in the UK you actually end up at the arse end of the south Atlantic, then crossing attempts would fall to zero overnight
Numbers increased after Starmer stopped it.
We have to toughen up. These people are taking the piss, coming in at the rate of a thousand a day, costing us BILLIONS and threatening to destabilise the entire country and kick off civil disorder
So we will have to be mean and nasty for a few months. So be it. It’s better than actually shooting people dead in the Channel which is actually where we will end up if we don’t sort the problem soon, because voters will eventually elect a government cruel and desperate enough to do that
It’s already happening in Greece and Poland. Live rounds have been used. People have drowned or died
So, for example, we will see night crossings.
Beside which, the infiltrators wouldn't just be free to wonder around. They would be in a secure camp.
An RAF Mount Pleasant all of their own, if you will, with decent facilities sure, but they're not going anywhere - we should make it very easy for them to vote for the "flight home" option and pay for it too.
Once a real deterrent is in place the numbers will drop dramatically
We can catch them. We just lack the will and the spine, at the moment
You could have drones up 24/7 monitoring the entire south coast and robots checking the screens. This really is not hard
Expensive? Maybe. Not as expensive as £5bn a year and rising very fast
Then people care about "liberal niceties".
What else is left? Shall we remove "liberal niceties" like stopping racist gangs smashing up houses or burning people to death?
As a Conservative can you understand that the breakdown in law and order - or "liberal niceties" as you now put it - is one of the reasons you lost the election so badly?
Expensive, sure, but cheaper than processing and the social costs.
The boats will head to another english coast and most wont make it would be my guess.
Regardless of humanity, international law etc the countries targeted by this migration are going to go fortress style because simply those countries won't be able to cope with migration on that scale and politically will be under pressure by their citizens to take a citizens first approach.
One of the safe countries usually mentioned is new zealand, current population 5.3 million I see countries like that certainly having a migration policy under those circumstances that we might think of as harsh and inhumane with 99% of people not even getting an assessment just turned back at the shoreline with no one caring if they die.
Its coming regardless of whether you like it. There will just be too many migrants and as I said those migrants may well be us
The government says it costs £41,000 to house and feed one asylum seeker for one year
So the 1200 arrivals yesterday - just one day’s worth - one single day - will cost the rest of us £50 million for one year. And remember we are already spending £5 billion and this is rising. And the numbers are growing
We don’t have any choice but to find a radical solution which stops this, or we go bankrupt - or the nation erupts into civil strife as voters refuse to foot the bill and suffer the social decay
- the cheap option is the RIBs
- A more expensive option is buying passage on a yacht or private plane. Lots of tiny ports and small airfields in the uk.
- The really pricey option is buying visa for a job that may or may not exist. But the visa gets you a seat on a commercial flight.
You are doing an excellent job of complaining how ignorant everyone else is on this issue whilst demonstrating how ignorant you are on it.
There is a lot we can do that can happen now, and make a difference now.
There is a curious blindness on this board towards the little things.
However, as you say only between 8 and 40 scientists live there and their is no runway or landing strip
It would go against everything Starmer has been trained to believe but ultimately it will be his downfall if he does not stop the boats
And I would just say to those arguing this is anti foreigner, it does not help your case as this is far from that but in most peoples eyes it is unfair and this is now even being expressed by Labour politicians who know they cannot make excuses anymore
And the most important thing that he won't do because it goes against his and his party's beliefs is display economic competence and take the measures for growth that this country so desperately needs - cutting spending, cutting taxes and cutting unnecessary or counter-productive regulation significantly. His only answer to any problem is more government, though big government is often the cause and rarey the solution.
It would be an expensive gamble.
A bit like how the Conservatives did gay marriage.
And remarkably we are only a month away from Labour commencing their second year in office and owning their decisions
I think that crippling a large part of Russia's nuclear bombers may be worth another couple of hundred from my savings. If they get Putin I may kick in a grand.
Offer them jobs in Scotland and call the Scottish Government’s bluff.