Take Poland stance, look at what they did on their border with Belarus a few days back, those bogus refugees are now back in Iraq after hundreds were flown back to their home. https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject....belarus-border-crisis-tuesday-intl/index.html
They have a land border much easier to control than a sea border. The frogs aren't helping either probably because of the rift between the fishing rights.
I would imagine the most effective measures wouldn't involve strengthening the border at all but rather making the benefit and asylum system less welcoming and increasing deportations. However, at the risk of sounding like a Liberal, have to say that on another hand, these poor people are just human beings wanting a better life and I don't feel that people in the UK have any god given right to life or opportunity than people anywhere else. We are all just people and posting on an immigration board after all - so it does feel wrong to deny people the chance. I feel bad when I see the families with children. It's no way to be.
none of this makes sense to me. I can understand why people from oppressive war torn countries want to come here...but what really are they expecting? A roof over their heads and a few quid a week to live on? Yet they will have spend a fortune buying their way here.
Our lifestyle. They pass through many safe countries with social security systems in place, we as a country are perhaps not as stringent or organised with social support as our European friends so maybe we are seen as a soft touch. My concern is the potential that lies within.
I see the original post was marked funny, very odd that the member finds the potential of death funny (@KeithAngel )
Well... It depends what you mean by 'soft touch'. I feel its popular and easy to assert that people coming to the UK intend to live on benefits and this is I assume what you mean by 'soft touch'. I haven't seen any figures to support that view - and maybe these people are just in search of a better life and frankly neither you nor I nor Boris Johnson have been placed in a God-given position to deny our fellow human being that. Indeed, the only benefit drones that I know in my local area are British. My Eastern European neighbor works, our Vietnamese friend works, but another British born acquaintance is a lazy so and so and lives on benefit and works the odd job for cash. That annoys me. I know its a small sample and I have no idea how representative it is. I'm just saying.
The vast majority of migrants coming into and through Europe settle in Europe, this notion that the UK is such a desirable benefits paradise is a load of codswallop. The vast majority of these people are genuine asylum seekers, they are in peril in their home countries, if they are paying large sums of money to people smugglers it's because that money is very likely their entire life savings, and the destination is largely chosen by the smugglers, the UK is way way down the list of of preferred countries that people want to get to. It suits certain political groups in both the UK and the USA and elsewhere to promote the idea that all our woes are due to scrounging foreigners, it is a convenient smokescreen and distraction from the fact that their policies for the last 40 odd years have done very little for the middle and working classes and everything for those already in possession of considerable wealth.
No I doubt very much that he thinks there is anything funny in the plight of these people, the funny part is your demanding that it must stop, here we are post Brexit and you have all the power in the world, after all you took back control your government can do anything it wants now and here we find that the one thing that you all thought you were voting to gain power over, that you all really wanted more than anything else, is still happening. That's the funny part, tragically funny.
I don't know about 'largely' but certainly to some extent. This article reckons its a combination of chance, choices by people smugglers, family and friends that influence destinations and not really an informed choice - more of a 'anywhere is OK' point of view. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/14891/how-do-migrants-decide-where-to-go
Most people pay to get from A-B, its not pot luck depending upon the smugglers otherwise people wouldn't have waited in calais for a year repeatedly trying, that's expense when it would have been easier and cheaper to head north to let's say Germany.
I have spoken to smuggled people, and those wanting to get to UK, the ones I met in England intended to get there, the ones I spoke to in France wanted Britain, not France, Germany or Holland, the channel costs extra cash due to being extra risk, example the viets in the lorry in Essex, they had worked in Germany and France for a while some of them then were offered work in UK, smugglers aren't one gang, just many links in the same chain working for cash.
Why do migrants and asylum seekers want to come to the UK? - Full Fact "Full Fact", I believe that organisation was started by Michael Samuel a Conservative party donor.
Yeah "largely" might be the wrong word, but as the later link I posted quotes "strongly influenced" I was paraphrasing from that and other things I've read.
Your word "largely" still doesn't wash, if anywhere in Europe is the destination chosen by smugglers the human cargo would be dumped on the European mainland as UK=Risk+expense..... Just going off the people I have spoken to, they specifically wanted UK.
Here are some numbers up till the UK left Europe, these are for asylum applicants. Eurostat - Data Explorer (europa.eu) 691,000 applicants in total in 2019 in Europe, 44,000 of those were to the UK.
BRITAIN CHOOSES TO HAVE REFUGEES DYING IN THE CHANNEL The title above is a summary. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords...ribution-A154E839-D996-447E-86D6-F408F4562978 Quoted direct from the above Hansard link. Lord Kerr of Kinlochard It really is not a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai, because he raises the bar far too high. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for this appallingly well-timed debate, to which I would just like to contribute three sets of facts. First, overall refugee numbers are currently running at about half of where they were 20 years ago. We are not the preferred destination in Europe. We are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, well down the list of preferred destinations. Secondly, yes, small boat numbers are up, partly for the reason the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, adduced—the fences, patrols and heat sensors around the train tracks and marshalling yards mean that people are now driven to the even more dangerous sea route. But the principal reason clandestine numbers are up is that official resettlement routes are shut. Our schemes, in practice, no longer exist. We have closed the Syrian scheme, we have scrapped the Dubs scheme, we have left Dublin III and we have not got an Afghan scheme up and running. The largest group crossing the channel in the last 18 months, by nationality, were Iranians. In the last 18 months, 3,187 Iranians came. In the same period, one got in by the official route. How many came from Yemen in these 18 months? Yemen is riven by civil war and famine. None came by the official route —not one. My third set of facts is as in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. The Home Secretary says that 70% of channel crossers are “economic migrants … not genuine asylum seekers”. That is plainly not true. Her own department’s data show that, of the top 10 nationalities arriving in small boats, virtually all seek asylum—61% are granted it at the initial stage and 59% of the rest on appeal. The facts suggest that well over 70% of asylum seekers coming across the channel in small boats are genuine asylum seekers, not economic migrants. That is hardly surprising because the top four countries they come from are Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria—not Ghana, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. These people are fleeing persecution and destitution, and the sea route from France is the only one open to many of them. Why not have a humanitarian visa, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said? The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, gave the answer to the objection of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. Those who had a valid claim for asylum would not be at peril on the sea. Unless we provide a safe route, we are complicit with the people smugglers. Yes, we can condemn their case and we mourn yesterday’s dead, but that does not seem to stop us planning to break with the refugee convention. Our compassion is well controlled because it does not stop us planning, in the borders Bill, to criminalise those who survive the peril of the seas and those at Dover who try to help them. Of course, we can go down that road. But if we do, let us at least be honest enough to admit that what drives us down that road is sheer political prejudice, not the facts, because the facts do not support the case for cruelty.
