It is a useful way for politicians to talk about illegal migration to say they want to stop the small boats or smash the people smuggling gangs. It maximises support as most people dislike those profiting from the unsafe travel trade across the channel. It leaves open opinions of the migrants themselves
If someone from abroad wants to come to the U.K. because they think they have a better chance of a job here or can get a better paid employment here, then they can apply to come by a legal route. If someone wants to seek asylum they should have their passport showing they come from a high risk country along with reasons and preferably some evidence that they were at risk there.
As the French Mayors have pointed out, North France has many migrants camping there waiting to get to the U.K. They do not want to stay in France, a safe country, Ā because France does not offer them a hotel and easy access to jobs and eventual acceptance of their right to stay. They wish to get to the U.K. because they hear it is easy to stay and once here to get a job.
The Home Secretary says the Ā right approach is to smash the gangs. The previous government tried that with limited success. She is trying it and so far arrivals have gone up. The last government was trying the Rwanda idea so an illegal migrant could end up in a different country. The idea was this would be a deterrent to coming. Some did start going to Ireland instead because of it. The legal system delayed it and the new government ended it, writing off the costs.
The evidence points to the need for a deterrent to cut demand for illegal crossings as well as measures against the boat organisers. The people paying the boatmen are seeking to break U.K. law and risk their own and their childrenās lives. The government should listen more to the Mayors of Northern France.
November 24, 2024
As long as we give them homes, benefits, free access to the NHS, mobile phones and no chance of being sent back to whence they came, more will follow. It’s wrong to say that people who are worried about illegal migration and who protest about it, and post comments on line are racist, they are just worried about our country. No one objects to people coming to the UK and working, contributing to society, paying their taxes and abiding by the UK laws. With nothing new coming from the Labour government, nothing will change. Rwanda wasn’t given a chance, at least we should have tested it, and if it didn’t work we would have lost nothing.
I see the hotel at Sindlesham is filling up again and there are groups of people from there waiting at local bus stops and filling up the GP surgeries for their extended 20 minute appointments again.
I cannot see an end to the problem whatever government is in power.
November 24, 2024
My son, a junior doctor in London gets paid about Ā£28k net after taxes, NI, commuting cost after a 40+ hour working week and this after the recent pay rise. An average boat person get Ā£41k spent on their living costs. Plus free lawyers, medical care and the rest. Probably less disposable income left after rent on a room, utilities, council tax, food than the boat people get. Plus he has about 100k of student debt and even had to pay Ā£500 personally for an exam last month!
November 24, 2024
@LL; But why is a “boat person” getting Ā£41k spent on their living costs by the State? Hotel owners being allowed to profit from our national emergency, the lack of State/LA owned housing, and a shortage of accommodation generally (even though construction companies in the housing sectors own massive numbers of hectares of land in their ‘land banks’) perhaps. The country doesn’t even appear to have enough housing to accommodate forces/ex-forces personal…
I assume your son is working in the NHS, given you mention the recent pay award, at one time Nurses and Junior Doctors used to live in NHS provided accommodation, basic but free with the job, from what I understand most if not all is now either converted/demolished to accommodate extra back offices, sold-off, or have been contracted to commercial landlords who expect their cut from the now market rental price.
Sometimes Lifelogic your comments seem to want it both ways, you expect your family to have all the advantages hard Capitalism gives *but also* expect all of the advantages of the old mixed economic system the UK enjoyed. š
November 24, 2024
In London today and yesterday with lots of tube travel needed, it seems the dire Kahn and London Transportās plan is to run about 1/3 of the tube trains needed. Perhaps they need to hire some staff to ram everyone in so they can close the doors, Japanese style?
November 24, 2024
It’s elementary. The “hotels and benefits” package was only ever meant for temporary circumstances when the Manston processing centre was full, indeed full of those who might reasonably pass as asylum seekers or refugees. It has been exploited by a tidal wave of determined, ungrateful illegals and their backers, and left in place for a wholly unsuitable and unintended purpose by weak ministers and lazy quasi-saboteur civil servants.
Remove this magnet, and make it clear that illegals will be taken to secure tented barracks once DNA swabbed, tagged and fingerprinted, and the incentive will vanish.
November 24, 2024
I would go further David. This goverment has announced the scrapping of HMS Albion which weas designed with a boat deck that can be flooded for RM Amphibious landings. This provides a sheltered dock when flooded.
It could be stationed on the edge of British waters and used to vet those in boats rounded up by Royals preventing them setting foot on British soil.
It has all the facility to do the job , I know because I participated as a volunteer civilian in an exercise by the navy rescuing British people stranded in foreign ports. Those failing could be put back in their boat and escorted to French waters, instead of taxi to Britain
November 24, 2024
If you do not believe these words Sir John, Have a word with flag officer sea training in Plymouth .
They know how!!!ā
November 25, 2024
There is a flaw in your argument, sadly.
The English channel is less than 24 miles wide at Dover and therefore the migrant boats are either in British or French waters. If we placed HMS Albion offshore, it would have to be in British waters, so within the 12 mile limit, and any migrants brought onto a Royal Navy ship will already technically be within the UK. What can we do with them other than land them ashore in the UK ?
I do agree that we should make it very unpleasant for any migrant arriving here illegally : No access to the NHS, tented accommodation and a dire food supply. It would save us some money, but would it stop them coming ? I doubt it. A tent in France is much like one in the UK but at least it would be in the country they are aiming to get to. Once they are here, we have already proven that we have almost no chance of deporting them with or without the Rwanda scheme, as long as we remain in the ECHR. Umpleasant conditions here might reduce the numbers trying to cross but even that is in doubt.
Labour abandoned the only possible route we had open to us without even trying it. The aptly named Mrs Balls has no idea how to deal with the problem and arrivals have even increased since she entered the Home Office.
November 24, 2024
@danny; “Itās wrong to say that people who are worried about illegal migration and who protest about it, and post comments on line are racist, they are just worried about our country. “
The problem is how they express their worries (for example bring religion into the debate), or trying to make illegal migration the single issue in elections, after all legal migration is also causing significant issues regarding infrastructure, housing, employment opportunities etc. Remember some of these legal migrants may well end paying very little tax.
“No one objects to people coming to the UK and working, contributing to society, paying their taxes and abiding by the UK laws.”
Really, tell that to the immigrant populations in some parts of the UK and they’ll laugh in your face, some people have objected to legal immigration for the last fifty plus years! The only difference is these days they tone their rhetoric down whilst in public.
“I see the hotel at Sindlesham is filling up again ..//.. filling up the GP surgeries”
So how about the govt build some post war style pre-fab housing, I’m sure suitable disused MOD land can be found, create a (gated?) village, with their own GP, even shops etc. But whenever such a solution is suggested the NIMBYs within 50 miles radius send their objections – yet some of the MOD land used to house non UK NATO units. Thus the objections are not about numbers but *who* is being housed, if that is not racism then what hell is?
November 24, 2024
How very liberal minded of you Jerry.
Perhaps you can open your home to house a few of these recent arrivals.
Do your bit.
PS
This country cannot sustain a million new arrivals per year.
A city the size of Southampton needs to be built every year.
If we want good social cohesion then that number needs to be reduced to tens of thousands per annum
It’s about numbers.
November 24, 2024
@MiB; There you go again, replying to something I did not post, nor intimate.
If having a clue makes me “liberal minded” I’ll wear the badge with honer…
“This country cannot sustain a million new arrivals per year.
A city the size of Southampton needs to be built every year.”
Duh, make your mind up! A City the size of Southampton equates to c. 269,781 people (2016 ONS figure). There are likely more Cities, towns and villages in the UK than there are people living in Southampton, thus what you mean is not a New Town each year but one person extra per conurbation area, one extra flat if there is no existing spare accommodation. 10 people, ten flats, over ten years, per conurbation area, is that really an issue, even if the number was bumped up to two or three people? As you say, it’s about numbers, so do some research and then do the Mathematics (and remember to factor in the effects of the next 30 years of falling indigenous population as the baby-boomers start dying out).
If we want good social cohesion, what we need is for some people to find a clue, stop finding problems that do not exist, simply because they are NIMBYs or worse.
Do we need to stop illegal migration, of course, but it has nothing to do with the numbers arriving, nor who the majority of them are, yes like any country we need to make sure those who wish to do us harm are kept out, but that’s been an ongoing issue to centuries, hence why Passports were invented.
November 25, 2024
I’m glad you rose to my mention of Southampton Jerry.
Your reply (if correct) proves we actually need several cities that size and just shows the problem a million new arrivals per year pose on UK. infrastructure.
duh indeed !
November 25, 2024
@MiB; So in your mind C. 300,000, is a larger number than 1,000,000, what is your day job Martin, writing the Budget for Ms Reeves?…
Are you getting confused (again), conflating both ILLEGAL migration and Lawful migration, easy to do as Migration Watch also combine the figures, no doubt for effect. You also appear to be obsessed with wanting to create ghettos.
How many UK citizens were born between 1985 and 2000, all of who now need to be housed too; given you do not appear to accept anyone ever dies in (or emigrates from) the UK. Our indigenous birth rate, repressed as it has been in recent years, also suggests many New Towns need to be built each year, even if we were to have absolute zero inward migration. But as I pointed out we do not need to build such New Towns, just add a relatively few houses each year to existing conurbations, something that use to be common practice almost always using subprime agricultural or brown-field land, assuming previous planners had planed for expansion by allocating such land. Looking at post-war maps of my own area it is clear development that took place in the early 1980s was foreseen back in the 1950s if not in the 1930s.
All you do Martin is point out the UK’s woeful housing polices for the last few decades, that have now resulted in much needed mega-developments due to delay after delay, not any informed comment on (illegal) migration!
November 25, 2024
Oh do calm down Jerry
Off at an obscure tangent as ever.
My mention of Southampton was illustrative…look it up.
My example as you have said actually greatly underestimated the task of building new towns for a million new arrivals per annum.
It is an impossible task to keep up.
ps
You seek like many in government have done.
To restrict conversation and debate about this issue by smeering any talk on this important topic as nimbyism or even as racism.
November 25, 2024
typo…towns…should be homes
November 25, 2024
@MiB; So you now say we do not need to build “A city the size of Southampton” every year. As I said, make your mind up!
So (trying to) debate the numbers, that you cited, is going “Off at an obscure tangent” now, well yes I suspect you do think that Martin, given you were the one going off on an irrelevant tangent.
The only person trying to shut down the debate is you Martin, you don’t even want to debate your own figures and their true implications.
November 25, 2024
@MiB; I’ll give you an example of NIMBYism when it comes to migrants, take the disused RAF Scampton, the ones that was used by the WW2 Dam-busters squadron and Vulcan bombers during the Cold War, no one in over a 100 years has ever complained about people being stationed at the base, that is, not until someone dared to suggest it be used to accommodate migrants…
November 26, 2024
Jerry,
The current number of new arrivals is so big that we need to build a new city every year.
That statement is made to give an idea of the size of the infrastructure challenge.
Southampton is an example of a large city and even that isn’t equal to the annual level of immigration.
Hope you understand now.
PS
Scampton was unsuitable for new arrivals.
For example it is isolated and has little local infrastructure.
There is a lot of information about why the decision not to go ahead was made.
And the views of locals should be listened to as part of these decisions.
As they are in other local planning proposals.
November 24, 2024
What is wrong about bringing religion into the debate it is often rather relevant as we have seen in so many wars. Theresa May & Ed Milibandās mad net zero religion is doing vast damage costing hundreds of billions and doing nothing positive at all. His mad group thing religion is the direct is the cause of this vandalism.
November 25, 2024
Our Western civilisation is up the spout because it has turned its back on Christian values for the values of rat-race individualism.
November 26, 2024
Ed, I don’t think it has turned its back on Christian ‘values’. Many people have and honour them. People have turned their back on Christian churches and the thought-police that run them. People who want to shut down a conversation, who think more of Africa than the UK and the poverty nearby, those who have divisive politically correct values that overwhelm people, their sermons full of correcting ‘wrongful thought and speech’.
They are mixed up on their sins and signals in this modern world; some of the most religious people I know are gay, they are philanthropists, and have the time to organise music concerts and fayres. The current liberal values kids are taught in school don’t fit with some church’s doctrines.
November 24, 2024
Jerry
Two points…
1) Religion in not a race.
2) The government has no money of it’s own, only that which it takes from the population.
Whether real or imaginary, if people believe that a group or groups are getting special treatment above that which those who pay the bills can get, there will be resentment.
It saddens me that the boat people are in nice warm hotels receiving their meals, whilst our own people are living on the street or freezing in their homes.
People are critical of India for letting their own people live in squaller while they develop nuclear weapons and have a space program, but I see little difference between India choosing that course, whilst our government chooses to impoverish it’s own whilst sending so much money abroad.
Too many politicians appear prefer to be more popular outside of their own country, rather than at home.
November 25, 2024
@Cliff.. Wokingham; “Religion in not a race.”
EXACTLY, and both just become the go-to brickbats when other arguments fail.
Migrant Hotel accommodation is very much a perceived “special treatment”. I doubt many who complain would, given the option, choose to live in a hotel room for how ever long someone else thought necessary, be prevented from working by law (breaking that law being detrimental to ones future status), and thus have no money or savings of your own other than a child-like weekly handout of pocket money, and to top it all, get constantly slagged off by some for wasting your day away either watching daytime TV or walking the streets with your fellow Hotel ‘inmates’!
“It saddens me that the boat people are in nice warm hotels receiving their meals, whilst our own people are living on the street or freezing in their homes ..//.. whilst our government chooses to impoverish itās own whilst sending so much money abroad.”
Indeed, but then we have been told for the last 45 years, as you point out, ‘the government has no money of itās own, only that which it takes from the population’. I wonder why there might be a lack of LA Housing, or why winter fuel benefits are restricted.
November 26, 2024
Perhaps you would direct that Hotel accommodation question to an ex UK serviceman who may be living on the street for a whole host of reasons, family breakdown lack of money, lack of a job, mental illness, lack of government and local authority support probably the biggest reason, and many others who have paid into the system for many years.
November 24, 2024
danny
Indeed and I hear from a well placed local source (NHS employee) that these immigrants are getting private doctor consultations/assessments, but funded by the NHS.
Difficult to make it up isn’t, when locals who have paid into the system for years cannot even get to see their own GP at short notice.
November 24, 2024
@Berkshire Alan; A lot of NHS patients, needing time-sensitive care, are also getting private doctor consultations/assessments, funded by the NHS. Indeed wasn’t it one of the “waiting list” solutions put forward by the last Conservative govt, nor is this new, my late father was referred by the NHS to the local private hospital back in the late 1980s, and then treatment by the same private hospital, paid for by the NHS.
November 24, 2024
Jerry
Yes fully aware, but usually to have to see your GP first to then get referred onwards.
A Private appointment here in Wokingham to see a non NHS GP is Ā£125.00 paid for by the patient, not the NHS.
Fully aware onward referral consultants appointments can be NHS Funded after you have seen your GP, if you can get an appointment.
There is also an Emergency Walk in NHS GP system in operation in Reading, some 7 miles away if you can get there.
The people being referred to in the Hotel have Doctors visiting them (I guess for obvious reasons) but when did you last have a home visit from your GP ?
Last time a GP visited anyone at home in my family was about 50 years ago (not a joke)
November 25, 2024
@BA; As I said, using private Doctors (be they GPs or consultants etc.) was an option suggested by the last Tory govt to cut waiting times (and why not send migrants private, unless of course one wants to promote complaints about “Local GPs being stacked out with illegals, taking all the slots”. Not even sure what your point is, unless it is to highlight the under funding of the NHS for the last 14+ years!
November 26, 2024
Alan, you are making good points. During a meeting in Altrincham, we were told by accident that they get superior GP and medical service for free. Those paying are expected to pay twice, once through their taxes and again through private when they can’t get an appointment at a time of their need.
The GP contract of 2004 cost a lot, a third more investment and gave GPs a lot of what they asked for: ie no more on-call home visits, fewer Saturday or evening clinics, shared services with none GPs, super clinics. The resulting pressure on A&E and ambulance services were all predictable; not every area has walk-in clinics, a walk-in hospital near us doesn’t accept or get sent by 111 people from my town only 10 minutes away by car, we get sent to a hospital a 20-minute drive away.
More will be done by pharmacists, nurses, just as most pre-natal is done by midwives when years ago a GP would see you two or three times (more if you had a problem), new telephone systems will be answered by AI, you will be asked a series of questions to determine if you can even speak to a person.
November 24, 2024
danny, this and the previous government follow the globalist mantra of the WEF. They have no intention of stopping immigration, legal or illegal.
November 24, 2024
Alas you have to be cruel to be kind to stop the flow. Deterrents are needed Starmer has non (indeed he has policies to encourage the flow). Sunak had virtually none too.
We also need deterrents for shoplifting and many other crimes too. I was in Aldi in Cambridge the other day and spotted two people shop lifting in five minutes.
November 24, 2024
āIt is a useful way for politicians to talk about illegal migration to say they want to stop the small boats or smash the people smuggling gangs.ā Yes but a very dishonest one.
A bit like saying we will stop prostitution by smashing the prostitutes. It treats the buyers as innocent victims forced to purchase the crossings and then forced to climb on board.
November 24, 2024
+1
November 24, 2024
Been a problem since New Labour days because of their immigration policies when Blunkett declared at least 2 amnesties. The undeniable fact is that we are an El Dorado as some official in France recently remarked.
Another undeniable fact however is the Conservatives stared this particular boat crossing problem in the face for 5 years and did absolutely nothing – unforgivable. As such they can only land limited blows on Labour.
Reform, or the pressure they can bring, are the only answer.
November 24, 2024
Cooper has cancelled the Rwanda scheme although never implemented it had limited deterence. She has also overturned the rules whereby channel paddlers etc didn’t get considered for asylum.
Treacherous May signed up to the UN directive stating there is no such thing as illegal immigration.
Liebour now call them irregular immigrants.
We are now processing about a thousand applications a week with a 95% acceptance rate of undocumented illegal immigrants storing up trouble for the future.
We are willingly hastening our own demise
This is aided and abetted by the uniparty in Westminster
2TK will no doubt sign some agreement with the EU to take even more dross off their hands in exchange for access to electricity and fishing rights.
We’re doomed.
November 24, 2024
Add to the fact that the CS’s processing Asylum Claims are incentivised to pass them. And I am NOT making this up !
November 24, 2024
At least we’ll have a ready-made army of young men when World War 3 starts, but in view of the reported reduction in fertility rates it’s young women we want.
By the way Ian, where has the third g gone? I thought you were following the Bob Dylan tradition when he used the name Elston Gunnn.
November 24, 2024
Third g appeared from nowhere. It pops up again on auto fill
I’m incognito incase thought police try and find me.
November 24, 2024
@Ian Wragg; Labour canceled the use of Rwanda, but it doesn’t appear they have canceled the idea. The issue was not so much about using a Third Country to house and process claimants, although the usual far-left agitators did object to the entire idea, the legal challenges were about whether Rwanda was a ‘safe country’ (a valid question in my opinion, given the countries history and who the UK wanted to send there).
November 24, 2024
Ian
As outlined in John’s post today the Mayor of Calais and other towns have said for many years, the UK needs to remove the pull factor, Which is Benefits, Housing, and the virtual automatic granting of asylum.
A genuine refugee would/should be only to pleased to prove their story, who they are, where they came from, etc etc.
Of course they want to leave France, they do not get the same automatic gifts/Benefits that we are giving them, that is why they live in tents and cause huge problems to the coastal Towns and City’s of France, whilst they wait their chance to get to the UK.
Miles and miles of Fencing around the French Ports which the UK has paid for, simply moves the problem back to the end of the fencing, it does not stop the problem.
illegals should be returned from where they came from with 24 hours
November 24, 2024
Today we have an excess of wind generation so we are exporting some of it. The current price is Ā£14 per mwh. This contrasts to the 90% of the time when we have to import which we pay between Ā£85 and Ā£150 per mwh. This is what happens when zealots in government blow up viable coal plants and tax gas plants out of existence when the actual cost of generating base load is circa Ā£40 per mwh
Milibrain has just signed off on further useless offshore windmills at a strike price of Ā£270 per mwh. That’s why we have the highest costs in the civilised world.
More well paid jobs exported to China and the likes.
November 24, 2024
Exactly we were governed by complete net zero brained nutters under the Tories and now even worse Milibrain.
The difference in price show that storage in batteries is not cost or energy effective. Even with such a price differential.
It is however easy to store electricity as a pile of coal (or young coal as at Drax but this is worse than old coal in CO2 if that bothers you), or a store of gas then generate as needed. No need to be buying in at such high prices at all. Economic and environmental lunacy.
November 24, 2024
This will be in line with National Grid policy of buy high and sell low.
Someone needs to give them some business advice.
November 24, 2024
Dave
Its supply and demand, we are desperate so need to pay whatever is asked at the time, they are not, so are not prepared to pay more than what they can generate it for themselves
It is essential for us, for them it is just a purchase of convenience..
Rest assured we will get more and more desperate as the years roll on, unless we change our thoughts and policies completely.
November 24, 2024
+1 Energy supply is one policy area they are using to ensure we will remain an Associate Member of the EU.
November 24, 2024
This Labour government is even less likely to tackle the problem than the last Conservative one.
To rub salt into the wound, the mayors in Northen France are now less likely to co-operate with Britain – despite the vast sums of money wasted trying to get the French to stop the illegals setting off for Britain.
November 24, 2024
Why do we have those incentives to migrants to come to Britain? Because some very influential people want them. Who? It’s no secret. In its 2022 conference, Confederation of British Industry director-general Tony Danker said the UK needed more foreign workers to drive economic growth. After the biggest wave of migration ever, in 2023, the CBI seems to have gone a bit quiet now. Perhaps that’s because employers are getting what they want?
November 24, 2024
If that’s the case where is the economic growth.
We should be achieving 5% annually except only on the welfare bill.
November 24, 2024
Ian
It is not economic growth but larger profit margins as wages are depressed.
November 24, 2024
Ian
Many are working in the alternative economy, or working for the gang masters who helped them get here.
You need/require official paperwork to get legal employment here, if you cannot get official paperwork then unlikely you will be working legally, and your productivity will not be recorded.
November 24, 2024
@BA; “Many are working in the alternative economy, or working for the gang masters who helped them get here.”
Well of course, but what option do illegals have, either no papers what so ever, or refugee/asylum papers where the law prohibits them from working, and some wonder why asylum seekers are huddled in groups wasting each day away on a street corner, or watching TV in their (enforced) hotel accommodation.
Meanwhile, our clueless politicos expect to fill employment vacancies using people who ever do not want to do such work [1], or are sick disabled and thus probably not suited to such work, go figure.
[1] anyone who is an employer, or responsible for training/supervision, know you can’t make someone do work they do not want to do, even if you can force their attendance!
November 24, 2024
The employees however get lower wages, higher taxes, housing shortages, crowded roads, increased crime rates, poor over crowded medical services, police, social services, prisons, crowded schools, roadsā¦
November 24, 2024
Good morning.
People are looking at this the completely the wrong way.
First:
If they are in France illegally, then why does not France deport them ? Irresspective of what these illegals want, they are illegals and have no right to stay unless they claim asylum at the first safe country they arrive in.
Second:
Again, this shows the lack of understanding of the problem. It is NOT the gangs that are the issue, it is the illegals ! ie Supply and demand. Al Capone did not start out life as a Gangster. He saw an oppotunity due to US Prohibition Laws and the demand from people to drink alcohol. Gangsters then, muck like the People Traffikers today are just supplying a demand. Remove the demand and the Traffikers go away. Simple !
Thirdly:
I have said this numerous times before. That the simplest solution is often the best. The illegals want to come here. One of the best ways of disuading them is to make them realise that their efforts will count to nought even if they get here. To that end we should a) Send them straight back to France. If France will not take them then we should set up resettlement camps on remote Scottish Islands, many of who have runways. This has two purposes. To remove them from the mainland and so they cannot disapear and / or cause harm. The other is, and this is where the runways come into purpose, so that we can fly them back home. And if ‘home’ does not want them, then there are other things we can do to change that š
Fourthly:
Yesterday whilst driving home I came across a VERY large sign saying; (Immigration solicitors Ed) Who is paying for all this ? Why we are of course. This is a racket and this needs to stop.
If we cannot STOP illegals, then we need to STOP legal migration. At least that would help if not solve the issue.
November 24, 2024
The simplest way to stop the boats is put the illegal migrants in orange jump suits to clean the motorways. House them in tent cities and consider their applications for asylum after 24 months. All those who didn’t volunteer for this would get nothing, no hotel, no phone, no cash or any help whatsoever. Of course, there would be some charities and individuals who would offer to help the illegals, but if it was made clear they were only delaying the asylum process, they would quickly fade away.
Human rights lawyers, like Starmer, would hate it, but the current flood of migrants would soon become a trickle.
Sadly, any real solution would run foul of international treaty obligations, which the UK adheres to and the French ignore.
November 24, 2024
One simple question: Why does Britain offer a wonderful reception for illegal immigrants if other countries in Europe (notably France) don’t?
November 24, 2024
France offers aid (aide-sociale.fr 25/06/2024 āLes aides aux immigres: Quels sont les dispositifs pour les clandestins, les demandeurs dāasile et les etrangers en situation reguliere?ā)
If you can read French, youāll realise that, even for illegal migrants, it provides a medical cover (āAide medicale dāEtatā), lodging (āHebergement dāurgenceā), and the possibility to apply for a regular immigration status. With such a status, another group of aids are available (āLes aides pour les etrangers en situation reguliereā).
Problem is that a large fraction of illegal migrants do not want to register in France, prefer to go to the northern coast (Dunkirk-Calais) and hope to be able to cross the Channel, thinking they will have a better prospect in Britain than in France (or the rest of the EU for that matter).
So why is the UK so attractive? Is that because of the more developed grey economy? of the absence of ID card? of the language? of the presence of better constituted networks in the UK?
November 24, 2024
I completely agree. We are effectively inviting illegal immigration here given the very high chance of successful claims, the welfare state, NHS access and opportunities to disappear into the illegal economy. We need to stop all of this and we should have the right to deport any illegal migrants (ie non-genuine refugees) on arrival – yet we evidently don’t.
I believe the reason is Britain has been signed up to a litany of supranational laws which are to our detriment in terms of huge financial cost, our jeopardised safety and our diminished wellbeing.
If the Conservative Party wants an absolute vote winner which will doubtlessly see them back into office in 2029 then they should review all our current supranational agreements / laws (eg with ECHR, UN, WTO, WHO etc) and identify which ones are to our detriment. Then promise to remove us from all of the offending obligations. If that means leaving the body altogether then so be it as we need to be protected from this global Socialist oil slick.
There is so much detriment to evidence already and that gives us plenty of just cause. These bodies know what damage they have done to Britain and it must stop. Removing the supranational jackboot is essential in my opinion.
November 24, 2024
It would not take five minutes to do that review paul !They are all detrimental to Britain, countries around the world take out goverments for mugs. We need to put an end to that , plus with somany murders taking place daily we need to bring back capital punishment – That would at least save taxpayers money not having to feed the lowlife.
Dump all agreement over migration!
November 24, 2024
The Labour government isnāt truly intent on smashing the gangs but it is intent on smashing the UK as we know it. Itās long been an aim of the far Left to be able to use a western nation as a test bed for truly radical policies, and now it is doing so here and will continue for the next 5 years. Having no effective borders is a key plank of all this, borders being regarded as intrinsically racist.
All over the world undocumented people are preparing to come to the UK. We now have entire families coming from Vietnam for example. We are going to have to get used to it.
November 24, 2024
There are humanitarian obligations on the UK in favour of migrants, but these have been taken too far. All we need to do is provide shelter in Nissen huts, with good porridge for their nutrition, and facilitate their return to their home country when they tell us where to send them. As their stay in the detention camps will only be short, their medical needs will only be slight, and we should be prepared to allow the charities to provide that for them.
We don’t need to push too hard on criminalising, even though they have broken our law by arriving here without permission. Evidently they have travelled here under the mis-apprehension there is a welcome here for them.
We need to seize the initiative on asylum, which needs to be on the basis of invitation, not right to claim.
November 24, 2024
There is no real evidence that the Establishment or its political parties really wish to stop the slo-mo invasion of our country.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that they are content for it to continue.
Evidence:
1. They refuse to implement ANY deterrence. Even the Rwanda scheme was rendered pointless since Sunak refused to take the legal steps to ensure that flights really would take off.
2. They continue to shower a “free” lifestyle on criminal migrants which they wouldn’t provide for any British citizen
3. They closely coordinate the invasion with France, collecting criminal migrants in the channel and bringing them to the UK rather than returning them to France
4. They do nothing to enforce Maritime Law, EXCEPT the law that they must go to the aid of craft and people at risk of drowning
5. Once the criminal migrants are in the UK there are absolutely no barriers put in place to them working in the black economy until they’ve been here long enough to be allowed to work legally; there are no barriers to them absconding and they are showered with legal aid to ensure that their potential deportation can be delayed for so long that there is no chance of it succeeding
6. They refuse to leave the ECHR; revise the HRA or ignore non-binding instructions given by an ECHR “judge.”
7. They refuse to release data on criminal migrant criminal activities carried out in the UK …. crimes are swept under the carpet as much as possible, unless it is impossible due the violence involved.
8. Serial “incompetence” by the Home Office. Yes, it isn’t “fit for purpose” but when an issue is this negative and this high profile the Minister and Senior Civil Service WOULD take steps to improve the situation …. IF they wanted to.
9. They continually gaslight the British public about the kind of people they are importing and their long-term usefulness to the country
10. The Uni-Party sings from the same hymn-sheet with just minor policy differences. Badenoch became Leader of the CONs stating that she would NOT change the fundamental laws which make it impossible to deport.
If a policy appears to be deliberate, then it almost certainly is deliberate. The Establishment is deliberately importing the criminal migrants and stoking up the fury of the British people.
Why would they do that? I suggest it is because they have objectives which the slo-mo invasion is fuelling:
1. ID “cards” which we are hearing more and more about. Except it will be digital ID and biometrics.
2. To get and to keep us as an Associate Member of the EU.
3. To facilitate and strengthen an EU-wide system of policing, border enforcement, data exchange etc
There may well be more. But it’s obviously being done deliberately.
November 24, 2024
I cannot understand why the UK is so “nice” to illegal migrants. Why the hotels, cash and mobile phones etc.?
Surely, we should put them into a secure POW-like camp (huts or tents) and make them look after it themselves whilst a single application and a single appeal is made for any asylum claim they might make?
November 24, 2024
I don’t feel we should be obliged to consider any asylum claim if they have entered the UK by illegal means (including putting to sea in an unsuitable boat with a view to being rescued by Border Force). If the French are willing, set up an office in the Calais area, and anyone with a valid asylum claim can have it directed to a list of migrant charities, who can offer to act as guarantee to those they deem worthy of consideration. If successful, the charity can then also pay all their subsistence costs, including private healthcare, so as not to burden the public purse.
November 24, 2024
The illegal migration scam is permitted to run and run because it takes the public attention away from the vastly greater numbers of migrants allowed in legally, i.e. they’re given visas by the government. The hundreds of thousands of legal migrants waved in each year need – to quote our good host – a city the size of Liverpool built for them every year, with all the infrastructure that requires: schools, transport, GP surgeries etc. Focus on the small boats, and you keep the massive socio-economic problem that creates well out of public view.
November 24, 2024
“…most people dislike those profiting from the unsafe travel trade across the channel.”
I don’t have great dislike for the traffickers. They are being paid to break our laws by their customers. It’s their customers I dislike more. The latter are not only procuring illegal passage but also often lying about their circumstances and gaming our lax systems.
I speak as someone who volunteered for a short period at a Calais immigrant-support group and saw first hand what many of these would-be migrants were like. Many complaints about free food, bedding and clothing being distributed, for example. None of them in any danger in France, except when different groups had turf wars over who got first pick of the freebies. It appaled me to think they’d get into our country and I couldn’t understand why the volunteers thought it was a deserved “right”, and that the illegals would make a great addition to our population.
I’m not talking about genuine asylum seekers here, as they would have no need to move beyond France.
November 24, 2024
I see that the Mayors of Dover and Ramsgate are both Labour, so not much chance of sense from them
November 24, 2024
@William Long; I note it was the local electorate in Dover and Ramsgate who voted for such politicos, given these local voters are on the front-line I wonder what made them vote the way they did, perhaps a better understanding of the issues? Out of interest, how did the area vote in the Brexit referendum… š
November 24, 2024
Who has the nerve, on a calm day, to block the boats and tell them to return to France. Or let them land and immediately taken to Brize Norton and flown by the RAF for processing on the Falklands.
November 24, 2024
Stopping the boats is far beyond the capacity of this government (as it was with the last) and likely contrary to the intent of the Establishment and nearly all of the political class.
Cannot the mayors of northern France be gagged for they risk spoiling things for all those involved?
November 24, 2024
There is no way they want to āstop the small boatsā.
Our Uniparty Parliament has promoted and enabled mass legal and illegal immigration to keep wages low, load the taxpayers with ever more debt, change the electorate and eventually cause a crisis requiring authoritarian rule with identity cards, credit scores, smart meters and the like. The Home Office and police are already at the non-crime hate incident/thought crime stage of authoritarian rule. DESNZ and the Treasury are working on delivering the necessary energy and economic financial crises to bring about the total control they seek.
November 24, 2024
Correct. The conclusion I have also reached. It’s deliberate. Watch what they do …. ignore what they say.
November 24, 2024
Sir John has noted several times that the dinghies are in flagrant breach of French safety regulations governing vessels carrying fare-paying passengers. HMG should bring an action in the French courts demanding that France enforce its own laws.
It should also enforce international maritime law which denies free passage to non-innocent traffic such as pirates and smugglers. The dinghies have no legal right whatever to enter UK waters and should be returned to France, under Royal Navy armed guard if necessary.
All that is needed is the political will. Instead Britain and France are nakedly complicit in the deadly traffic. Could it be that, now HMG hopes to sabotage Brexit, cosy relations with France are more important to it than security of the realm, safety at sea and honesty to its own citizens?
November 24, 2024
I second that ! stop wasting money
November 25, 2024
Yes a lot of folk propose solutions but fundamentally the political elites don’t see a problem. The Establishment have too tight a grip on this country for the people to break through, we can only hope that the Trump presidency changes the landscape.
November 25, 2024
I found commonslibrary.parliament.uk 13/09/2021 āIs turning back migrants at sea compatible with international law?ā
As usual the situation is much more complex than the simplistic solutions proposed here. To start with, dinghies are not considered vessels for the French (in fact EU) regulations. Second āa person can be correctly classified as an illegal entrant without being guilty of the offence of illegal entryā.
It sounds crazy but it is in section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971.
As long as the contributors here just write their āgut feelingā without even trying to clue themselves on the topics on which they intend to comment, this blog will remain simply the depository of the bad blood stirred up by Sir John on his subjects of choice.
November 24, 2024
Unfortunately that same evidence points to the fact that HMG and the political establishment simply do not care how much it costs us to house and feed so many illegals, nor how much trouble it causes with over-stretched infrastructure and other issues.
It should be obvious to all, that our government is actively inviting these people in, and it has nothing to do with cheap labour.
If we carry on importing this amount of low-grade workers, most of whom will end up permanently on benefits, what will it do for the culture of this country? What will it do to our native religion? What will it do to our place in the world and our values?
The political establishment know, with a certainty, that they are stoking up problems, but that would seem to be their intention.
November 24, 2024
Correct.
November 24, 2024
A salutary lesson from Sir Richard Dearlove speaking on GB News this morning. He defined clearly and in proportion what our problems are and spared none of the major players from their visible incompetence. A refreshing change from the usual politicians diarrhoea.
Just to cheer yourself up, check out the current petition for a general election. Reform could be sooner than you hope for.
November 24, 2024
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
November 24, 2024
Got sent the petition this morning when the Count was 750,000 gone up by 500,000 in 8 hours to 1,250,000
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
Probably will not do a lot of good, but at least if it reaches 100,000 (it already has) then it should be debated in the house.
At least if it gets huge enough numbers it may embarrass the Government enough for them to realise what a disaster they have been.
Never know it may get more signatures at this rate than Labour got votes at the general election !!!
November 24, 2024
Securing our borders against illegal some might say invasion forced landing on our shores, is the only option that will work permanently.
We have always been a welcoming society to those wanting to come to the U.K. via legal/conventional routes.
Those imposing there right to come from an already safe country I.e. France should be returned to their safe French beach they set off from.
November 24, 2024
Letās face it there is only one party capable of stopping the small boats and it isnāt the Globalist Uni-Party.
A good place to start is to sign the petition for a general election currently running on the UK Government and Parliament Petitions website. Itās got to half a million so far and increasing rapidly.
November 24, 2024
Its a moot dicussion today as neither the tories or labour will ever send any back to France nor house those that arrive in the Hebrides army camp
November 24, 2024
You have to ask how come Sweden has gone from having a large illegal immigrant problem, to having zero net immigrant problem – more leaving than arriving. A Government in charge and working for its people?
All it takes is will.
They will keep coming to the UK all the time it is made profitable for the people smugglers, their UK Legal teams and the individuals themself by being rewarded more than the indigenous population.
Might seem tough justice but instead of picking them up and treating them to luxuries how about turning them back.
November 24, 2024
Labour & Conservative governments believe that immigration is good for them
This is because it drives the economy & provides a quick fix in many areas etc
So the political narrative is to make a big fuss about the illegal boats arriving
which keeps the electorate on board
Whilst quietly running a government policy which allows thousands of legal immigrants
to arrive. This was the great betrayal of the last Conservative government
This is now a problem for me to support the conservative party in the future
November 25, 2024
You either fix the problem of native Brits no longer being relatively productive for lots of cultural reasons or you have to import immigrants. Simple. Or else our country plummets to a second nation country like Morocco (which north of country almost) or something. It’s simply Harry Potter to think you can reduce immigration whilst the native Brits don’t want to work like they once did.
And productivity would increase hugely if there were more interesting highly-skilled and highly paid jobs with British companies in the IT sector and the UK producing our own cars instead of the country being overly-focused on the financial and consumer markets.
November 24, 2024
Actually getting into a small boat with paying passengers without a qualified skipper and setting sail renders the entire operation illegal in international waters including France. The French authorities are therefore complicit in facilitating an illegal operation, a point the Home Secretary and her officials should be making robustly to their French counterparts. Far too much rhetoric is made by politicians about the āunsafeā and ādangerousā journey being undertaken
rather than stressing the fundamental illegality of the entire operation. Illegal migrants travel illegally without passports or ID in an illegal boat operated by an illegal skipper and they make this choice of their own free will. Itās crystal clear to all of us the government are in deep trouble with illegal immigration and urgently need to get a grip with this appalling situation. Itās the French who hold the key to the problem and indeed have done so since small boats were first used. Any migrant entering UK illegally by whatever means must be arrested, detained and held in custody irrespective of their individual claim to remain. And detention must continue until their status has been determined. This process would stop the incentive immediately.
November 24, 2024
It’s terrible when a government is so weak and incompetent that it has to admit to its own People that it cannot control its own borders.
Of course, that is not true. The government is perfectly capable of controlling the borders. It simply pretends it can’t.
Pretending you are incompetent is even sadder and weaker than actually being incompetent.
November 24, 2024
The Romans tried to police the Saxon Shore and failed. History shows a divided and dying civilisation has no chance against determined invaders.
November 24, 2024
One useful deterrent would be to tell successful asylum claimants that if they go on holiday back to the country they left they will have their asylum claims cancelled. In Sweden a high percentage of Afghans granted asylum are in that category, of course here the figures arenāt published.
November 24, 2024
The deterrent is immediate deportation to a remote island while we process their return to another country. This could be a camp in Africa (which we could pay to support, I am sure other countries will chip in) for those who don’t volunteer where they are from.
No money, no accommodation, no asylum claim just deportation. The gangs can shift their monetary focus to dodgy visa claims in friendly countries.
November 24, 2024
We need to withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention until it is rewritten for modern times with modern transport.
We also need to increase the earnings required to get a work visa and reduce the number of students allowed in.
Universities will bankrupt this country when the student loans aren’t repaid, no need to hasten that bankruptcy by letting the universities folld us with foreig students and their families which require taxpayer support.
November 24, 2024
An obvious solution to stop the hordes paying to be smuggled into the UK is to pass a law stating that anyone who arrives from a safe country will never be regarded as a genuine asylum seeker, because a genuine claimant would seek asylum at the first opportunity. Also, anyone claiming to be trafficked against their will should be returned to their country, by their own admission they don’t want to be here.
November 24, 2024
Schools are apparently using a book which teaches children that mass immigration is beneficial to the economy and culture, and urges them to write to MPs supporting more immigration. The not-a-Conservatives had ample time to purge education and the Civil Service of these Marxists, but did nothing.
November 26, 2024
Why can Ireland send their migrants to the UK? Why don’t they send them back to the EU? We are just sitting ducks to our political class, here to pay up and shut up.