The tragic loss of life at sea near France this week has highlighted again the need to change policy in tackling illegal migration.
You have rightly condemned the actions of people smugglers. They take profit to put people at risk on dangerous boats and encourage them to break the law of the country they wish to enter. It would be good to know what more can be done to find and prosecute the people in France responsible for organising this vile trade.
The UK needs to reinforce your clear view that people should not attempt illegal entry through dangerous crossings in boats or by illegal and dangerous use of trucks and road vehicles with or without the knowledge of the drivers. To do so the courts need a new instruction from an Act of Parliament to help ensure there is no incitement to try the dangerous sea route or back of the lorry method with smugglers. No-one should be paying a people smuggler to evade the law and no-one should be funding and organising dangerous journeys for children.
The message has to go out that it is possible to become a refugee or economic migrant legally and safely. The UK should not accept any attempted illegal entry. The last thing we want to do is to send out a message that attempting illegal entry is likely to work as that would be an incentive to put more lives at risk. Too many have died at sea or in or on lorries already. Letās take action to save lives.
October 30, 2020
Sir John,
Tony Abbot has ben appointed as an official trade adviser for the UK. Boris and the Home Secretary should be encouraged to talk details with him and benefit from his highly effective measures to protect Australia from illegal boat migrants.
A very hard line must be taken. I hope Boris and his ministers are up to it.
October 30, 2020
France is a safe country. People murdered there two days ago by a migrant boat person who entered Italy three weeks before!
Patel last Thursday made it easier for all types of immigration when your new mass immigration policy was sneaked in under cover of Chinese Flu lock downs!
JR, stop patronising everyone. Your govt ha no intention on delivering a proper legal or illegal immigration policy. We had ten years of lies, spin and false policy announcements. Highest historical figures on every type of immigration!
WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU!
Capitulation on trade and Security now fully underway. I guess they are trying out all sorts of spin to make it sound reasonable or a compromise was made. No it will be a sell out.
October 30, 2020
+1
You are spot on!
October 30, 2020
+1
You are spot on!
….
He is not, these events are all fake.
It appears govts want to turn us against each other while continuing immigration and pretending to love everyone.
October 30, 2020
Well actually I agree with what you say too.
Much fakery and turning one group against another are govt pastimes.
October 30, 2020
Well said, Hope.
October 31, 2020
Do not forget it was only two weeks ago Patel was announcing how she flew in others from Greece to repatriate with those who got here!
Come on in, free hotels, free welfare, free housing, free health care contribute nothing. UK citizens can work and pay their taxes for you and then be forced to sell their home to pay for their socialc are! The socialist/communist Tories are here for you.
What was Osborne quoted as saying, no one in private was serious about curbing numbers!
October 30, 2020
Agree – ”we do not believe you”
October 30, 2020
There certainly does not appear to be any progress on Brexit talks.
No mention of time either. It is not mentioned as a pressing concern.
The government appear to lack the backbone to simply walk away.
So my guess is that it will be more theatre until we find out what they will actually agree.
October 30, 2020
concur
October 30, 2020
āThe message has to go out that it is possible to become a refugee or economic migrant legally and safelyā
I disagree.
The country should not accept ANY refugees, asylum seekers, or whatever they want to call themselves.
October 30, 2020
By virtue of our geography youāre correct
Strange you donāt see many refugees in Saudi
October 31, 2020
Of course no asylum seeker should be accepted from France. They had to pass through several safe countries first! They are required to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter, that is not England! But the EU leader Merkel ordered every country to take its fare share after she invited millions to the EU!
When will any other EU country tell her to get stuffed?
October 30, 2020
Well said Peter, we need to let the world know the door is firmly shut, we have a surplus now of ā non working ā
experts in all trades – no more required.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Of course they arenāt.
We must reach a point where we acknowledge that as the government …
They only do exactly what suits!
Handwringing and bleating mildly on the sidelines about how hamstrung they are wonāt wash for much longer!
We have a few British protesting about being imprisoned and bankrupted…SEND IN THE RIOT SQUAD.
We have illegals invading our beaches…GET THE COCOA, BLANKETS AND ELASTOPLAST!
October 30, 2020
Australia was able to convince the UN that most of those attempting to enter were economic migrants.
Those apprehended trying to enter the UK almost all claim to be refugees or asylum seekers on the other hand, so that strategy would not work.
However, if they are not found, then they often melt into the crowd and work for cash, remaining clandestine. They do not report to claim asylum or refuge.
They cannot do that in France, owing to the requirement for ID cards etc.
The Tories defeated Labour’s proposals for those.
October 30, 2020
ID cards are Ā£5 each, from Karachi. Bulk buys are cheaper. They give you a āfree passā, everyone assumes they and you are kosher after all its racist to question an obvious alien with and ID card.
Have you read the Mail today, do!
October 30, 2020
A FTA with the EU, while we’re heading into a national total lockdown.. forget it! It’s now time to tear-up the terrible WA and tell the redoubtable Lord Frost to come home.
PREPARE for a smaller economy, stockpile and preserve. Look to the non EU nations for necessary imports.
October 30, 2020
Good one. Difficult to find evidence they are ‘up to’ anything.
October 30, 2020
Pominoz,
Oh please. Johnson is vehemently opposed to stopping it. He advocates amnesty to illegals, back tracking on manifesto on several issues.
How many hundreds of thousands lost to Home Office system? HO on record to losing 250,000 under May, 56,000 under Rudd alone.
Fake Tory party signed up to UN. Migrant pact. A choice not forced to, not I accord with public mandate on immigration. Ten years of lies and spin.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
It is never illegal to seek asylum, and it is shameful of you to pretend otherwise. Stop picking on the planetās most vulnerable
October 30, 2020
These aren’t the planet’s most vulnerable, they have money to pay people smugglers. The real vulnerable are the elderly, poor and sick of the failed states who are stuck with their lot.
October 30, 2020
Actually, many of them are middle class and well educated Iranians trying to get away from a corrupt and repressive regime. They could become welcome assets to the British economy just as were the Ugandan Asians expelled by the wretched Idi Amin.
October 30, 2020
SG what nonsense. These are economic migrants in the vast majority of cases. If they were refugees they could stop at safe Italy, Greece, Turkey, France or anywhere along the European trail. There should be no boats leaving France that has a legitimate claim to asylum. They should be made in France.
Germany invited them- at the moment it is reported Merkel deporting them by the plane load at night and some drugged to do so!
October 30, 2020
You must be jesting,
Weāre stuck with Leftie Ali bi Brown for a start
October 30, 2020
Oh yes I forgot. They are all fleeing war torn France aren’t they.
October 30, 2020
I reckon they soon will be.
And where will that leave us?
October 30, 2020
They are net āfleeing the French warā – they are spreading the flame.
October 30, 2020
Um…a war IS beginning in France…and it will spread here.
Race war as stoked up by our leaders.
October 30, 2020
There’s no point arguing. T. May signed the UN Migration Pact and agreed that the UK would assist migration and accept economic migrants as if they were refugees. She did this without debate and slipped it through. Amongst other deceits. Until this is changed, we’re stuffed. Boris is May in trousers.
October 30, 2020
It is not illegal to seek asylum but it is illegal to attempt to sneak into the UK from a safe country, e.g. France, pretending to be an asylum seeker. Section 21(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971: āA person who is not a British citizen shall be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction with a fine . . . or with imprisonment ā¦ or with both . . . if contrary to this Act he knowingly enters the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order or without leave.ā Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention states that refugees must come ādirectlyā from the territory where life or freedom was threatened or they may be liable for āpenalties, on account of their illegal entry or presenceā.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
The sympathy narrative does not work when the illegals are paying large sums to transit. That is not necessary fleeing of persecution that is choosing to move internationally to improve one’s lot.
The are legal processes to apply to do that. If these are not followed it is the opposite of legal i.e illegal.
Once a criminal, always a criminal
October 30, 2020
French Christians in Nice were the vulnerable ones yesterday. Killed by an Islamic immigrant.
October 31, 2020
+1 seems French cathedrals are also āat riskā!
October 30, 2020
Shaun. These people are not vulnerable. They have not come from the masses of camps and tents in Syria and other places. They have money. They have paid to make their way through Europe to get into the UK illegally. I am fed up with the UK having to take illegal immigrants from France. Why aren’t France under attack for the way they are treating these people? When they come here they get decent accommodation while their asylum applications are being considered. Compare the conditions with those in France. It is France that should be held to account and France that should be sorting it all out. Anyone without paperwork should not be allowed to claim asylum. They all know they are breaking the law by not having paperwork on them showing exactly where they are from. We still don’t know who we are letting in to the country and as recent events in Nice have shown it is dangerous. There are far too many young fit men coming in and they don’t look to me like they are vulnerable. We should be prioritising those living in the camps who have nothing and are real refugees and not those that just want a better life and are able to shove in because they have the wealth to be able to do so.
October 30, 2020
Shaun Gray.
Please behave and get a life. Every penny of British taxpayers revenues spent on them is a penny for our native old and infirm, destitute children, and the 100s of ex servicemen and women sleeping rough on our streets. We are not talking pennies here are we it is millions of pounds.
October 30, 2020
every borrowed penny
October 30, 2020
The social consequences of the 10% increase in UK’s population this century are being magnified by Covid. The sacred NHS was unsustainable previously. Adult Social and Mental Health services are woeful. Your approach denies the real possibility of Western democratic collapse.
October 30, 2020
Theyāre queue jumpers, theyāll use any illegal means, pay off and bribe officials, work with gangsters, endanger everyone else including children, rob small boats and encourage other to do the same often entrapping young girls into prostitution
Illegal entry needs to be stopped today by the full force of our police and military and those caught returned immediately to France, and I mean returned not processed not checked but returned that same day
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
You seem to be saying as long as there is anyone anywhere in the world worse off than a British person, they must come here. That would be the vast majority of the third worldās population, then.
October 30, 2020
They are not worse off than many British people.
October 30, 2020
Yes the peaceful illegal immigrants who needed extra special reception measures near Southampton.
Those that required special reception should be returned forthwith to the port or point of origin.
Transports which are found to be carrying illegal or facilitated the passage should have the vehicle confiscated & sold to defray public costs.
These funds can be used to mount investigations into various organisations and individuals who may be actively facilitating illegal immigration. These being NGO’s , advisors, charities and individuals.
However we know how totalitarian governments and supra national organisations act. The way in which law is enacted and the different ways it is enforced. It certainly is not democratic.
Who captured them? Why?Who is benefiting comparatively?
Can we start seizing all offshore wealth in UK tax havens, over Ā£1m to pay for this? Can we bring in a maximum wealth limits where tax hits 100%? Can we outlaw owing more than 2 properties. At least all including the immigrants will have a stake instead of being used to farm GDP in the interests of the suppliers of publicly funded services.
October 30, 2020
It needs some “tough love”, you have to be prepared to give new arrivals using this method a very tough time to discourage any other following in their footsteps. When you give them better care than the native population, in many cases, then of course the incentives are there for others to follow.
We should modify our policy on “refugees” we are a small country, and cannot continue to accept disproportionate numbers of refugees from every small war zone around the world for all time. We have already had way more than our fair share. Help them find a safe haven sure, not necessarily in the UK.
We need a joined up, pragmatic, immigration policy where what we say is actually enforced, and we follow through the rhetoric. So other aspects like work visas which are far too easy to get, dished out like confetti for skills already in oversupply, and given way too many tax perks versus the local population, and so on, all need doing properly, instead of the nonsense imposed by our political class on the advice of the big consultancies who stand to make the most money from them.
October 30, 2020
Home Office boasted last week on social media it has settled more refugees than any other country! The type of refugee we saw in the papers balding and claiming to be a child! When is the unfit Home Office going to radically overhauled? 12 years on from ministerial declaration it was not fit for purpose. HO keeps getting rid of decenting Home Secretaries.
October 30, 2020
What an absolutely appalling comment. What we actually need is to get tough on elderly bigots.
October 30, 2020
Your comments are the ones that are appalling.
October 30, 2020
Which part of the above was “bigoted” Andy.
I assume the bits you disagreed with. Hold the mirror up to yourself.
October 30, 2020
What an absolutely appalling comment. What we actually need is to get rid of you! Why don’t you p1$$ off to your beloved continental Europe and leave us alone?
October 30, 2020
Nonsense. Mr. Gillās comment is moderately phrased, pragmatic and sensible.
Your trolling standards, on the other hand, are slipping badly. You need new material.
A site can always use Aunt Sally figures, such as yourself, but you should be aware that there others on here who now perform that role better than you.
October 30, 2020
What an absolutely predictable comment. Do get help.
October 30, 2020
Andy bigotry is dreadful and not age related, for instance you are the most bigoted person on this blog. Totally closed mind.
October 30, 2020
Asylum claims in 2019:
UK: 35,500
Germany: 142,200
France: 119,900
Spain: 115,200
Greece: 74,900
Given the size of the UK, yes, this is disproportionate. Disproportionately low.
If the UK government wants to discourage people from attempting to make a claim by a dangerous and illegal route, there is one simple solution – provide a safe and legal mechanism for that claim to be made.
October 30, 2020
First save haven – everything else is economic
October 30, 2020
Rubbish. It may be family connections, it may be linguistic (if someone speaks English, but not French, German, Spanish or Greek, it’s going to be easier to settle in a country where English is spoken).
If the UK is supposed to be a compassionate nation, a world leading nation, we should show it by our example.
October 30, 2020
First safe haven.
October 30, 2020
+1 but this is nothing to do with asylum – if only the Luftwaffe had come as āasylum seekers …ā
October 30, 2020
“provide a safe and legal mechanism for that claim to be made.”
You might as well throw our borders wide open, doing that would result in us being overwhelmed. I can only presume you are suggesting that with the intention to completely fracture our nation.
October 30, 2020
They aren’t coming to the UK, they are coming to England the most densly populated country in Europe.
October 30, 2020
Only Greece of that list is an island and even then they have to get past Turkey which is safe.
None of those countries should in reality be receiving applications.
October 30, 2020
Peter do you know how many of those that first claimed asylum in the Countries you mentioned then made their way to the UK with free movement?
October 30, 2020
All!
October 30, 2020
Have you got the figures for middle east states such as Saudi Arabia?
October 30, 2020
That would be a big fat zero
October 30, 2020
This really is a global problem, isn’t it, but I’m too much of an old cynic to believe there is the slightest chance of a global solution.
Take the recent occurrence of the Nigerian stowaways on a cargo ship off the Isle of Wight – they could be classed as economic migrants, since Nigeria apparently has one of the highest poverty ratings in the world, or as refugees from constant outbreaks of religion-based internecine warfare.
So what will be done with them? Will they be returned – or would Nigeria refuse to accept them back? Or will UK lawyers defend their attempt to stay on the grounds that repatriation would risk harsh punishment?
October 30, 2020
Just like the Afghans some years ago, who hijacked an aeroplane to land here. The Nigerian boat hijackers will soon be living here.
October 30, 2020
SM, UN migrant pact signed up by current Fake Tory govt. It wants illegal migrants made legal and treated as such by giving them homes health care etc.
UK Govt committed to mass migration on a global scale. Only Western leader against Donald Trump.
October 30, 2020
They’re in the system – they’ll never be sent back…weak government
October 30, 2020
Old Albion. Yes I’d like to live in Candada. Do you think if I hijacked a boat they would let me stay?
October 30, 2020
You don’t seem to like people from the British Commonwealth that much after all, do you?
October 30, 2020
Depends if you prefer the rule of law or not.
October 31, 2020
There is a massive difference between the Commonwealth, which we fund so that they can go to the UN in style and vote against us, and the Dominions.
October 30, 2020
Anyone who enters the UK illegally should be returned whence they came and barred from future return to the UK.
In order to make that policy work we need to make it possible for asylum seekers to register their claim as close to the source of their danger as possible.
Economic migrants on the other hand should be judged on their ability to contribute to our society. For those whose contribution might not otherwise qualify them outright, but who work in areas of shortage, we should offer five year residency visas with a path to full UK residency for the law abiding and those given a security clean review.
This should be a contractual agreement which precludes further claims to refugee status or to claims to remain under human rights legislation.
October 30, 2020
Oh donāt worry about them.
Nigerian totally unpoliced demos in London…even with COVID āragingā .
Nigerian restaurants advertised on TV.
They have a nice ākermoonityā here in tolerant-land all ready and waiting!
October 30, 2020
If the seven Nigerians are not returned immediately, more tankers will be hijacked. The crew this time were lucky that no one amongst their number died.
Sadly, it seems that deaths have to take place before governments take action.
Witness the response to the sad loss of the family of five Kurds, duped into giving their life savings to people-smugglers. Had they come into the UK legally and safely, they may well have made a valuable future contribution to our society.
People smugglers really are the scum of the earth. If we don’t properly address this route of illegal immigration, it has to be deduced that we are complicit.
October 30, 2020
They have been let out on bail.
October 30, 2020
They’ll never be seen again.
October 30, 2020
Rose. I wonder where they are now?
October 30, 2020
I note that the vessel called en route at Montoire de Bretagne, but the French authorities refused to take the stowaways. After spending a day docked in Southampton while the crew gave evidence, it sailed to the anchorage for Antwerp, without stopping to pick up any cargo from Fawley refinery. The naval operation was a considerable expense. The treatment of the aircraft hijackers detained at Stansted suggests that we will be funding their prison stays and life on benefits afterwards. A limited prison stay, followed by immediate deportation is surely what is needed
October 30, 2020
It seems strange that the daily diktats from the Government don’t extend to returning the illegal immigrants back to France immediately.
October 30, 2020
Sir John
Dr Mike Yeadon (Former CSO & VP Allergy Respiratory Research Pfizer Global R&D) mentioned in his conversation with Anna Brees on YouTube stated that since that Second World War enforced vaccinations and medical treatment havew been against international law.
Would you be able to get 100% confirmation that any vaccinations will be voluntary without any coercion or bribing in any way?
SP
October 31, 2020
Very important information, thanks. So threatening to deny schooling unless vaccinated would be coercion?
October 30, 2020
Stephen
Agreed, I would think the last thing we need are yet more new laws, with ever more loop holes, which cause ever more delays and additional cost.
The problem with most of our laws now are they are too specific, look at the fiasco over mobile phones in cars which only legislated for the making and receiving of telephone calls and texts, instead of simply banning all use whilst driving.
Look at the fiasco of the many rules, regulations and advice on Covid, when all is needed is simple guidance. Keep as far away from people as you can, and always wear a face covering in an enclosed commercial establishment.
Sadly lessons will not be learn’t by politicians because they love detail and complication (too many Lawyers).
October 30, 2020
They only do what they want to do and for years all this handwringing has kept us quiet.
Everything they have done is done on purpose.
They are not inefficient but they are cowards. They have never shared their plans with us!
They want immigrants either for GDP, cheap Labour or a race war. ( See Macron stoking up trouble in France).
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
That is the simplest way to do it and I have advocated it here. The government don’t want to do it so either they are going to sell us out on Brexit so they can stay under rules preventing it or they want it to happen to undermine the country which is seen by some as ‘too white’.
Meanwhile whilst we fiddle as Rome burns, Germany has seen the error of Merkel and is sending thousands back where they came from. We can’t even send vile criminals back. Pathetic.
October 30, 2020
But we do send some ‘vile’ criminals back – but they just make their way here again – nothing to stop them!
October 30, 2020
What, like the single one on a plane load of 30 where 29 were offloaded again due to ‘human rights’?
October 30, 2020
Germany started hearing claims and rejecting most straight away.
Only around one-in-forty were granted citizenship or leave to stay.
October 30, 2020
Gosh
Your hero Merkel deporting these poor people.
Yet you are still OK with these decisions.
Politics before morals.
Typical of you lefties.
October 31, 2020
Phew and she invited them! āWe can do thisā – so apparently Germany canāt!
October 31, 2020
Graham 1946
Merkel opened the doors specifically to Syrians desperately fleeing the civil war there (again exacerbated by our/US meddling in the region)
Germany is sending back those that slipped in illegally. You really should read between the lines and study your subject rather than getting the ‘facts’ from articles in the Daily Mail. I can recommend FazNet.
October 31, 2020
Why didn’t nearby nations to Syrria offer them a temporary safe haven?
November 1, 2020
I never mentioned anybody of particular origin, except to mention her error and do you think it would not be used by anyone else, just like they do inviting themselves here?We agreed to take refugees from the camps and suddenly thousands come illegally, so your point is rather useless.
I don’t read the DM nor the Guardian which I suspect is your favourite. I don’t read any newspaper. The thrust of my point is that Germany can get rid of thousands and we can’t. Why can you not read and understand what I write instead of putting your own interpretation on it? Did you not do ‘Comprehension’ at school? Seems you didn’t pay much attention.
October 30, 2020
99% of other world countries return illegal immigrants immediately, no courts, no arguments, no discussion – your illegal your going back today ….we have weak government
October 30, 2020
Glen, Yes, why is the UK always the soft touch? This is why we get walked all over. It’s got to be the Brexit party for me next time.
October 31, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Good morning
If you want to address MASS IMMIGRATION, people smuggling and illegal entry into my country, then you will have to address both the push and the pull factors. We also have to recognise that many of the international agreements we have entered into need revisiting and revising. They being out of date in a world of MASS COMMUNICATION and MASS TRANSPORTATION.
We need to make the UK a less attractive place for people to illegally come to. If they arrive in the UK illegally, they are arrested, charged, put on trial and, if found guilty, sentenced to prison. We can look at their claim for asylum after they have done their time. Alternatively, we can build holding camps on remote Scottish Islands until they are ready to be processed. Australia did something similar and it worked !
Next the push factor. People are coming here for a better life. They do not have what we have and want it for themselves. Would it be better through trade and other initiatives that do not involve us handing over money for nothing in return. Trade creates business which creates kind which creates wealth. We need to remove as many trade barriers to developing countries as possible. I have long argued that the UK free from the EU Customs Union would facilitate this.
We also need to stop exploiting these countries, their natural wealth and their people. Pay them a fair price for what they have to offer.
The UK can find a new international role in the world as a champion of free trade, law and high regulatory standards. We can also use this to promote peace which is always a good way to develop more wealth and betterment.
Britain has a new role outside the EU and internationally. We just need the right people to believe in ourselves once again
October 30, 2020
Mark,
One start would be to put them in detention centres to be processed properly rather than four star hotels where they disappear from! We are not safe under the current idiotic govt. scheme.
Javid when HS announced that such people ought not go to detention centres. Failed claims held in mention centres if they can be found. Buckland allowed out those in such detention centres after exhausting all legal routes to be deported!
Were are they now? Are we safe from them? If the govt cannot confirm their age why allow them in education with vulnerable children! Tory Clown govt for you.
October 30, 2020
While agreeing that we should try to help pull these countries up, even though research shows that it INCREASES illegal migration as people get the wherewithal to pay smugglers, what do we do about the tribal customs and religions that make these countries unsuccessful? How do we stop them from increasing their populations beyond the numbers supportable by their country?
October 30, 2020
Mark B
Sorry mate no prison that is a furthrdemand on the taxpayers. Put them on a plane and fly them out , it will be cheaper for us in the long ru.
Pressure politicians to pass a law . Illegal entry NO STATE ASSISTANCE FOR 10 YEARS if and when exposed.. How do the politicians think they are paying back their trafficking loans? With state handouts.. Anybody found guilty of assisting illegal immigrants in any way will have all their assets removed. Until the message gets across it ain’t worth the risk it is going to continue. It’s hard it’s tough but so is life for the average tax paying citizens.
October 30, 2020
Why on earth should we put these people in prison in the UK; we already have one of the largest prison populations in Europe. And what about the expense? I understand that it costs more per annum to keep someone in prison in the UK that it does to send a child to a public school.
Just deport them to the last safe country that they were in, usually France, as this is the correct procedure.
October 30, 2020
And what if France, not unreasonably, refuses to accept them?
October 30, 2020
The law is that they canāt, they can pass them on to the country they were in before France.
October 30, 2020
Mark, JR is treating us as fools today.
His govt. use police in authoritative way patrol English/Welsh border. We read councils hiring enforcement officers at Ā£34,000 to overtly and covertly strip us of our every day liberties to meet in our own homes! Govt telling people who they can have sex with- bear in mind Johnson’s disgraceful conduct and living with a mistress in a publicly owned building at our expense! But the govt. cannot stop boats! Utterly ridiculous especially as the majority of boats are shadowed by English/French navy.
Lord Sumption is correct. It is clear to me the govt.s sneaky underhand way to circumvent parliamentary procedures to introduce fake laws and police allowed to exceed powers to suppress the nation is outrageous. Far worse than the Chinese virus.
Self-serving, greedy, selfish, MPs have reached a new low in behaviour.
October 30, 2020
“JR is treating us as fools today”
Every day there are plenty of fools ready to confuse JR’s commentary for putative policies. Sir John speaks, but he is not in a position to do. Words without actions are not only worthless but also dangerous. Far too many people are happy to lend their support to the government (despite being highly critical of its actions) on the strength of Sir John’s participtaion in the party of government.
And yes, Sumption speaks sense, but also calls out the government to a degree quite remarkable for someone of his position.
October 30, 2020
Excellent piece.
The smugglers wouldnāt be there if someone wasnāt paying them. And nor would their customers if they knew that attempting illegal entry was pointless.
October 30, 2020
It’s not quite as simple as that. Like all businesses the smugglers advertise to drum up custom, and they have agents in migrant countries lieing to potential customers. At the height of the Mediterranean crossings there were adverts claiming that the journey would be made in what looked like a cruise liner. Australia spent money advertising to PREVENT migrants setting out.
October 30, 2020
Succinct and correct
October 30, 2020
Read the Mail today. JR will not let me post the quote.
October 30, 2020
A combination of military drones searching the seas in the Channel and one of our new Offshore Patrol Vessels ought to sort this problem out.
The migrant’s vessels could then be intercepted before they sink, saving lives and the migrants returned to France, who should have stopped them from leaving in the first place.
October 30, 2020
Just a thought experiment, SG – if there were many similar people in the UK who had no right to be here, and who wanted to be in France instead, then how effective would you want the measures taken by the UK – in order to prevent them from leaving for France – to be?
October 30, 2020
as usual divert the subject when you have nothing worthwhile to argue.
October 30, 2020
Oh it is down to us Martin, absolutely. Moaning about France not doing this or that is pointless. Few here are arguing for that, even if our unbelievable government does.
October 30, 2020
You have set up a false dichotomy.
Individuals fleeing oppression should be welcomed as asylum seekers in both the UK and France. Illegal migrants should be returned whence they came by both UK and French authorities.
By permitting illegal onward migration efforts by economic migrants France actually encourages more migrants to go there. This “beggar my neighbour” approach is both widespread across Europe and the EU and foolish.
October 30, 2020
It would depend on whether France wanted them or not. If France wanted them no problem, they are free to travel. However if France did not want them, and in the light of some current migrant behaviour in France plus a compelling desire to leave the UK there are many other potential destinations in the World.
October 30, 2020
Good point, MinC, but try another thought experiment. Just imagine the Tory Party in government actually lived up to the promise it made at the last election and brought in an Australia-style system for migration. Then those people with no right to be here would not be in the UK in the first place.
Hard to imagine, I know.
October 30, 2020
Why do they want to leave France and your civilised EU ?
We don’t see dinghies going the other way.
October 30, 2020
Maybe they have family or friends here? Perhaps they speak English but not French. Maybe they come from a former British colony which was stuffed up by us when we left.
They certainly do not come for the warm weather or the warm welcome from the natives – as this thread spectacularly demonstrates.
October 30, 2020
First safe haven.
Prior to their return to their home country as soon as it it safe to do so.
That was the original intention of the UN’s refugee and asylum treaty.
October 30, 2020
Why are their family and friends here? Why did they not settle in the wonderful EU?
October 30, 2020
I agree. We should be flattered so many want to come here rather than stay in the EU. Itās a trickle compared to the hundreds of thousands coming in under New Labour when Jack Straw amended the previous Tory governmentās asylum rules only to then massage the figures by giving the incomers work permits. This is a government lacking any real vision so there probably wonāt be any material change to immigration rules.
October 30, 2020
Yes being treated like a fool by and illiterate is very flattering.
October 30, 2020
Who, apart from you and Andy want to be in France instead anyway?
There are no boats going the other way or demand for it. There are hundreds of thousands here illegally who are not paying traffickers to get them out, unlike those wanting to leave the wonderful EU. ‘Thought experiment’ – wasting time on hypothetical nonsense that does not exist. Why not try to think of a solution instead of airy fairy nonsense.
October 30, 2020
Asylum applications 2019:
EU Total – 423,000
France – 87,100
UK – 32,000
So 7.5% of first time EU asylum applications are made here. Or, put another way, 92.5% arenāt.
Like most Faragists you confuse asylum seekers with illegal immigrants and economic migrants. And we all know why.
October 30, 2020
Your figures are irrelevant.
If the EU wants to let in hundreds of thousands every year then fine.
Nothing to do with us.
After we leave the EU they can let in millions every year they it wants to.
October 30, 2020
No I don’t. All the dinghy people are illegals or they would use their money to buy a ticket on a conventional transport and claim asylum. They don’t because they don’t have a case. You need to look back further than 2019. After the eastern countries joined the EU we took millions of EU ‘refugees’ who simply wanted to get out of the EU at the rate of 300,000 per year. This has made us ‘full up’ and we cannot cope. Will you tell the people on a housing waiting list for years that they don’t qualify because we are taking in illegal migrants? All very well for you on your hundred grand a year and a French Chateau. How many have you put up there since you are so wonderful? We all know why you don’t. You are like the barbers cat, full of wind and p…
October 30, 2020
Of course ,legal migration should be allowed back to the EU.
Other returning migration back to the EU from the UK? I would think its a very small problem presently. It seems fair to allow a return journey, they already used outward leg.
However i expect the EU has much larger problems on its Southern borders and its failure to prevent illegal immigration through its area of competence.
October 30, 2020
John will not post the whole comment, but google the Mail today, see what the Former Malaysian PM is quoted as saying. Itās really important!
October 30, 2020
Duly read.
Wow! Very scary.
Not much international sympathy for the beheaded!
Have you seen Lord Sumptionās vid āGovernment by decree..COVID 19 and the Constitutionā?
Puts govt in VERY bad light.
October 30, 2020
Why would British people be exempt? I think the ago that and JR should address this. They have placed us in dreadful danger. The next war – machetes on every street.
October 30, 2020
I think it has been long planned.
And they know exactly what they are doing.
Why would any govt. do what they have done if their aim were not…division, hatred and violence?
October 30, 2020
Because they intend to take the country from us.
October 30, 2020
Don’t forget the duplicity of the perfidious French, who, if truth be told, have no love of the British. It all dates back to their capitulation in WWII, and that self-important odd-ball de Gaulle, who resented the British.We are already giving them a substantial amount of money to strength their northern coast line. They claim that this is inadequate, as they have such a long length of coast to patrol, but 95% of the transits are from the Calais region. It’s just an excuse to bleed more and more money from the UK. I don’t believe that they really have any interest in stopping this illegal method of entry into the UK.
October 30, 2020
The issue is that we never send them back
October 30, 2020
It needs realism about mental health for those coming from Muslim countries and cultures. There is little to no Psychiatry even in wealthy Muslim countries and no understanding of it in Muslim culture currently. Young males particularly BAME young males do not seek out mental health services and thatās before covid made it especially difficult to get.
Migrants come with health issues .
Trauma is inter generational and it could be trauma suffered by women who then become Mothers and pass it on. It could be trauma which is normalised in some countries but is still a trauma .
There is no reason for beheading people in church. Itās probably a voice in his head telling him to do it.
October 30, 2020
Who put the voice into their heads. Perhaps while they are very young and immature. Perhaps in some religious school or at religious indoctrination services or from parents who were perhaps indoctrinated themselves.
Should such indoctrination be encouraged as it often is? Or should it perhaps be considered child abuse? Should such believes be protected by law?
October 30, 2020
The Offshore Patrol Vessels should not help them to get here. They should escort them back to Fance. Government policy needs to be amended. Currently it stinks.
October 30, 2020
Are you for real?
October 30, 2020
We are not the asylum for the world’s mental health sufferers.
October 30, 2020
We are actually. Fantastic report commissioned by Enoch Powell in the ā60ās. Blood curdling stuff. We have known it all since then.
October 30, 2020
Exactly they come here illegally only because the UK system clearly encourages them to do so. It is what I would do in their position I do not blame them. Few are ever returned and many understand this perfectly well. Meanwhile similar people who apply legally have far less chance of being accepted. The blame for the deaths clearly lies with the system that the left & the many lefty lawyers, politicians, charities and judges support, have put in place and retain.
October 30, 2020
Being compassionate does not make you a āleftyā.
October 30, 2020
It isnāt compassion though,
It is politics!
None as cruel as the Left when it suits.
October 30, 2020
compassionate lawyers? – funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks!
October 30, 2020
In this case compassion unfortunately makes the problem worse not better and increases the risk of deaths.
October 30, 2020
But no compassion for the native British LL.
October 30, 2020
Being stupid does not make you compassionate.
October 30, 2020
Your own PM and Home Secretary have both instructed the RN and RNLI to pick up illegal entries from the sea. This act alone encourages further attempts if they know our navy will provide them with such assistance.
For adults to try and cross this channel of water with children is utterly beyond belief. These migrants are leaving France. Hardly Somalia.
Let’s be honest here. Labour celebrate mass immigration primarily because those who come here end up voting Labour en masse, en bloc. Oh, and their physical presence gives them a reason to call for oppressive laws against the indigenous population for invented crimes like Hate, unconscious bias, racial bigotry and ‘institutional racism’. And then they can take control of various State bodies under the guise of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’. All Marxist strategies of divide and conquer
While your useless, hopeless pathetic party reject mass immigration but won’t do anything about it simply because you’re petrified of having the fascist left slander you with the political weapon namely the race card, bigot and nasty.
So, we the people and the taxpayer must pick up the cost of Labour’s plan to change the fundamental nature of the UK for party political gain and also absorb the cost of your party’s abdication of its responsibilities and your decision to capitulate to all the left’s demands
I bet the political tool that is diversity, inclusion and tolerance aren’t practised in India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Oman, Botswana, Morocco etc etc.
Marxists are using mass immigration as a political weapon to divide and take and control using the oppressed-oppressor narrative and your party’s fear over race (The Tories Achilles Heel) has aided and abetted them. Indeed your fear of this entire issue will destroy this nation as we now know it
As we can see it Scotland today. The State can now tell people what they can and cannot say in their own homes and it’s all thanks to importing people who look different from the indigenous population. No wonder politicians adore mass immigration. A reason to crush freedom of expression and an embedded bloc vote that keeps them in power for generations
I feel sick when I stand back and see what politicians have deliberately done to the UK not out of concern for people but for political gain
October 30, 2020
I think you may have nailed it.
October 30, 2020
+1
Johnson has already abandoned his manifesto. He always advocated for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Another incentive.
Dom, It is not unbelievable or mad to travel when you know the French navy will escort you from he shore to half way and the UK navy or Border Force collect you from them! You will then be collected by coat and taken to a four star hotel at a cost of Ā£4 billion to the UK taxpayer. One of which is in Patel’s constituency!
When JR speciously says tragic he knows his govt is providing all incentives for these tragedies to happen.
October 30, 2020
Not at all helped by people like Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. Why on earth did Cameron appoint her to be Chairman of the Conservative party? And then elevate her to the Lords so she can endlessly accuse the party of Islamaphobia and accuse Matt Hancock of ‘whitesplaining’ – whatever that might be.
Whitemansplaining too which, I assume, must be even worse still.
October 30, 2020
And for Andy. Oldwhitemansplaining worst of all.
October 30, 2020
Indeed. Wisdom often comes with age – so the old are likely to take to oppositve view to Andy on most things.
October 30, 2020
Itās called āStockholm syndromeā, but of course Johnsonās grandfather could recite the Koran. Nuff sed.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1
I too feel sick and ill and soooooooooooo bloody fed up.
And I can not understand, and never have why politicians do not feel the same.
Things are so bad now that they too must be affected surely?
Do they think they really will be spaceshipped up to a habitable Mars or something?
October 30, 2020
I read recently that The Law Society are looking at hate crime laws in England, and what they are considering looked very much like the one in Scotland!
October 30, 2020
So you are happy that women and children drown in the Channel. What a charmer.
October 30, 2020
No he is not and well you know it! People like you are part of the problem. Charmer, you are NOT!
October 30, 2020
Interesting that the Labour party which you have identified as encouraging this for its own purposes has the least diverse leadership of all parties bar the Lib Dems and Greens.
They are happy to flood the state bodies with diverse personnel but hold onto power at the top for the whites to protect their own positions.
And then they walked on two legs.
October 30, 2020
Don’t be so sure that the Conservative party (or at least some of it) reject mass immigration. Destroying the power of working people by breaking up their communities and undercutting them is a great way of rolling back history and putting them back in their box.
October 30, 2020
DOM
Hard to argue against that. Truth hurts.
October 30, 2020
Very well put, but we do need steps to almost close the door, or put another way to reverse the malicious acts of intellectually corrupt politicians.
October 30, 2020
Well said Dom.
October 30, 2020
Well said… and the problems which have come from that of depressed wages of people on low incomes, high cost of living because of the shortage of homes, and the devastation of our countryside as the Government concrets over England to cope with their overpopulation policy.
October 30, 2020
+1 +1
Immigration promised to the tens of thousands ā it would appear to be nothing of the sort for decades. Another broken promise. With looming unemployment what cost immigration. We do not need the invasion particularly of an alien culture some with their own agenda.
October 30, 2020
Correct
Immigration is a hot potato like brexit, the people want immigration stopped, theyāve voted in the last 10 years to stop it ā once again, like brexit, itās the politicians that have let us down
October 30, 2020
a long history of it:-
essential services, water, electricity, transport cars/coaches/trains, nuclear power, military vehicles, aircraft….
Successive governments let us be exploited by anybody.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1 DOM, nail on head!
October 30, 2020
The best way to reduce economic migrants (and refugees) is to improve the economies in the less developed economies. This is best done by enabling entrepreneurs to create value-adding jobs, not by stealing their raw materials at depressed prices
The EUās tariffs go exactly against entrepreneurialism in LDCs.
As I said yesterday:
EU tariffs are not zero for trade with the worldās poorest countries.
They have a reduced rate for raw materials only. So for raw cocoa beans the rate is reduced from the already low 4%. But for finished chocolates the tariff remains at 40%. This is to protect the fat chocolatiers in Belgium and Germany.
And then because the LDCs canāt move up the value-added chain, the EU offers them morsels of Aid, which go largely to the corrupt politicians, and come with unwanted demands to advance the EUās social engineering agenda.
Genuinely low tariffs for finished goods would enable entrepreneurs to flourish creating jobs and opportunities galore for the LDCs without government interference.
October 30, 2020
While I agree that the First World should be helping to improve the domestic economies of the Third, surely what is also a VERY significant factor in migration is the violence of both Government regimes and rebels in so many countries across the world?
Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Bolivia……..etcetera ad infinitum.
October 30, 2020
And how are we, an insignificant little country, supposed to improve life in their home countries? We canāt even improve life for many people in this country.
October 30, 2020
improving the economies of the ‘poorest countries’.. now whose responsibility is that?
You open a can of worms; should they not be able to manage themselves? Look what China has/is doing with Belt and Road. The politicians are getting richer and the countries are loading up on debt. Perhaps a non-political civil service implemented by an outside force…
October 30, 2020
Twaddle , it was our markets which put a value on commodities that previously had no value, we stole nothing. As colonial authorities we introduced cash crops , like cocoa , rubber and tea, we even set up marketing boards , like the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board to give them leverage to collectively market their produce.
There is no shortage of entrepreneurs in Africa, for if you stop at any traffic lights your car will get surrounded by hawkers trying to flog you something.
The state of hygiene in Africa would make it unlikely people in Europe would trust finnish food products from there, with chocolate you have the additional problem of fat blooms as the cocoa fats leak out in higher temps , then resolidify as white fat blooms as the temp drops. As to tariffs , the cost difference between Africa and Europe make them pretty irrelevant.
The reason Africa is impoverished is because they elected venal left wing regimes , like Nkrumah in Ghana , who took a country that had the same per capita income as South Korea , and managed to destroy the country within 10 years, even having his coronies using the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board to rob Cocoa farmers of the money from their crops.
It is not our business to tell them what governments to elect, if we did we would be accused of being colonial , white supremacists etc. We may though be extending their problems by our Aid programmes, and through Asylum and immigration, which gives them false hopes that we will bail them out of their problems, and offer them a bolt hole to flee to if things go wrong. May be things would improve a lot more quickly if we were less bleeding heart and more hard hearted.
October 30, 2020
I quite agree.
October 30, 2020
It would also help if the US/NATO did not have a deliberate strategy of destroying countries they do not like.They are so brazen they even provide us with lists of their targets.
For those of you who insist NATO is a defensive alliance,get real!!It is and has always been an instrument of globalism,like the IMF ,World Bank,etc
October 30, 2020
Weāve been developing these countries for 50+ years ā Iāll always remember a delegation from South Africa telling the UN to stop giving it Aid ā it stops their own internal and organic growth
We ignored them
October 30, 2020
+1 Mugabe said he would rather starve than be fed by a white farmer (who was after all his servant, working to feed him!).
October 30, 2020
EXACTLY !!!
October 30, 2020
What do you think the immense effort, transfer of wealth and personnel to the Commonwealth was all about? We did that for centuries, and the infrastructure we have them was trashed. You want us to just go and do it all again forever? You go next time, Iāll stay here, safe in a Northumberland.
October 30, 2020
I see that Oxford is now being locked down too. I had assumed that students (most of whom could very easily have worked from home) were being sent back to university so as to get a free Covid vaccine from catching Covid. This to get the population closer to herd immunity. So why the lockdown is the policy that they should catch it or not? What is the governments plan. All the figure now suggest most areas are rather close to herd immunity.
From my daughters experience at Uni someone needs to tell track and trace that when six people in a flat all test positive for Covid you do not need to call all of them five or six times each for long 40 minute calls! No wonder many choose not to answer the pointless calls, texts etc.
October 30, 2020
Yes it is clear that this virus will seep through the population. We should be just using Tier 1 2 or 3 as high or low risk areas, where people make their own choice whether they venture out and about or not. Students will indeed venture out and 85 year olds with co-morbidities wouldn’t, if they had the salient facts about risk level to hand.
October 30, 2020
Lifelogic
Like many others I see from the photographs on most of the front pages of the news media today, that Mr Corbyn does not seem to know how to wear a mask or face covering properly (nose completely exposed)
A usual example of, do what I say, not as I do, and a sad example of an out of touch politician
October 30, 2020
I see that Starmer was driving a large SUV in his recent crash with the cyclist. But Labour party comes out with even more green claptrap and the war of plant food than Boris and his ministers does. Another “do as I say not as I do” person.
October 30, 2020
+1 and drives off leaving a cyclist injured on the ground!
October 30, 2020
I think Mr. Corbyn was photographed outside. Masks are not yet mandatory outdoors.
In fact, it would have been better if he hadn’t put his mask on at all, because he’s going to have to haul the soggy thing over his nose, when he goes into a shop for example. (Hope sanitiser is to hand.)
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Dear Lifelogic–“All the figure[s] now suggest”?? The articles I have read in last day or two said something like “We are miles away from herd immunity”
October 30, 2020
Not so. If you look at the figure in areas like London, New York, Manchester, they suggest they getting close to herd immunity. New tested positive cases not rising significantly now and rising more slowly every week. See lockdownsceptics.org for some good links to more honest and impartial information. Deaths overall are only at about the 5 year average. Lots of school children and university students all getting a free vaccine. This process actually protects the higher risk people in the long term.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
The experts were saying the other day that such immunity only lasts a short while so herd immunity to all intents and purposes does not exist. If you are right, we should all be back to normal in a few months. We’ll see, but I think we are stuck with this thing for years.
October 30, 2020
I reckon that the reduced excess deaths from other diseases, shown on the ONS charts with average deaths as usual, are being classed as covid once they are in hospital after testing and finding small contamination which shows up as positive. It’s yet another huge cockup.
October 31, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
That’s because they are telling porkies. I was taught way back in O level biology that antibodies are created and once the threat had been dealt with they fade away but the body remembers not only what the invader was but also is able to respond to a similar invader. Corona virus are common and the majority of us have been exposed in our lifetime, it is only those whose immune response is suppressed due to age, poor health that are at threat, that has always been the way. Ergo as many eminent immunologists have said there is a good probability that 30% of the population will have immunity from the get go. It is important to understand that immunity does not mean you will not catch something again but the severity will be less to non existent depending upon the individual. So those who have actually been infected will be immune despite the fear mongering. We are nearer herd immunity than not.
October 30, 2020
Exactly, Cornishstu.
āāThis very large study has shown that the proportion of people with detectable antibodies is falling over time. But we donāt yet know whether this will leave these people at risk of reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19.ā
Prof Helen Ward
study author, Imperial College Londonā
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/207333/coronavirus-antibody-prevalence-falling-england-react/
How interesting; did some of us not get the impression the other day from the BBC and others that we should all worry that reinfection was a distinct and widespread possibility? And yet we have, I believe, so date, 5 properly documented cases of reinfection throughout the world subsequent to tens of millions of infections, and the lead author of the imperial College London REACT study saying she ādoesn’t yet know whether this will leave these people at risk of reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19ā.
When does the precautionary principle become unprincipled?
October 30, 2020
A teacher friend is, and all her colleagues are wishing for the call from T&T so they can get a month off work (on full pay)
October 30, 2020
Paid to support govt policy!
October 30, 2020
My tenant, a hairdresser, has had to close today because 1 of her employees tested positive. So she loses 2 weeks (reduced) income, gets no support because she is not in āhospitalityā yet still has 2 young boys to feed!
October 31, 2020
My tenant, a hairdresser, has had to close today because 1 of her employees tested positive.
….
why did her employee want to get tested?
October 30, 2020
Perhaps the most damning figures for the rather appalling NHS:- Of the circa 70,000 excess deaths (that the UK has had since the first Covid deaths started) only about 10,000 excess deaths were in hospital. 60,000 of the excess died at home or in care homes. Most with little medical intervention or even any palliative care. The one person I know who has died of it caught it in hospital following a minor steoke, was then (appallingly negligently) sent untested to a care home, then home then back to hospital, where he was finally tested and died the next day of it. Doubtless he was not treated much as they seem to have had an over 80 forget it mate policy.
Protect the NHS die at home without even palliative care mate!
October 30, 2020
Protect the NHS jobs – die at home.
October 30, 2020
Yes a sad game of musical chairs between hospitals and care homes. If we treated illegal migrants like that the do-gooders would be screaming and wailing. It;s our own people so what the hell.
October 30, 2020
To link your comment to the article..one word.
Replacement.
October 30, 2020
Lifelogic, we are at the end of civilization.
October 31, 2020
We are certainly living through the Fall of Britain. We need to exert ourselves to turn it around. Itās going to be cruel.
October 30, 2020
“Protect the NHS die at home without even palliative care mate!” – a good summary of what is expected of us.
There are shown-to-work treatments available although efficacy is a function of early application. It is criminally negligent of the NHS not to offer these.
October 30, 2020
For a discussion of shown-to-work treatments available and the questionable approach of health authorities, a recent Youtube video by Peak Prosperity’s Chris Martenson titled “THE UGLY TRUTH: Your health isn’t their priority” is instructive – view from 20.32 if short on viewing time.
(Martenson has a Ph.D in pathology but makes his living giving financial advice and so preserving his own credibility is important to him. He presents his findings reliant upon proper scientific papers and research.
I took notice of him last January when I knew substantially nothing about viruses and pandemic control and by February alas I seemed to know a great deal more than the NHS and Government about how Covid-19 should be addressed.)
October 30, 2020
As surely was dumping the infected or probably infected into ill equipped care homes tested and untested.
October 30, 2020
The people smugglers are acting with the tacit approval of both UK and French governments and are assisted by the border forces of both countries. To express shock or even mild surprise when people die because of that is hypocrisy at an epic level. Governments have no difficulty locking up a nation and breaking their own laws whenever it suits them, if they are then unable to stop dinghys crossing the most watched waterway in the world in plain sight then, well, let’s just say it is unbelievable.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Harry,
Pithy and precise, thank you.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+1 the Home Secretary is surely a āpeople smugglerā when she sends state employees to bring illegal aliens ashore?
October 30, 2020
defo +1
October 30, 2020
In days of yore, investigative journalists would have posed as migrants and written up an expose of the smugglers.
Nowadays that is off message, its more important to criticise the government for being inhospitable to our ‘guests’.
October 30, 2020
Yeah, the Journos are not made of the right stuff any more. How relevant is the press if it fails to do the job it claims essential when at times threatened.
October 30, 2020
Very few investigative journalists around now and journalists in general seem very poorly trained. Most seem to be desk jockeys gleaning their information from news wires and of course they toe the line of their employers.
October 30, 2020
It would be cost effective for France itself to subsidise the smugglers if migrants can’t afford their fees. I wonder…..
October 30, 2020
now thats interesting
October 30, 2020
Spending on tackling illegal immigration from France.
1. The government has paid Ā£114 million to the French government in order to stop illegal immigration originating from that country since 2015 (Parliamentary Answer, 16 June 2020) – see par. 4 below.
2. Despite this, illegal and overt Channel crossings in small boats are at a new high, with a record 145 people coming during one 24-hour period on VE Day (8 May), and thousands having come via this unauthorised route since the start of 2020 (visit our ātracking stationā for regular updates).
3. Hundreds of millions of pounds were also spent by the UK on border security in France between 2010 and 2015 (see par.11 below for a 2017 FOI response).
4. In a 16 June 2020 Parliamentary Answer, the government revealed:
āThe UK and France maintain a longstanding relationship on tackling illegal migration at the shared border; since 2015 the UK has committed several funding packages to supporting this work.
In 2015, both countries signed a Joint Declaration which committed Ā£10 million towards security reviews of the juxtaposed controls and to moving migrants nto reception centres across France.
This was followed by payments in 2016 (Ā£17 million) and 2017 (Ā£36 million) to further strengthen the border and maintain the operation of the juxtaposed controls.
In January 2018 both countries signed the Sandhurst Treaty. The UK made a commitment of ā¬50 million (Ā£45.5m) to implement the terms of the Treaty, which adopted a āwhole of route approachā to tackling illegal migration.
This was followed in 2019 by the signature of the Joint Action Plan on Combatting Illegal Migration Involving Small Boats. Under paragraph 11 of this plan, the UK committed ā¬3.6m (approximately Ā£3.25m).
This was supplemented with a further ā¬2.5m (Ā£2.25m) in the 2019/2020 Financial Year
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2020-06-02/HL5038/
Total spent = Ā£114 million
October 30, 2020
I think that horse has bolted a long time ago.
The fact is that once these illegals are in a boat in the Channel they know that they will not be sent back and have “made it” to the promised land.
The only way it stops is if they know that if they enter illegally they will be returned without appeal.
That is not going to happen. There is no will and the fears of being tagged a racist will mean heads are kept below the parapet.
Soon we will have more incidents as happened in France yesterday and the handwringing and lighting of candles will start all over again.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Agreed. Our host can expect a reply full of meaningless platitudes whilst no action will be taken to reverse the increasing flow – we don’t even know the true extent of illegal immigration. We have been let down yet again by Dictator Johnson’s government.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Indeed – there is just no political will – just hot air – but they do nothing. Though I see that the migrants accommodated in a hotel in Priti Patel’s constituency got moved on to someone else’s fairly quickly. So they can act sometimes it seems if it suits them.
October 30, 2020
ššāheads kept below the parapetā – I wonder if they will keep their heads at all? Perhaps we will become accustomed to much more beheading and no mind.
October 30, 2020
JR’s comment -‘The last thing we want to do is to send out a message that attempting illegal entry is likely to work ..’ Ha, ha – the message that has been sent out for decades is ‘yes it is 99.9% sure for an illegal immigrant to stay in the UK.’
October 30, 2020
Absolutely correct, Otto.
October 30, 2020
“There is no will and the fears of being tagged a racist will mean heads are kept below the parapet.”
Or is it globalist policy?
October 30, 2020
Yeah – as soon as they set foot on that stolen boat they know that within the next 24hrs they’re in a 4 star hotel in the UK
October 30, 2020
‘Labour are not humanitarian’
October 30, 2020
The simple solutions are the best.
Make it known (and carry out) that no one entering the country illegally will be considered for asylum.
Put these arrivals in detention centres with basic rations and remove them from the country with haste. Make it known to legal claimants that their claims are being held up due to the administration of these illegals.
Stigmatise and inconvenience these arrivals and international law be damned. International asylum law has encouraged these illegals (in many places) so needs to be ripped up. What sanction can happen to the UK that is worse than what is happening?
These people are criminals and a criminal mentality does this country no good. They will revert to their criminal ways when things do not go well for them in the future. We have enough problems with our own problem families without importing more.
October 30, 2020
The Royal Navy and Special Forces should not have to deal with the Nave Andromeda oil tanker and other potential “Nutcase incidents” ! This is beyond parody in 2020.
October 30, 2020
The ship was in British waters, what other body should have dealt with the crisis?
October 30, 2020
We should have told them to sail on or got our special forces to sail it back to Africa
October 30, 2020
Funny that?
October 30, 2020
Their job was then to remove the ship from British waters.
October 31, 2020
The French were asked to take the stowaways, in accordance with normal international law, as they were discovered before the vessel put in to Montoire de Bretagne. They refused to do so.
October 30, 2020
I fail to understand why we donāt have an identity card with biometric validation and absolutely draconian fines for anyone (business person or private individual) who employs someone without checking their card.
Oh, correct that. They might give the job to a firm like the ones doing track and trace or running prisons.
October 30, 2020
In politically correct fashion, all of your concern is for the migrants and none for the indigenous people of this country. We have tried for many years to use our votes to prevent our country from being given away, and some of us are old enough to remember the formal ‘all-party consensus’ intended to silence our voice altogether. Why do we need a legal route for economic migrants when we neither want nor need them? We cannot house and feed the entire world. Other posters have described the real measures we need to provide a ‘bad result’ for those who arrive here illegally. And yes, we should offer haven to a limited number of GENUINE refugees as David Cameron originally intended.
October 30, 2020
That was not Cameronās intension. He enacted same-sex marriage ābecause he believed in marriageā. State the obvious enact the reverse.
October 30, 2020
The traffickers are only one side of the coin, and focusing on them misses the cardinal point. People are willingly taking boats and pay for them. They are not “forced”by traffickers – they pay traffickers.
Sanctions really need to be applied to the perpetrators themselves in two ways:
1 put them in a worse position than if they hadn’t tried in enter illegally the first place
2 if they arrive here, life has to be more difficult for them than the land of milk and honey they have been promised and see on TV. Four star hotels and free meals shouldn’t be an option. Clearly they want to come here because we are far “nicer” than any other country on their path, and that has to change if you want to change the numbers.
October 30, 2020
This will never change while the UK is seen as a soft touch.
October 30, 2020
A complete waste of your time and our money Sir John, do you do this merely to placate the mouth-foamers in your party?
Pulleeese, going the official route, they would die of old age. Think how well Windrush is being handled. any capable entrepreneurial person would bypass that dishonest waste of time.
A few moments thought will make clear that there is no simple answer. We are a civilised English speaking nation and are attractive all the time we remain civilised and use English. The logical French have no interest is stopping them and machine gunning them mid Channel is not really on. Face up to reality and do something useful.
Perhaps you could propose a one-in-one-out policy. We negotiate some enclave for our useless in say, the middle of the Sahara desert. Invite in educated young and hard working migrants and ship out our useless. Take a look around the HoL and HoC Sir John, you could make a good start there. Then there is the Home Office and all those SPADs, plenty of candidates there before we start to get down our social and salary scale. Budget for about two million to be shipped out, provided we have any left after this Covid.
October 30, 2020
The message should be that if you are accepted as a refugee or economic migrant you will be permitted to travel to the UK by normal means of transport. I assume that there is already a criteria for being considered a refugee. The success or failure of would be economic migrants should be dependent on requirement by the UK. It should be made absolutely clear that anyone arriving in the UK by illegal means will be returned whence they came, without recourse to our avaricious legal system.
We have embassies in Rome, Paris and further afield where application can be made and vetting take place to verify the legitimacy of the applicant. Specially trained staff from the Home Office will be needed in our relevant embassies. As a short term measure set up a vetting office in Calais where potential migrants can apply. Make it absolutely clear to all in the migrant jump off camps in northern France that anyone arriving illegally in the UK will be returned to France or their country of origin. Such new situation will pertain from January 1st 2021. Consequently Parliament needs to pass legislation to the above effect without further delay, and rescind much legislation that our legal profession has been feeding on.
October 30, 2020
Perhaps the Home Secretary is struggling to get things right. Is it possible to be specific on the suggestions?
“the courts need a new instruction from an Act of Parliament to help ensure there is no incitement to try the dangerous sea route or back of the lorry method with smugglers.”
What would/could this actually say, how specific can it be?
‘The message has to go out that it is possible to become a refugee”
Through what route can people safely do this? How is the message sent?
“or economic migrant legally and safely”
Why, how many, for how long, on what conditions?
October 30, 2020
It is not illegal to cross the Channel. There is nothing unlawful in what these people are attempting. You should know this.
October 30, 2020
Correct ā it is perfectly legal to sail and cruise on international high seas, but its illegal to enter territorial waters or land without the correct visa, passport, shipping manifest, funds for landing fees, and local license etc etc
Likewise you can fly an aeroplane in international airspace but its illegal to enter territorial airspace or landā¦..you get my point your argument is meaningless
You try landing at Cherbourg without the mooring fee in hand, passport and manifest ā youād be towed out of Cherbourg within the hour at gunpoint
October 30, 2020
It is illegal – S3(1)a of 1971 Immigration Act to try and enter the UK without valid documents/visa no matter what the purpose of your entry to the UK.
Zorro
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Illegal entry should have been tackled years ago, but all we have ever heard are the screams of “racist”. As a result, Britain has meekly bowed to accepting all and sundry, and even the Prime Minister has shown keenness to have “illegal amnesties”, when he should have been getting rid of them and/or stopping them in the first place. Charities squawking for “legal routes for migrants” seem to be totally unaware that such routes already exist.
Taking action is fine but government isn’t the slightest bit interested in either listening or acting on any complaints. You need to get to work on your fellow MPs and convince them that things have to change.
October 30, 2020
Concur – its the MPs fear of the media again – just wish they had the same fear of the voters
October 30, 2020
You are accusing innocent people of committing an illegal act. it is perfectly legal to cross the Channel via unauthorised routes to claim asylum.
October 30, 2020
Asylum is for special circumstances – not would-be economic migrants.
To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there.
If youāre stateless, your own country is the country you usually live in.
This persecution must be because of:
your race
your religion
your nationality
your political opinion
anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation
You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country.
Your claim might not be considered if you:
are from an EU country
have a connection with another country you can claim asylum in, for example if youāve claimed asylum in an EU country before arriving in the UK
October 30, 2020
Stop on
October 30, 2020
spot on
October 30, 2020
They are not asylum-seekers. France is not a dangerous country from which they need to seek asylum. Or it is not dangerous for them, anyway.
October 30, 2020
Barbara they are asylum seekers, and they are not legally obliged to claim ssylum in the first safe country. So what they are doing is legal whether you like it or not.
October 30, 2020
I’ll say it again – first save country
October 30, 2020
They are legally obliged to claim asylum in the first safe country, else they forego the definition of asylum and become economic migrants.
October 30, 2020
Dear Home Secretary,
Please make a stand for liberty.
Explain to the P.M. and Health Secretary that England needs to swap to largely voluntary guidance w.r.t. Covid19. Explain to the Chancellor that he should only agree to direct resources at health capacity, protection of vulnerable, and micro interventions on R.
Home Secretary, please fight for democracy.
October 30, 2020
It isnāt illegal to seek asylum. Travelling in a dinghy to seek asylum is not illegal. Nor is travelling in the back of a lorry to seek it. Seeking asylum is not illegal – however you choose to do it.
So why do people risk their lives on dinghies and in the backs of lorries to seek asylum here? Because the Tories have closed off all the other routes people can take. They donāt let people come here by plane or by ferry because they have stops in place to stop potential asylum seekers getting on in the first place.
So, be in no doubt, the Kurdish family that died in the Channel this week – including their three children – are victims of the policies of this government and this Home Secretary as much as they are the victims of people smugglers. It is this government which put in place such appalling and cruel policies in place. And they have such cruel policies in place to try to appease the frothing, angry, xenophobic Faragists who support them.
We see it on here. People genuinely thinking that families risk their lives in dinghies to come here to live on benefits. Ludicrous. A much better policy would be to educate the xenophobes and to help the asylum seekers instead.
Oh – and sack the Clandestine Channel Threat Commander. What a ridiculous 1930s German style job title. Families in dinghies are not a threat.
October 30, 2020
It is illegal.
There is a process to follow.
They are being exploited by criminals.
Apply like others do.
October 30, 2020
Bigot. You have the facts but refuse to accept them. Closed mind.
October 30, 2020
When the Yellowstone Caldera erupts the last testimony of humanity will be a bitter rant from Andy on this site blaming Brexit-voting pensioners for the mass extinction.
October 30, 2020
We know our hands are tied at present by EU rules and because we are not completely free until 1st January it would be helpful to know what changes to the law we have made and what changes we can make in 2 months time.
Can you Sir John, or someone else, direct me to a web site where this information should be?
October 30, 2020
Incorrect – from the 1st Jan we’ll have the conditions of the EU deal to tie our hands – then no one is going back to France
October 30, 2020
This is all a money making merry go around for British lawyers. Your party could sort this out if you had the will to. May signed up without her membership and supporters behind her to a pact with the UN that no-one agreed to and bound us and she still sits in the house with her pious shaking head. Your government have failed to protect our Country. The End.
Ps no point riling us up about this John, this is out of our hands.
October 30, 2020
Nobody needs to find anyone in France.
They just need to rediscover borders and fill in the Channel Tunnel.
Wouldnāt even dream of that though would they?
āEverything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.ā
ā mao tse-tung
And we all know how Boris just loves a bit of chaos theory! Nixonesque āmadman theory ā which appears to have fooled no one!
And actually…how IS he going to put this country back together again?
October 30, 2020
āContinual change to create confusionā
(Frankfurt School recommendation no 2).
October 30, 2020
Yes..and they are certainly doing that!!
October 30, 2020
+1
October 31, 2020
Ie Revolution
October 30, 2020
What of the fortune spent by businesses on COVID compliance?
And now more business destroying ālockdownsā.
Stupidly named Furlough(!!) is stopping.
Murder by slow strangulation!
October 30, 2020
No non-British person who enters or tries to enter our country illegally should be allowed to stay here unless we are the first safe country of entry for a genuine refugee. No economic migrants who have not applied and been accepted for legitimate entry before coming here. No exceptions.
October 30, 2020
Globalist Boris and Priti Useless encourage illegals. I wonder how many of the terrorists currently in France and being chased by the French police will get on a boat and be helped to get to England by our government.
If either of them cared about us they would have all boats stopped, and the occupants taken back to their departure points. These will be known since they are tracked. But the whole government is too cowardly and complicit in the illegal trade, and of course afraid of France and their own shadows.
Writing bland letters – note the use of ‘should not accept’ instead of such as ‘must not accept’ for example to the Home Secretary will not encourage or achieve a change in policy. Is it a real letter anyway?
October 30, 2020
They are themselves immigrants.
October 30, 2020
More hand wringing . Letās have a grown up debate, letās discuss the problems of illegals, letās talk about it, letās look at the issues, letās highlight this and that, letās think about possible solutions, letās have Border Farce provide a free ferry service, letās put people entering the country illegally into hotels and tuck them into bed each evening, etc etc.
Why do politicians not get off their backsides and take action, proper full blown action, you know, actually do something rather than talk about it.
October 30, 2020
Quite right, Arthur, but rather than have a grown up debate I would rather this Government took action. All we hear are empty words and platitudes to shut us up. The Tories have had a decade to sort out immigration and quite frankly have done absolutely nothing. Never mind all the other issues that are ruining this country. And now to top it all they are overseeing/encouraging/instigating a totalitarian state. Quite frankly I sometimes wonder whether I am awake or living a nightmare.
October 30, 2020
Because action has not been taken to avoid this disaster, there will be much cruelty setting it right.
October 30, 2020
The fundamental driver of Tory policy is fear of the imagined, so even with an 80 majority they don’t have the confidence to challenge or change anything. Their problems are compounded by their own action/inaction.
At a GE, we’re required to annoint the overarching UK government of the day with the extraordinary powers they need to make changes for the good of the entire country. We then watch in amazement as they relinquish those precious powers, without our consent, to devolved assemblies, mayors, (EU), etc, whose ONLY interest is their own fiefdom and their own (UK rejected) mandates, yet these are the policies we’re required to pay for. Take back control? Please, don’t make me laugh.
October 30, 2020
No non-British person who enters or tries to enter our country illegally should be allowed to stay here unless we are the first safe country of entry for a genuine refugee. No economic or other migrants who have not applied and been accepted for legitimate entry before coming here. No exceptions. It would be humane to add to the last sentence the rider, ‘unless by order of a British judge’, but I do not for fear that it would be a loophole exploited to excess by human rights lawyers.
October 30, 2020
About a week ago an oil tanker was being hijacked in British coastal waters and the SBS sorted it out in 9 minutes. Great!
Today we are told they have been bailed. Who the hell put up the bail money? We the tax payers? I hope not.
We are also told that they are being held in custody by the Border Force so are we to assume they are now in a 3 star hotel, paid for by us, and from which they will slip away whilst on a shopping trip spending the pocket money we give them!!!!!
Hijacking is a serious crime and they should be locked up until their case comes to court and hopefully convicted. They should then be shipped back to Lagos to serve their sentences.
Investigation, we are being told, is under way but that should have been completed by now, as the Master of the tanker and other members of the crew should have made signed statements before the tanker was allowed to leave Southampton. The SBS will have completed all their reports, so what are we waiting for?
The tanker owners and the master have a lot to answer for as they knew they had stowaways on board a day or so out of Lagos. Why didn’t they turn back to Lagos?
They tried to land them in the Canary Islands but were refused entry. Then they stopped off St Nazaire and our lovely French friends told them to b—– off and then we have the episode of the Isle of Wight.
The tanker could have and should have returned to Lagos. But no, they headed towards the UK knowing that we, a bunch of’ stupid softies’, will look after them.
What a message to send round the world!!!!
October 30, 2020
The message has been sent – stowaway and wait until you’re in UK waters, then fake a hijack then wait….within 24hrs you’re in a 4 star hotel in UK
October 30, 2020
A lot of these people are landing first in Italy and other places like Greece and are then being nudged little by little up over the borders into France. The French know this and are turning a blind eye to the business knowing that the final destination for most is UK.
So what can we do to resist this illegal practice? firstly we need a robust coast guard defence in the English Channel- we need a converted passenger vessel to collect the would be migrants as they attempt to cross, pick them out of the sea, and after enough have been collected onboard sail the ship back to North Africa to some deserted region and offload them into temporary camps until they can make their way home- surely it’s not beyond the realms of imagination for government to conjure up some similar solution like this instead of bothering the rest of us with this daily never ending saga.
October 30, 2020
You’re making it complicated – When found at sea or on land, secure them on our border force vessels and return immediately to France – just drop them off
October 30, 2020
O/T. A friend who works in the NHS tells me the spike in deaths is due to including seasonal flu and pneumonia. Could you get the government to confirm this.
If it’s true it’s a national scandal.
October 30, 2020
Ian
I canāt remember where I heard it, but about a week ago someone said the NHS were now including flu and upper respiratory infections under the Covid banner! I thought Iād dreamt it…
October 31, 2020
The ONS
October 30, 2020
Why do so many ‘die’ to get to Britain? We do not realize what precious freedom we have enjoyed in this land for so long! It goes back to the Puritans, who in turn suffered for their adherence to that most precious gift, the Bible in our own tongue! Whether we realize it or not, it is from there that we’ve come to be the celebrated nation we were, and potentially, still are. Our Queen, in her long and gracious reign, has exemplified this benign common grace we have so long enjoyed: it’s a reflection of a Greater, heavenly Sovereignty.
However, this is only the starting point. Gracious tolerance is granted only in the hope that true grace – the grace of Christ – will eventually prevail. This is why we have traditionally given sanctuary to the poor and oppressed, whether from home or abroad. But wisdom must be applied, not simply sentiment, because sometimes, a malign subversion is at work. The initial comments to your letter, Sir John, well illustrate the problem: which is to preserve what is good in our culture: i.e. charitable tolerance, without allowing it to be overwhelmed by alien or totalitarian forces. To undertake this in a reasoned and humane way, the spiritual health of our own people must be encouraged.
Thankfully, we still have the Script. As a sample: Titus, 2:11-15: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.”
Hopefully, I’m I still free, in England to say this? This is the BLESSED HOPE for all mankind – and will prevail, whatever the opposition.
October 30, 2020
The disgusting and third world Calais camps have been and are a Gallic shrug to the problem. The French authorities should hold and process these migrants in habitable centres with three outcomes:
1. Apply for French domicile
2. Apply for UK domicile
3. Deport from France – the nationality of those without papers surely can be identified.
The EU, even Merkel, are waking up to the unrest coming.
Seven Nigerian “stowaways” released on bail – beam me up Scotty.
October 30, 2020
Involvement of investigative journalists: LBC did an excellent & extensive expose last year on the murky events across the channel and had a journalist & support team on the ground, all reported on through Nick Ferrari’s morning radio show on LBC. The findings were I understand then passed on to the powers that be. Similarly, there was a very good TV programme, only a couple of weeks back, with a journalist having been on the ground & undercover who again plainly exposed what is going on and with criminals located at this side literally operating as a business to facilitate illegal passage here which seemed like a very slick operation to me. Further, after the arrival of Nigerian nationals on the ship last Sunday, yet another cargo ship was reported by the BBC website yesterday to have arrived at Southampton Docks on Wednesday this week, with a number of stowaway Albanian nationals ( Albania on the EU’s future Accession list ) on board & now involving hospital services & children’s services being provided for two people and a number of others in custody. Will all these people be returned to Albania & Nigeria fairly soon ? Very unlikely based on precedent and likely we’ll never find out.
October 30, 2020
Of course if we hadn’t attacked Iraq Afghanistan Libya and other places and stirred it all up most of these illegals would still be at home
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
+2
October 31, 2020
So how do you explain those coming from further south – Somalia, Nigeria, or even Vietnam?
October 31, 2020
When did we attack Latvia Lithuania Somalia Nigeria Zimbabwe Ghana Zambia et al?
October 30, 2020
Off topic, Labourās Emily Thornberry (Q: is she to remain in the Labour Party, she was a strong supporter of and apologist for Jeremy Corbyn?) has challenged Liz Truss over the Japan trade deal. Ms Thornberry says it isnāt good news as incremental imports from Japan will be greater than incremental exports from the U.K. (Displaying the normal ignorant mercantilism of the left whenever they talk about trade at all). If this is what she thinks, why was Ms Thornberry ever in favour of EU membership and of remaining in the EUās customs union?
October 30, 2020
Brilliant analysis.
October 30, 2020
Citing people smugglers as the issue is to fail to understand the problem, or more likely it is a displacement activity, you have an idea of the problem but dare not go there.
People smugglers are there because of the pull factors Parliament has created in making us signatories to the UN refugee convention and the Human Rights Act , which means once here they will never get removed.
Are you prepared to do something about that?
October 30, 2020
John, give it up mate, your party fools no-one.
Everyone I know says Boarder Force is a government water service.
October 30, 2020
Until politicians sort out our legal system, you have no chance of stopping the pull factors responsible for this illegal trade. Only last week a judge ruled an illegal man who had committed murder and stabbed several people wouldnāt be deported because he might not get good enough treatment for his PTSD back in Sri Lanka. A couple of years ago a convicted drug dealer wasnāt deported to the USA because he might not be able to afford to buy his diabetic drugs. We hear countless stories of our legal profession being used to allow illegal people to stay in this country. Sort out the pull factors and this will stop the trade. Donāt expect France to assist in any way. Pulling out of the ECHR would also be a start but like everything with this Government it’s all talk and no action.
October 30, 2020
Make seeking or acquiring services of smugglers an offence also.
October 30, 2020
The responsibility for the illegal attempts to get to Britain by boat, train or truck, rests entirely with the French. They have consistently refused to make the necessary intervention to stop the people-trafficking trade. Today we read in one newspaper that they are unhappy about accepting a UK-crewed spotter plane flying in their airspace looking for activity on the beaches, even though we have already provide a 60mph drone for the same purpose.
Why are we even needing to offer the French a spotter plane and crew ? France has thousands of light aircraft and the cost cannot be an issue. The reason is that they can’t be bothered or don’t want to stop the trade. If they were serious, the first step would be to restrict the sale of large rubber boats and outboards. That would not be difficult as these are almost all bought new. The market for large, slow rubber boats is very small so it is pretty obvious what they are being bought for.
Macron is clearly not interested in cooperation with the UK, otherwise this trade would have been stopped years ago and we would have a Brexit deal by now.
October 30, 2020
I would like to tell you about a prophecy a 100-year-old blind lady told me years ago.
Foreigners coming to UK will be persecuted horrendously. The air will be bad in the rich countries and people will wear masks, they will try to flee to the poor countries where the air is good. This is Gods punishment.
October 30, 2020
but she got it totally wrong.
October 30, 2020
+1 Sadly! Predicted the reverse of actuality!
October 30, 2020
You are quite right to say “The UK should not accept any attempted illegal entry” so one wonders why it does to the point of encouragement.
Why are not illegal entrants DNA profiled(to facilitate future assured identification) and told that as a consequence of their illegal attempt they never will be permitted entry to the U.K. in future and face immediate, no appeal, deportation with costs if ever found here?
October 30, 2020
Lawyers have made that an infringement on their human rights, essentially anything that helps us identify people they have made illegal.
A small step would be to hold in detention anybody who cannot prove their identity.
October 30, 2020
Very good idea.
October 30, 2020
Parliament and judges make the law, not lawyers.
That’s about as basic as you can get.
October 30, 2020
Overruled by EU courts.
October 30, 2020
Sir John you have again highlighted another non -PC topic.
The real question is why would anyone risk their children in a small dinghy to cross the English Channel. Are they fleeing from persecution in France or any other part of Europe? So why come to the UK, England in particular, at such risk. The legality issue and cost etc. are only by-products of the problem.
The accepted, and PC reason – for a better life. So what aspects of life are better here than in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece ? I won’t mention the B word,
In or out of the EU we cannot stop financial support to our friends across the Channel to assist with this European problem as we have always done over the past hundred years or so.
October 30, 2020
The aspects of life here that bring them in droves are race, culture, language and social security tolerance.
October 30, 2020
Clearly, in the interests of the people tempted to make the crossing, it must be made absolutely clear that any attempt to enter the UK illegally will automatically disqualify them from being allowed to settle here.
The government should provide transport for the people wishing to make the journey across the channel and process their applications immediately they land here.
All of which is pointless if people who do make it here disappear into the black economy. This could be stopped easily with identity cards and draconian fines for anyone (business or individual) who employs anyone without verifying their identity first.
Finally, the government must put a practical limit on numbers. We simply cannot accommodate everyone who would like to live in this country. I think Remainers might want to think about relocating to the continent to make room here.
October 30, 2020
So when these people arrive, they get treated like honoured guests, and we have to feel sorry for others when they fail to get here safely.
Yet we seem to be unable to welcome into our country Commonwealth veterans who try to take the honourable and legal route to residency.
October 30, 2020
John, what the heck are your government “Dominic Raab hinting” the country will be going into tier 4 in two weeks time? How truly pathetic is this? If you want to lock down do it this weekend and get it over with for goodness sakes, if Blackburn has been locked down for 13 weeks and the cases aren’t stopping then what is the blimin point of this!
If London is predicted to need to lockdown why two weeks? Stop the school children going back next week and then they all have two weeks out of school and thus any virus would have been killed off by then. Only have children back that have no symptoms. Why do we have to follow France and Germany two weeks later what is this dance we’re being led along with. Can’t your government just think for themselves.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
ps these medics from the NW saying ‘the government’ is giving mixed messages – NO IT ISN’T she thinks we should just listen to NHS England. The BBC has a charter to ensure the public receive clear public information, we pay them for this, if the local news channels, BBC radio stations cannot get over the government’s message to people then what is the point of the tax we have to pay them.
I’ve got news for her I and many people I talk with don’t trust NHS England anymore. You give us no facts, where did the people who died of covid last week 14 locally catch the infection from, were they only ill with covid, what age were they. Give us the facts locally so we can make decisions for ourselves about where we mix outside of our homes and controlled workplaces.
October 30, 2020
providing only statistics that serve their purpose.
October 30, 2020
”..any virus would have been killed off by then…” Not very likely!
To paraphrase Dr Mike Yeadon – it’s like trying to hide from the weather. It’ll still be there when you go back outside.
Children don’t have symptoms.
There is plenty of information out there from REAL experts.
October 30, 2020
So what is the point of another lockdown then L Jones? The minute we leave our lockdown homes thereāll be another plane load coming in and ferries coming in with live virus from the Continent and elsewhere, we need to make decisions for ourselves and we need to be given the facts of where the local people are getting infected, who they mixed with and are the current clusters friends? Colleagues, gym friends, what age and other conditions did they have.
The REAL experts arenāt giving out anything? These test figures are massively more than were tested in the first quarter of this virus, so many + now have minor symptoms and recover within two weeks. 80% of new cases could be tracked back to Spain I said that from July and Iām no āRealā expert, you donāt have to be a genius to work out if we opened up the borders for holidaymakers to go to Countries for none essential travel. Countries who must have been covering up their infection rates in July and not testing the same numbers that we do. Itās just all pathetic, those of us that are being sensible are now being punished for the selfish.
October 30, 2020
It’s all very laudable to wish to save lives, a plea that will get plaudits but the life savings ought to be done by the French; they have plenty of time to bring the dingies back to their shore.
Our priority must be to protect our land from foreign invasion but dangerously the thinking in government and elsewhere is driven by a political globalist no-borders ideology which means the indigenous English are to be ridden all over.
October 30, 2020
They are not dinghies – they are RIBs. Cost about Ā£50,000 each.
October 30, 2020
And they (maybe the border force) who are storing them, should donate them to the sea-cadets or scouts
October 30, 2020
Still an inflatable though.
October 31, 2020
I’ve seen photos of the compound where dozens are stored. They mostly look like dinghies – who will provide a Ā£50k RIB to the foolish illegal immigrants!
October 30, 2020
I would add that not controlling immigration encourages the slave trade which our forefathers had, they thought, put an end to.
October 30, 2020
+1
Its estimated that 90% young prostition are slaved and entered the UK illegally…..and this government is doing nothing to stop it
October 30, 2020
The best way to save lives is to remove any possibility of their being allowed to stay. That means we must get rid of the judiciary that frustrates the application of immigration law.
October 30, 2020
The 7 Nigerian suspected hijacking the tanker āāNave Andromedaāā have been given bail by Hampshire Police
Their free to walk the streets of the UK and only report to the police every 24hrs, something is wrong hereā¦weāre being let down
October 30, 2020
That is unbelievably shocking, but not surprising. Our government must treat this matter seriously and quickly … known and dangerous foreign criminals on our streets without restraint !
October 30, 2020
You are correct. There is much that is badly wrong. It is hard to find anything that is right at the moment. Utterly failing country, with a failed political system.
October 30, 2020
This to encourage lots more ship/aircraft stowaway/hijackings one assumes? As we have seen with them apparently abandoning shoplifting as a crime below Ā£100 a time and even announcing this to the criminals.
They only seem to be interest in murders, hate crimes or taking fine money off motorists or lockdown sceptics like Piers Corbyn. A physicist who is sound on Climate Alarmism too.
October 30, 2020
+1
October 30, 2020
Free to walk the streets? Nowhere to sleep? There must be a hotel for them surely.
October 30, 2020
The report didn’t say where they where to sleep or stay – probably because they where last seen heading towards London now lost in the system
October 30, 2020
Truly unbelievable. If they are capable of hijacking a ship then what else are they capable of? Politicians have let us all down again and we keep falling for it. When are we all going to have the gumption to vote for an alternative? Why do we all fall for the lies every recent government has told us? Time to take stock and think about what is happening because we are allowing it.
October 30, 2020
stowaways not hijackers – got upset when required to stay in one room by the crew.
October 30, 2020
Basically, because we are always faced with Hobson’s Choice. Both parties are bad, but the system allows only for the perpetuation of it for the benefit of the few insiders which the outsiders have to pay for. No one can get into Parliament as an independent and would be neutralised if they did. It’s why parties exist in the first place. I’d like to see them all made illegal and all MP’s to be independents. We have competition laws to prevent price fixing (which admittedly don’t work very well) but nothing at all to stop anti competitive politics.
October 30, 2020
Appalling
October 30, 2020
I’ve looked for this story and all the accounts I have found say they have been bailed from the criminal investigation but remain detained by Border Farce. So not ‘walking the streets’. Three questions arise:
How can people dangerous enough to require an SBS raid and with a high risk of absconding be given bail so soon?
Who would put up bail for these people? Probably a globalist immigrationist group.
What message does this send to those thinking of using a large vessel to sail directly to Britain?
October 31, 2020
UK Border Force don’t have a jail nor detention centre, the home office does for immigrantion, but the stowaways have been charged with criminal acts….so they are bailed
October 30, 2020
Donald Trump is urging everyone to read Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano open letter to him.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/06/11/president-trump-tweeted-about-archbishop-vigano-so-who-he
October 30, 2020
John, John, John, why do you make matters more intricate than they need be.
To stop illigal and other immigration you have to remove the gold that draws them here.
STOP paying them benefits.
STOP putting them up in posh hotels. Return them immidiately they land.
STOP picking them up and bringing them back to England, return them to France.
WHY are you not returning those who are already here? Priti Patel has turned out to be a big letdown (4% returned in 3 years) but then it is not surprising, every position she has had she has made bold statements of what she will do then does the opposite. I suppose she is copying Boris. What with COVID and Brexit and Immigration, your Party has been a great dissappointment and it doesn’t bode well for you in 2024
October 30, 2020
STOP putting them up in posh hotels
….
stop biting
the govt are trying to wind you up, it is an actual strategy….of despots.
October 30, 2020
Unless all these illegal arrivals are securly locked up until they can be deported with no other option for our lawyer friends to exploit then no point wringing your hands saying Home Secretary needs to be more discouraging.
October 30, 2020
For crying out loud. Take away the draw. What do you expect. Hotels, benefits, housing, NHS. Free lawyers., for them anyway. Someone pays. I could not afford the treatment they get. So take away the legal aid. Write domestic law to bring illegals out of the youman rights Act. Australia seem to be able to put these illegal entries on a plane home. These people are not refugees they are economic migrants. They are even coming from Germany now as they donāt get as much and are being deported. Get you finger out change the law and remove the draw
October 30, 2020
I assume the Covid reulations are over, as mass protests by adherents of a certain religion have been allowed to take place in London today?
October 30, 2020
It is frightening when people hold signs saying that they “will not tolerate”. We have heard what has happened in France against free speech, and we are right to be terrified the same will happen here. I am not free to visit people, but others are free to go on the street and threaten terrorism. The Home Secretary and Govt need to act, quickly, broadly and firmly.
October 30, 2020
All parties want to destroy freedom of speech and impose silence. It makes life easier for the State, the public sector and the parties in Parliament
I have no doubt that BLM and this march today have been given official approval. It’s all part of the Marxist agenda to silence and neutralise the majority population
And the Tories are aware of what is happening and refuse to do anything about it. Indeed I suspect they don’t give a toss
The nation is heading towards totalitarianism for the white majority
October 30, 2020
Australia solved it; so can we, although the distance in which to intercept them is less. Nonetheless there are practically no genuine “asylum seekers” landing in this country; all have come from a safe country unless they fly which should be impossible given boarding checks.
One must conclude that government wants them for some nefarious purpose…
October 30, 2020
David J
“One must conclude that government wants them for some nefarious purposeā¦”
Yes, it all helps to make the English a minority.
October 31, 2020
āOne must conclude that government wants them for some nefarious purposeā¦ā
…
Strategy of tension.
October 30, 2020
Well said Sir John.
A lot of good letters from the people with common senseThe establishment have been Ttotally Brain washed by there friends in the EU. Over the last fifty years.
The Establishment would rather crash this Country in every way, giving the life of 5 star Hotels and pocket money, to illegal migrants, never mind looking after the well fair of its own citizens .
Look what has just happened in the South of France, can we really even thinking about voting for this shambles. How long before another such people do more of the same here?
The first job is get rid of all Remainers, and there should punishment for all those who have lied to our decent people. They who keep trying to drag us back to serfdom.
This shenanigans from those who have betrayed this Nation for 50 years must feel the full weight of the law, otherwise we will have a totalitarian Parliament for ever , no more voting .
The Brexit partly for me again, As the great man said, doing the same thing expecting change without making any change, is insane
October 30, 2020
Ian
“…..those who have betrayed this Nation for 50 years must feel the full weight of the law”
Those who betrayed the nation were also the one’s making the law, and I agree they should be punished for their treachery.
October 30, 2020
Too many lawyers are making money defending illegal immigrants.It is these people that should be stopped.
October 31, 2020
Letās pay the lawyers who successfully fight to defend the borders a special 100% dividend?
October 30, 2020
Isn’t it time for the Tory Party to stop taking money from people who wish to rearrange the ME for their own benefit?
People whose priority is not a viable future for GB are causing massive movements of people, fleeing their own countries, because the Tories have assisted and continue to assist in the destabilisation and destruction of those countries based on transparent lies. Stop the bombing, stop the arming of ‘rebels’, stop applying sanctions to countries in return for donations from people who are not of European stock and have no concern fro our future.
By destroying Libya, the Tories have also created a gateway for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa to flood Europe with people. If the Tories wanted to destroy my country and the rest of Europe, they could not have been doing a finer job.
I realise that the weak Theresa May signed the Global Compact on Migration penned by the odious Peter Sutherland, on behalf of the Tory Party and its backers, but we do not wish to live in a multi-cultural country.
October 30, 2020
forthurst
“……….but we do not wish to live in a multi-cultural country.”
Agreed.
But are ‘WE’ ever asked ? No.
October 30, 2020
The Tory Party has been Talking the Talk but never Walking the Walk for far to long on this subject. England is overcrowded and it can’t keep absorbing those who never wish to adopt any kind of English identity.
October 30, 2020
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Worldometer shows that Sweden had only 9 new deaths today.
UK 274,
Why are the Sweden results being ignored ?
October 30, 2020
No money to be made if you treat it as ‘flu-like’…….or power
October 30, 2020
Because it proves SAGE and the idiot Ferguson who have replaced Borisā brain are wrong.
October 31, 2020
Look.
The UK has a population sufficiently idiotic to elect this government and the previous two, never mind 2016.
Their behaviour in the face of this virus has been similarly silly.
Comparisons with Sweden are pointless on that basis.
October 31, 2020
I agree a large number of the people have shown they are idiots both in general ignorance and in being conned by politicians.
Take myself – I actually thought we’d carry out promises made time and again. We’d be out of the EU, didn’t need a WA – why have one proposed and yet have MPs voting for one. Ignorant – so guilty as charged.
I’ve watched the last 3 Conservative governments get elected and expected them to be one – you know – Conservative!
What did we get – grandstanding posh boy, deceitful middle ground conwoman, joking showman who relies on the most dangerous contrary scientists who last saw a pipette or petrie dish 30 years ago.
Please stand in every constituency Mr Monster Raving Loony and that fellow Farage. At least we might get what they say they will do.
October 31, 2020
Students voted for the Tory party ???
BLM protesters ???
October 31, 2020
Why is a comparison with Sweden pointless?
I realise their policies are the opposite to yours but their good results need investigating.
October 31, 2020
Why is a comparison with Sweden pointless?
….
Martin is so funny at times.
October 31, 2020
It confuses his set political mental state.
Sweden was a poster boy for socialists everywhere.
All of a sudden they went independent and free.
With a non PC policy.
And it worked.
Now they are a country not to be mentioned.
October 31, 2020
Comparisons with Sweden are pointless on that basis.
….
So in Swedish restaurants, cinemas, cities and pubs people are more spaced out than in English ones?
October 30, 2020
The immigration that concerns me is students not these poor desperate people. They come here mainly as they already have family here.
October 30, 2020
When a poor desperate person hits you on the head so hard your teeth fall out, like that poor Spaniard, maybe you will get the picture?
October 30, 2020
The UK needs to reinforce the Home Secretary’s clear view etc etc- all very well except I doubt if the refugees are reading or know anything about what the Home Secretary’s views are.. as usual it’s all in your own little Conservative bubble
October 30, 2020
JR
“It would be good to know what more can be done to find and prosecute the people in France responsible for organising this vile trade.”
What can be done ?……simple; escort them back to France.
Prosecute the people in France responsible ?……it’s the French authorities dumping a French problem on our shores. They’ve been doing it for decades. Again, just keep sending them back, they will soon understand how it works.
October 30, 2020
If you the people want immigration to stop you will have to take control yourself starting with the next local election and show me what you can do, the people’s army throwing out party politician left to right and centre and installing your people in your areas.
October 31, 2020
Itās going to take more than that. We have tried the ballot box.
October 30, 2020
Why do so many ādieā to get to Britain? We do not realize what precious freedom we have enjoyed in this land for so long! It goes back to the Puritans, who in turn suffered for their adherence to that most precious gift, the Bible in our own tongue! It is from there that weāve come to be the celebrated nation we were, and potentially, still are. Our Queen, in her long and gracious reign, has exemplified this benign common grace, reflecting a greater, heavenly Sovereignty.
So despite all our problems, I can understand why so many want to come here. They often make the best of all citizens, having experienced so many bad things elsewhere. It is to be hoped that charitable tolerance, wisely administered, will be thus rewarded. I only hope that enough of the old ways survive here, that they might discover the true and BLESSED HOPE among us (Titus, 2:11-15).
October 30, 2020
Maybe because they want it cheap and easy, it took our forefathers two thousand years to make Britain great, all countries had the same opportunities to make or remake their ownā¦..but why should they when thereās one ready made and they give you lots of free stuff
October 30, 2020
Err, no Norman. But I can see why you’d feel that way, since you’re named after a set of successful illegal immigrants from the 11th century.
They often make the worst “citizens” since they live under the radar, committing crimes and if they do get caught and gain asylum… then in comes their 200 “immediate family”, due the law allowing their “human right” to “family life”.
So no thanks – they need to make their home better, not continue to invade ours.
October 31, 2020
Yes, gentlemen – you are quite right, it seems there’s a downside to everything nowadays. But I am majoring on the noble side. Notable examples include an ex-colleague whose family took refuge here from 1930’s Czechoslovakia – more patriotic than many Brits, his children brought up on recordings about history and Churchill’s speeches – never owned a TV. Others I know have filled vital roles on farms and in nursing homes, doing a great job with keenness and reliability. Sadly, few of our own young people will take on such jobs. The issue I am highlighting is whether we will understand ourselves better, in the light of what was noble in our history.
October 30, 2020
Many here, including me, have criticised JR for not speaking out about the effect of mass immigration on the British people, but in fairness the Cancel Culture is alive and well in Westminster, as can be seen by what has happened to poor old Jezza. When they came for his brother, he did nothing….. According to Keir Starmer, there is no place in the Labour Party for anyone who doubts that it is infested with anti-semitism (an odd recruiting position) or for those who think the whole thing has been blown up for political purposes (which counts me out). It is not too hard to imagine the whip being withdrawn from any Conservative MP who breaks the Establishment Omerta on the negative effects of mass immigration, or to hear Boris gravely intoning ‘There is no place in the Conservative Party for ‘racism’…..’.
October 30, 2020
The French have blood on their hands. If they agreed to accept the return of any migrant picked up in the English Channel then the people smuggling trade would stop tomorrow. Where is the call for this to happen? I can only conclude that both the UK and France want illegal immigration to continue.
Most voters have lost confidence with the two main parties. The time is right for the emergence of a new party that works for the British people.
October 31, 2020
It’s time that we stopped relying on other countries like France to do enforcement for us. We need a massive internment camp on Stornoway or another Hebridean island for illegal immigrants. Home office officials can interview them there and identify the 1% that are genuine refugees fleeing from danger. They can be given one year permits, renewable annually. There must be no appeal to the courts. These are decisions for our Executive. Yes, change the law accordingly.
All the rest must be sent back. If they have thrown away their passports, then we will fly them to a country of our choosing.
October 31, 2020
Much better on Isle of Wight – where they have history of prisons, detention centres, and of course ease of transport from Calais/Dover coast.
October 31, 2020
I love migrants, sorry, but I would like to defend Christianity. The only person to punch me in the head was a Scott, late at night in a Glasgow chippy just because I was English? I was on holiday. Never again!
October 31, 2020
This week, the London Ambulance Service revealed that it is now attending an average of 37 suicides a day, up from 22 a day in 2019.
October 31, 2020
GETING SICK OF BAKER ACTING AS A LOCKDOWN SKEPTIC
November 1, 2020
At the risk of appearing heartless….. this happened off the coast of France, not the UK.
Why are the media and various MPs here agonising over what WE should or should not do about this particular incident?
Is La Belle France such a horrible country to live in, that people are desperate to leave it and risk death in the channel to come to the UK?
November 1, 2020
Interesting to read that there are individuals, in frustration no doubt, who are now prepared to commit their own time to observe & report independently what is actually happening, almost daily, on our southern coast / Dover port. Perhaps not at the moment as the weather’s bad, one of our only defences it seems. If the government & media are reluctant to tell things as they really are, then members of the public will act in order to get the wider facts out there. An individual set up Littleboats 2020 inspired by the little ships of Dunkirk. The report can be found on the BBC website under the UK tab / local news ‘Dover’ I note that the government petition on illegal immigration ( No 321862 ) which is still running but which was debated in Parliament 19 October now has a formal response from the Home Office highlighting its current position and obligations.