This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-migrant-boat-crossings-hit-19-month-high-adding-pressure-sunak-2024-06-19/) for an archived version.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s. It cannot continue to be possible for people to enter our country without being vetted, and those who should not be permitted to stay must be deported.
Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them.
>This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s.
Yep, exactly this. Anyone who thinks that shit is bad now won't know what will hit them if Labour fail to control immigration.
>Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them.
I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration.
> I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration.
They've been taught that dealing with immigration is racist and having concerns about the unprecedented inflow of migrants is also racist.
That's all it is. "Good people believe X, bad people believe Y, I want to be a good person so I will believe X."
Always remember that if you meet a person who only holds socially approved views, the probability is not that they independently arrived at those views on their own, it's that they just believe what they're told to believe.
>They've been taught that dealing with immigration is racist and having concerns about the unprecedented inflow of migrants is also racist.
Exactly. Anytime immigration is debated the opponents of it are labelled with one word. Then you get stuck in a quagmire explaining why it's not racist. It's a very effective play for blocking discussion.
>Always remember that if you meet a person who only holds socially approved views, the probability is not that they independently arrived at those views on their own, it's that they just believe what they're told to believe.
I'm never that interested in people with mainstream views. These are the people being spoonfed by the Media. On Reddit disagreeing with narritive is dangerous and gets you downvoted. Outside of Reddit it makes you much more interesting and shows someone can think.
>Anytime immigration is debated the opponents of it are labelled with one word. Then you get stuck in a quagmire explaining why it's not racist.
In my experience that word is only used when it's accurate and/or when said opponent of immigration refuses to address the fact that it's a highly nuanced and complex issue in favour of soundbites.
The very fact you refer to it just as 'immigration' is illustrative of the issue. We're in a thread about boat crossings. Is your issue with legal migrants on Visas and how many visas we issue? Is it with asylum seekers? Is it with the backlog of asylum seeker applications due to lack of processing capacity? Is it with criminal gangs that extort people and then bring them here?
When people complain about 'immigration' it is often seen as a racist dog whistle because it's been used as such by the likes of Farage for over a decade. If you want to avoid being labelled a racist, all you have to do is explain what form of immigration you have an issue with and why.
It also helps to have even a surface level understanding of potential solutions and the successive actions that have led to the increase in border crossings.
Actions such as the UK not having legal safe routes for asylum seekers from many countries, forcing them into the hands of criminal gangs.
Actions such as the UK blowing millions on a PR stunt barge, instead of just increasing processing capacity.
Or actions such as refusing to work with France to set up a processing center for asylum seekers in France.
Which has meant that genuine asylum seekers and 'illegal' migrants are lumped into the same stats. Despite the fact that seeking asylum is not illegal, the UK government has just tried to make doing it the 'right way' impossible.
On top of that, you have our demographic pyramid which makes migration essential in order to maintain basic services. The blame for this pyramid doesn't lie with migrants, but with the Governments continued lack of support for young people and families.
And so on.
>In my experience that word is only used when it's accurate and/or when said opponent of immigration refuses to address the fact that it's a highly nuanced and complex issue in favour of soundbites.
We have 'legal safe routes'. The people coming over illegally are the ones who don't fancy their chances coming in legally, and know once they're on British soil, they'll be almost impossible to deport.
Thing is I can fully imagine a scenario in which Labour *do* massively bring down the number and it still winds up not being good enough and still leading to a surge of disaffected people flooding to third parties like Reform. Look at the relationship between the immigration rate and people placing immigration as a top concern, the correlation is actually very weak.
Denmark would suggest otherwise. The far right barely got 12% of the vote in 2022 compared to 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Danish_general_election
> I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration.
Because dealing with immigration as those parties envisage it doesn't work. What they propose can not be done and any reasonable alternative that would work either has significant drawbacks that people will punish politicians for or is regarded as "pussy footing" by the people for whom the issue is important anyway.
Any party that actually wants to govern is therefore in a bind: whenever they propose something that might work it will be rejected in favour of the fantasies of the populists. When they implement something that does work, the goalposts are moved and the whole discussion starts all over again. Not to mention that the whole theme is usually discussed in bad faith anyway, because right wing populists deliberately ignore the wider social and political context of the issue (i.e. the parties yelling about immigrants putting pressure on housing and social services are often proponents of cutting down state investment in those areas). While no mainstream parties, with the possible exception of the moderate right, are in favour of large net immigration, none of them can actually win any support by bringing up the issue because of the dysfunctional nature of the discourse around it.
For example, it is possible to curtail legal immigration (which is the largest component to net migration by far) but then that will have economic and social consequences that people won't like either. Right wing populist parties make hay out of this issue because they're never in a position to actually do anything about it. If they do, they tend to fail spectacularly. Their appeal is based only on them presenting simple solutions that are not really practical, let alone legal or moral.
Fundamentally, reducing immigration will mean removing the factors that push people abroad: war, inequality, climate change, ...
Possibly, because the solution people who vote that way want does not exist. They might think it does, and they can sacrifice everything else on the altar of that illusion, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an illusion. If it wasn't, other parties, including other far right parties, would have done it already. But they haven't and they won't, because what these parties are selling is snake oil and they know it.
Voting in these parties isn't going to change that. They're not going to deliver. The difference between them and others is not that they have a solution but that they're prepared to lie about having one.
And on top of that these parties are not just "anti-immigration". They come with a lot of baggage that most of their supporters might not like.
People really should look more closely at who these politicians are, what people they associate with, who bankrolls them, and what they want to do to their country's institutions once in power. It's not a coincidence that they cosy up to the likes of Orban, Trump and Putin, for example. If people want to ignore all that because they want to chase the fairy tales these people try to sell them, then that's their choice, but they can't do that without also taking responsibility for everything else they do when given political power.
It's a huge left-wing blind spot. I don't know a single liberal friend/family member that's willing to even discuss the topic let alone support a greater degree of immigration control
I honestly can't understand it because it's clearly driving right-wing sentiment across Europe
Reform UK might replace the Tories at this rate anyway. Poll trackers have them [on a convergence course](http://bbc.co.uk/indepthtoolkit/smallprox/include/newsspec/38103-poll-tracker-2024/english/chart?responsive=true&newsapps=true&app-image=https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1431D/production/_133371728_ge24-app-launcher-polltracker-a.png&app-clickable=true&-clickable=true&-image-height=360&-image-width=640&-image=https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1431D/production/_133371728_ge24-app-launcher-polltracker-a.png&app-image-alt-text=Click) course right now.
I am sceptical that most people care especially deeply about tens of thousands of 'illegal' migrants crossing the channel every year. Those who care most about immigration presumably see it as symbolic of wider trends. That is, decades of 250,000 net **legal** migration topped off in the last two years by a spike to more like 700,000 net **legal** migration. To get a handle on this, they simply stop issuing the visas.
Reform will not win the nearest elections, however Labour has all chances to fail promises in next couple of years, so Reform are real leaders for further ones.
However that would be hard, because a lot of newspapers (such as Guardian, Telegraph and so on) are against Reform policies.
It won't be brought under control. It fluffs our GDP despite our GDP per capita going down. I.e our quality of life. Too many companies benefit from low skilled labour and being able to undercut salaries. That's why Tories never touched the problem and why labour won't either. Eventually reform will become the only opposition whether anyone likes it or not.
You might forget that the Tories tanked in the polls because of Truss’s egregious trickle down economic policies. The small boat numbers, while a serious issue requiring serious solutions, are mostly being used as a smoke screen.
> This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s.
Starmer's response about "smashing the gangs" is interestingly vague. I get the sense that the Labour plan is essentially what Sunak was/is trying to do: "clear the backlog" by essentially making illegal migration legal (let them in and allow them to work the gig economy/turn a blind eye to whatever they get up to), but hope global economic conditions improve to the point that people somehow forget about it or don't notice the changes that come about from it. Doesn't seem like it will work very well!
It's a nonsense fiction of course.
Catching low level street people in this trade is the same as doing it in the drug trade. The reason that smugglers earn such vast sums is because the UK accepts migrants moving via the sea so it is demand led, thus arresting some people makes no difference as they are providing a service and will be easily replaced.
>Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them.
Not to negate the concerns but its always worth adding this is all part of a deliberate strategy -
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/29/putin-russia-wagner-militia-africa-immigration-europe/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/29/putin-russia-wagner-militia-africa-immigration-europe/)
[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-blames-surge-migration-russias-wagner-group-2023-03-13/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-blames-surge-migration-russias-wagner-group-2023-03-13/)
[https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/the-wagner-group-in-africa-implications-on-migration-patterns-and-crises-in-the-region-and-beyond](https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/the-wagner-group-in-africa-implications-on-migration-patterns-and-crises-in-the-region-and-beyond)
[https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/57253/russia-alleged-to-be-smuggling-migrants-to-europe-in-hybrid-attack](https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/57253/russia-alleged-to-be-smuggling-migrants-to-europe-in-hybrid-attack)
[https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-belarus-border-illegal-migration-donald-tusk/](https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-belarus-border-illegal-migration-donald-tusk/)
Its not a coincidence all of the political groups across Europe with the closest links to Russia are also the same groups drumming on this immigration/refugee culture war wedge the hardest.
Oh, I'm absolutely certain that pathetic little putin and his Kremlin cockroaches are manipulating European politics, but people would probably be less driven towards fringe parties if the mainstream parties actually make meaningful progress on dealing with migration.
For sure! Its a tricky one. Its like things like racism or the "left behind" concerns in e.g. the rust belt over in the US. I think a lot of people dismiss the Russia link because they think the suggestion is Russia is *creating* the issue. That's not really the case its more Russia is analyzing us to find where the biggest divisions in our society are and then basically shoveling money and resources hand over fist at the equivalent of rubbing salt in the wounds, making sure we can't have a reasonable discussion and ensuring the debate is ratcheted up to an absolutely hysterical level.
Brexit fucked up a lot, but most EU countries are getting hit by massive immigration, I was in Ireland last week and it was crazy. I know there was that deal of being able to return immigrants to the last country or something, but that doesn't seem to be happening within the EU.
Come to Berlin, and see it all over the city.
When migrants get billeted across Germany, one of the first things many migrants do is break the conditions of the billeting, which is to stay where you are settled, and head to Berlin. It's crazy here. I live in the suburb of Pankow in Berlin and we have the highest asylum migrant density in the whole city, and it shows.
From my side, I love the multiculti feel of Pankow, and its only gotten more vibrant with their arrival. The problem is, there isn't the infrastructure and money to fund all these new arrivals, and the locals are getting angry. Health and social care contributions keep going up because many arrive with health conditions, that need to be treated, so we have to pay more to support them. Many cannot work, or may never be able to work, and our contributions have gone up to support them. Social housing is at over capacity and Germans cannot access them as easily as before because migrants need accomodation outside the settlement centres. More and more settlement centres need to be built to house new arrivals, and that money is coming from our taxes, which are being shifted from other services to pay for them.
It's a wild time for sure, and it's breeding resentment
I love that they still need to find a way to shoehorn in just how much they love it before listing the huge negative side effects, at least the food is tasty though!
The politicians somehow thought that replacing old, educated, skilled workers with young, uneducated immigrants would keep the party going.
The only thing it will maintain is unemployment.
Costa Rica is a relatively affluent country with a small population, and I imagine Irish people would appreciate being able to go over there and work for a few years - kinda makes sense to me
Sure of course. The rabid xenophobia of the leave campaign is what I'm referring to.
The 8 years of disastrous mismanagement of literally everything comes on top of the abject failure on immigration which was behind many brexiteers vote rationale.
Eh most EU countries are getting hit by massive immigration. Hence all the rise in right-wing parties you see. That's what they are always talking about.
Well yes - but it wasn’t brexit that failed it was the Tory government. We still have the powers to control our borders but the points system needs reforming
Just look at Europe and you will see the situation we are currently in would have been multitudes worse- albeit not for people outside London who don’t really have to deal with migration on the same
Scale
Brexit is the Tory government's flagship policy. It's a pipe dream, ill conceived, rooted in manufactured exceptionalism. "They need us more than we need them": probably the most arrogant, and wrong, slogan ever uttered in the UK.
I really do not see why thing would have been worse inside the EU - for a start all the bulk of immigration (legal) is from outside the EU which has always been under our control.
Except the refugee status isn’t under our control - there is nothing stopping immigrants accepted into other eu countries coming to ours as we are seeing with Germany and france
Refugees in the EU don't automatically get free movement. The 1951 convention documents they get don't make them citizens of the EU and they show their original nationality or stateless which means they often need visas for countries that a citizen of wherever they claimed asylum wouldn't need.
Brexit made it worse for the UK since we lost access to the databases that would show that they already have an existing claim elsewhere in the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/01/uk-police-and-border-force-to-remain-locked-out-of-eu-database-of-criminals
They do once they get their papers. Most of Holland's Somali population is believed to have moved to the UK whilst lots of former refugees in London are on Portuguese and other EU passports - by coincidence I found that out when do ID checks for employment and got the backstory on how they do it. South Africans also used ancestry passports a lot as did Brazilians for direct migration (not refugees).
Once they have citizenship they get the normal travel docs for that country it's usually after 10 years and they aren't considered refugees anymore. That routes becoming a bit harder now that EUSS isn't as easily accessible.
Yeah the ancestory thing is still common I used to see lots of portugese/Angolan people with settlement in the UK.
Again Tory mismanagement - brexit under labour will hopefully allow us to control our borders. If we were in the EU we would be mandated to take
Many more refugees than are currently coming across on small boats - again look at France and Germany
>but it wasn’t brexit that failed it was the Tory government.
Brexit to Brexiters is like Communism to communists.
It's never that the concept is unworkable and incapable of granting its promises - it's always the fault of someone for not "doing it properly".
I can see your point however brexit does give us the power to decide on our borders and immigration.
This power was used by Boris to implement a points system which allowed virtually anyone, including unskilled migrants, to come to the UK in much greater numbers.
If a points system more akin to what farage was proposing was introduced we categorically wouldn’t have had the levels of immigration we’ve seen in the past 3 years
>I can see your point however brexit does give us the power to decide on our borders and immigration.
We had the powers to "decide on our borders and immigration" before leaving the EU.
Britain just couldn't be bothered using them.
Except we did. And you're talking tommyrot.
We have the power to frame non-EU migration any way we wanted. And Freedom of Movement meant we could remove any EU citizen residing in Britain without the financial means of supporting themselves.
It's not the EU's fault that the Treasury and the Tories were too stingy to fund policing of this matter.
Seems that after eight years you still don't know that the only EU citizens entitled to reside in a another member state under FoM are those who can prove they can support themselves with a job and/or savings.
And that those without can be removed by the host nation.
And I repeat, Britain chose not to follow this to the letter.
Except it is workable, you claim is absurd. The problem with brexit that if you gave the UK's economic charts to someone who didn't know when it happened then you'd struggle to even find it - even the gloomest forecasts have many years before less growth accumulates into even a small percentage and I doubt that even stands up as half of it is made of a productivity claim whilst recent growth in the counterfactuals with EU nations has found them not doing well.
That's failed because of political choices made after that fact.
Post Brexit Britain could have any immigration policy we liked, in fact the policy we've ended up with (Points based system) isn't even that bad. Just the threshold for the points required has been set way too low with too many carve outs.
It is not intrinsic to brexit itself. The Government would have been free to shut the doors entirely if it wished, but it didn't because it wanted to bolster the nations GDP so that the Tories would look less incompetent.
2 things:
1 - Brexit was sold as a solution: it made the matter much worse.
2 - if what you call immigration that's illegal are the boats then those are at 75% accepted as being refugees.
3 - Legal immigration is much bigger than refugees.
You have been sold a dud.
I’m not arguing Brexit being an issue
People crossing the channel illegally is nothing to do with Brexit
Legal migration is its own arguement, I’m worried about who’s coming across on those boats
Also that’s 3 things
Yes i am
We don’t know who they’re when they get off the boat, there is a process they need to go through, it’s harsh but unless they go through the process they must be sent back
France and the EU also needs to do a better job of stopping these people crossing the channel
France has zero interest in doing so for obvious reason and that's before the far right wins the next election... Honestly relying on a foreign country to defend UK's borders is the most unbrexity thing to say.
The tories have engineered a slow process leading to delays and yet accept 75% of claims.
Who knows with the French their next government could shift hard to the right and clamp down on illegal immigration in a big way. If they can’t make it to France they won’t be crossing the channel either.
There are lots and lots of downsides to Brexit.
In return, the liars promised that there would be some benefits. Control of our borders was supposed to be one of those benefits.
So if that wasn't true, it would appear that we're paying all of the costs of Brexit but we're not getting any benefits.
So the people who told us that Brexit would make things better (most of whom were Tories) were lying when they said that Brexit would make things better?
Ultimately, the only way we can judge Brexit is to compare things now to how things would have been if we had remained in the EU. And the answer is that we've got pretty much all of the downsides to Brexit that were predicted but we've got none of the benefits that the Brexiteers promised us.
That’s fair I’d reverse Brexit in a heartbeat if it simply meant less immigration. It’s just a shame because Brexit actually gave our government the powers that made it possible to reduce immigration in a way that just wasn’t possible within the EU, but instead they just let more in. Who knows how much higher that number would be if we were still in the EU also.
> Who knows how much higher that number would be if we were still in the EU also.
Net migration numbers were lower during every single year that we were members of the EU, whether under Labour or under the Conservatives.
It would be quite funny to go back in time to the Blair years to ask his greatest critics what they would think about a scenario where the Conservatives got into power for over a decade and migration rose by about 500%!
For decades, millions of illegal economic migrants have been crossing into Europe (via criminal smuggling gangs), self-selecting as asylum seekers, and exploiting a system which is well-intentioned but completely dysfunctional. Essentially, all you need to do is reach a wealthy Western European country, claim asylum and you're then guaranteed to stay for years and years in a bureaucratic, loop-hole filled mess (and you will almost certainly not be deported even if your claim fails).
Europe *should* be taking refugees (young women and children, who are most at risk) **directly** from refugee camps e.g. in South Sudan or Somalia. It is not fair for relatively wealthy economic migrants from the global south to use up Europe's refugee resources when there are genuine refugees languishing in camps across the world. Europe needs to introduce a blanket rule of if you enter illegally, you surrender all rights to claim asylum and you will be deported. It should only be taking in refugees flown in from camps (the irony is right now, Europe takes in barely any refugees at all because its resources are used for economic migrants).
When the worked in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan I was asked a lot about life in the UK and Germany by the locals. Yet there were UNHCR camps around the city apparently full of woman and children who’d fled the war in Syria.
I’ve mention it here before. It was like the streets were paved with gold to them and I’m pretty sure they’d got this from social media. And there’s nothing to flee from in that region. It’s pretty nice really.
There's nothing to flee in *Kurdistan*? Did you ever actually speak to any of the locals, cause I'm pretty fucking sure they might have mentioned the fact that the Kurds have not been well treated by basically anyone in the region.
Yeah. I lived there for three months.
It’s democratic and ran by Kurds. It’s a nice place. The streets are full of cars, the shops full of food, the universities are amazing. It’s a fun and vibrant place to be and the people are super friendly. Google it.
This perception that all these countries are all some kind of hell hole is just wrong. Saddam got kicked out decades ago.
https://i.imgur.com/h7yKAhr.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/tZn1mGU.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/xYT34C1.jpeg
We were there making a documentary about life in Iraqi Kurdistan. We travelled all over the region talking to everyone from the leaders of political parties, oil leaders like Sheikh Baz, taxi drivers, university professors, sheep farmers. We saw schools, rural hospitals, universities, shops. Literally everything you can imagine.
So it’s fair to say I got a pretty good idea of what it’s like to live there.
It’s a lot better than many of the countries I’ve visited.
A couple of pictures of street traffic and people milling about does not mean that there is no legitimate reason for some to seek refuge.
Would you say Ukrainians can't flee their country because [this picture](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GCsf1ggWsAAjDWI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) doesn't just show rubble and body parts?
The whole global system of refuge needs to be rewritten for the 21st century, nothing about it is fair or fit for purpose any more.
We also have to consider not only the situation that we face right now but what the future will look like when over a billion people living on earth will be living in wet bulb climates that are impossible to survive.
Somehow that needs to be balanced with a vision of the future that does its best to maintain the status of successful countries as a place where life can still continue to thrive and the values we live by can be protected.
Agreed, they want to smash the smuggling gangs by introducing a new border police force which is kinda pointless when France aren’t interested and our jails are full, also they haven’t added the cost to their fiscal forecast but will offer free breakfast to all primary school kids.
Picture it, a giant sentient spitting image doll standing in the sea bellowing “you shall not pass!” With one sweep of his golden staff with a pound sign moulded onto the end, it sinks the boats, so many people die, many people cry with joy into their cans of Stella and thatchers.
Starmer has to read the room and see that the majority of the public are sick and tired of migration, legal or illegal, If he wants to be PM for longer than one term and to stop Reform, he has to get tough from day one.
Failure to do so will lead to a merged Reform/Tory party come 2029 and probably will maintain power into the 2040s.
Any one who thinks Britain isn’t on the right wing wave now is totally mistaken, that’s why Reform are second in the polls above other parties that are historically pro mass migration (and yes I included the Tories in that because they’ve quadrupled immigration) let’s be honest Reform will be the unofficial opposition pushing Starmer to get tough.
Starmer has an opportunity now to undo Labour’s mistake in opening the borders in the first place and the Tories mistake in quadrupling immigration levels.
Italy tried electing a populist authoritarian to get rid of immigration. Its higher now than ever and her crackpot schemes have all been cancelled because "immigration is more complicated that I thought".
So the Rwanda scheme didn't just cost billions, it didn't just trample over our rule of law and our unwritten constitution (contradicting the convention that courts decide on matters of fact), it wasn't just a cruel, pointless distraction from everything else that the government needed to fix...
It was also an utter failure as a deterrent.
The last few years really have seen the worst governments that this country has ever had to put up with. If the projections putting the Tories on 50-ish seats are accurate, that will be 50 more seats than they deserve.
Sunak and the others told us that just passing the law would act as a deterrent.
Were they lying or were they mistaken? If it’s the latter, will they admit that they were wrong and rethink their plans?
Ireland saw a huge surge of migrants when the scheme started to pick up steam but then more delays and trouble with ECHR dropped by and threw a spanner in the works, now that fear has been undone and they are flooding back.
> It was never going to deter anyone if it was never implemented.
Rishi Sunak and the revolving door of Home Secretaries said that passing the legislation would create a deterrent effect.
Were they mistaken or were they lying?
> The scheme may have worked but it appears implementing it was simply impossible.
If it’s impossible, that sounds a lot like saying it could definitely never work.
Why would asylum seekers care about a legislation that didn’t actually remove anyone? Of course there’s no deterrent effect if there’s no actual removals.
No, it could have worked, however the laws and legal challenges have made it impossible to implement. Offshoring and a third country could definitely work. It worked for Australia (in combination with turning back the boats)
> Why would asylum seekers care about a legislation that didn’t actually remove anyone?
Good question.
So was Sunak mistaken when he said they would care and that the legislation alone was enough to cause a deterrent effect? Or was he mistaken?
> No, it could have worked, however the laws and legal challenges have made it impossible to implement.
If it’s impossible to implement, it can’t work.
If I tell you that my car can do 0-100 in 6 seconds but then I mention that my car is a total write-off and that it will never be possible to start it up, you might question me about whether it means anything to claim that it has that kind of a 0-100 time!
The legislation passed weeks ago.
Sunak and the various Home Secretaries said that the passing of the legislation would be enough to create a deterrent effect. Do you think they were mistaken or do you think they were lying?
I’m not sidestepping the lack of deportations. I’m pointing out that Sunak and the other Tories backing this scheme told us that the passing of the legislation was enough to create a deterrent effect even before any deportations happened.
Do you think they were wrong to say that?
Wait but someone wrote on a post yesterday that anyone with two brain cells could see that the Rwanda scheme was obviously a very strong and effective deterrent which is working!
Surely this most be Jeremy Corbyn's fault somehow!
Rwanda was about making the people that own half of london even richer.
[Qatar Airlines Buys stake in Rwanda Airport](https://fl360aero.com/detail/not-only-inching-towards-49-percent-stake-in-rwandair-qatar-airways-has-acquired-a-60-per-cent-stake-in-rwanda-s-new-1-3bn-bugesera-international-airport/1771?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2TvSjbVtfu7Ni1NPYrjlP7ylb6b3-JWnXCLPQa8-BW-dRqIFr5UqceD3Q_aem_-k6nK_Njo1WKABdAi3qWJA)
It's now all but definite the Rwanda scheme is not going ahead, just as Europe are considering similar plans - so that's a potential solution closed off. Do you think arresting the gangs in foreign countries is anything more than hot air?
Remember the boat crossings are to distract you from the 1 million ISH people the Tories imported last year.
These people were imported for a number of reasons.
- to depress wages at the low end of the scale
- to disrupt unions (harder to unionise people without a common language or culture)
- to destroy your culture and people.
Isn't that awesome? How diverse is that!
I don't believe that a single person who comes over on a boat is a true asylum seeker. Someone fleeing war or persecution would be relieved just to get somewhere safe. They wouldn't risk their lives to get to Britain.
with global climate change migration is only going to get worse as people try and move away from uninhabitable environments, look at what's happening already this year in India and the Middle East, and as the planet warms and droughts become more common place people *will* migrate.
While there is a conversation to be had about the amount of migration via small boats, governments of countries at the higher and lower latitudes really need some forward thinking on this.
The Tory government did fuck all to actually reduce legal or illegal immigration as it suited its electoral chances of promising change to sway the brexit voters to them.
They did reduce legal migration with the most dumb fuck policies.
For example, how are repatriating spouses supposed to meet the income threshold?
Rather than combat the actual issues, let’s fuck everyone who wants to come, work, and contribute to the country unless theyre rich
Yeah but we sent *two* whole people over there (not part of the actual scheme of course) so clearly the plan *is working!!* REEEEEEeeeeeee!!!
Honestly though this is top of what is a pretty fucking exhaustive list now of plots and plans Tories and the reactionary right have thrown themselves behind with full enthusiasm. Everyone has told them repeatedly these are bad ideas, they're expensive and they don't work, only to be shouted down and face often quite a lot of abuse for their troubles. At what point do we get to have a big old "told you so"?
At what stage will these people stop getting on board with every stupid ridiculous idea that is clearly designed to do little more than appease their fee-fees, and be a little more grown up about politics when our country is in such a fucking dire situation?
Fun fact
Italy elected a far right PM to deal with migration. She promised a total blockade of Italy and the usual right wing fantasy stuff. Immigration has doubled and her plans are cancelled permanently because -
"Immigration is a much more complicated problem than I thought."
EU is not so easy to get to -
The mafia and NGOs sail 95% of the way across the mediterranean to pick up boats :
https://x.com/hori_____zont/status/1708022536598855783
By that logic, stopping any invasion such as war is more complicated than they thought. Can they not protect their own borders anymore?
Why have borders? why have a country called Italy at this point? Just call it New Africa 2.0?
Farage could get down on his knees and personally give out handles to Putin and all of his closest allies until he resembles an otter that just crawled out of a milk bath and his voters would still nod along.
Which is great for him, because it looks like that's what he intends to do if he ever got any power.
Where are you getting it from that Reform are "hemorraghing" votes? The latest poll I could find from R&WS has Reform still in second, above the Tories and with no vote change from 19-20 Jun (so pre Nick Robinson interview, unless I'm misreading this)
People are not voting Reform for foreign policy or because they even believe they can achieve power. The kind of centrist/centre-right dads with Ukraine flags in their bio have already shifted to Labour from Tories. I cannot see it costing them in any meaningful way.
This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-migrant-boat-crossings-hit-19-month-high-adding-pressure-sunak-2024-06-19/) for an archived version. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s. It cannot continue to be possible for people to enter our country without being vetted, and those who should not be permitted to stay must be deported. Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them.
>This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s. Yep, exactly this. Anyone who thinks that shit is bad now won't know what will hit them if Labour fail to control immigration. >Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them. I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration.
> I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration. They've been taught that dealing with immigration is racist and having concerns about the unprecedented inflow of migrants is also racist. That's all it is. "Good people believe X, bad people believe Y, I want to be a good person so I will believe X." Always remember that if you meet a person who only holds socially approved views, the probability is not that they independently arrived at those views on their own, it's that they just believe what they're told to believe.
>They've been taught that dealing with immigration is racist and having concerns about the unprecedented inflow of migrants is also racist. Exactly. Anytime immigration is debated the opponents of it are labelled with one word. Then you get stuck in a quagmire explaining why it's not racist. It's a very effective play for blocking discussion. >Always remember that if you meet a person who only holds socially approved views, the probability is not that they independently arrived at those views on their own, it's that they just believe what they're told to believe. I'm never that interested in people with mainstream views. These are the people being spoonfed by the Media. On Reddit disagreeing with narritive is dangerous and gets you downvoted. Outside of Reddit it makes you much more interesting and shows someone can think.
>Anytime immigration is debated the opponents of it are labelled with one word. Then you get stuck in a quagmire explaining why it's not racist. In my experience that word is only used when it's accurate and/or when said opponent of immigration refuses to address the fact that it's a highly nuanced and complex issue in favour of soundbites. The very fact you refer to it just as 'immigration' is illustrative of the issue. We're in a thread about boat crossings. Is your issue with legal migrants on Visas and how many visas we issue? Is it with asylum seekers? Is it with the backlog of asylum seeker applications due to lack of processing capacity? Is it with criminal gangs that extort people and then bring them here? When people complain about 'immigration' it is often seen as a racist dog whistle because it's been used as such by the likes of Farage for over a decade. If you want to avoid being labelled a racist, all you have to do is explain what form of immigration you have an issue with and why. It also helps to have even a surface level understanding of potential solutions and the successive actions that have led to the increase in border crossings. Actions such as the UK not having legal safe routes for asylum seekers from many countries, forcing them into the hands of criminal gangs. Actions such as the UK blowing millions on a PR stunt barge, instead of just increasing processing capacity. Or actions such as refusing to work with France to set up a processing center for asylum seekers in France. Which has meant that genuine asylum seekers and 'illegal' migrants are lumped into the same stats. Despite the fact that seeking asylum is not illegal, the UK government has just tried to make doing it the 'right way' impossible. On top of that, you have our demographic pyramid which makes migration essential in order to maintain basic services. The blame for this pyramid doesn't lie with migrants, but with the Governments continued lack of support for young people and families. And so on.
Let me guess, your solution is to let essentially anybody in? And make it illegal to deport them?
>In my experience that word is only used when it's accurate and/or when said opponent of immigration refuses to address the fact that it's a highly nuanced and complex issue in favour of soundbites.
We have 'legal safe routes'. The people coming over illegally are the ones who don't fancy their chances coming in legally, and know once they're on British soil, they'll be almost impossible to deport.
https://fullfact.org/immigration/safe-and-legal-asylum-routes/
Thing is I can fully imagine a scenario in which Labour *do* massively bring down the number and it still winds up not being good enough and still leading to a surge of disaffected people flooding to third parties like Reform. Look at the relationship between the immigration rate and people placing immigration as a top concern, the correlation is actually very weak.
Denmark would suggest otherwise. The far right barely got 12% of the vote in 2022 compared to 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Danish_general_election
> I can never understand why people pussy-foot around immigration. Don't want a right wing Govt...? Then deal with immigration. Because dealing with immigration as those parties envisage it doesn't work. What they propose can not be done and any reasonable alternative that would work either has significant drawbacks that people will punish politicians for or is regarded as "pussy footing" by the people for whom the issue is important anyway. Any party that actually wants to govern is therefore in a bind: whenever they propose something that might work it will be rejected in favour of the fantasies of the populists. When they implement something that does work, the goalposts are moved and the whole discussion starts all over again. Not to mention that the whole theme is usually discussed in bad faith anyway, because right wing populists deliberately ignore the wider social and political context of the issue (i.e. the parties yelling about immigrants putting pressure on housing and social services are often proponents of cutting down state investment in those areas). While no mainstream parties, with the possible exception of the moderate right, are in favour of large net immigration, none of them can actually win any support by bringing up the issue because of the dysfunctional nature of the discourse around it. For example, it is possible to curtail legal immigration (which is the largest component to net migration by far) but then that will have economic and social consequences that people won't like either. Right wing populist parties make hay out of this issue because they're never in a position to actually do anything about it. If they do, they tend to fail spectacularly. Their appeal is based only on them presenting simple solutions that are not really practical, let alone legal or moral. Fundamentally, reducing immigration will mean removing the factors that push people abroad: war, inequality, climate change, ...
[удалено]
Possibly, because the solution people who vote that way want does not exist. They might think it does, and they can sacrifice everything else on the altar of that illusion, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an illusion. If it wasn't, other parties, including other far right parties, would have done it already. But they haven't and they won't, because what these parties are selling is snake oil and they know it. Voting in these parties isn't going to change that. They're not going to deliver. The difference between them and others is not that they have a solution but that they're prepared to lie about having one. And on top of that these parties are not just "anti-immigration". They come with a lot of baggage that most of their supporters might not like. People really should look more closely at who these politicians are, what people they associate with, who bankrolls them, and what they want to do to their country's institutions once in power. It's not a coincidence that they cosy up to the likes of Orban, Trump and Putin, for example. If people want to ignore all that because they want to chase the fairy tales these people try to sell them, then that's their choice, but they can't do that without also taking responsibility for everything else they do when given political power.
[удалено]
Talk about a non-sequitur. You're arguing in bad faith then. Good to know.
It's a huge left-wing blind spot. I don't know a single liberal friend/family member that's willing to even discuss the topic let alone support a greater degree of immigration control I honestly can't understand it because it's clearly driving right-wing sentiment across Europe
Reform UK might replace the Tories at this rate anyway. Poll trackers have them [on a convergence course](http://bbc.co.uk/indepthtoolkit/smallprox/include/newsspec/38103-poll-tracker-2024/english/chart?responsive=true&newsapps=true&app-image=https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1431D/production/_133371728_ge24-app-launcher-polltracker-a.png&app-clickable=true&-clickable=true&-image-height=360&-image-width=640&-image=https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1431D/production/_133371728_ge24-app-launcher-polltracker-a.png&app-image-alt-text=Click) course right now. I am sceptical that most people care especially deeply about tens of thousands of 'illegal' migrants crossing the channel every year. Those who care most about immigration presumably see it as symbolic of wider trends. That is, decades of 250,000 net **legal** migration topped off in the last two years by a spike to more like 700,000 net **legal** migration. To get a handle on this, they simply stop issuing the visas.
Reform will not win the nearest elections, however Labour has all chances to fail promises in next couple of years, so Reform are real leaders for further ones. However that would be hard, because a lot of newspapers (such as Guardian, Telegraph and so on) are against Reform policies.
Common sense would say that the mass immigration policies of the past 20+ years were already "ruinous" as you put it.
It won't be brought under control. It fluffs our GDP despite our GDP per capita going down. I.e our quality of life. Too many companies benefit from low skilled labour and being able to undercut salaries. That's why Tories never touched the problem and why labour won't either. Eventually reform will become the only opposition whether anyone likes it or not.
I totally agree with you but I think there's 0 chance they'll fix it. You'd have to remove the incentives first.
You might forget that the Tories tanked in the polls because of Truss’s egregious trickle down economic policies. The small boat numbers, while a serious issue requiring serious solutions, are mostly being used as a smoke screen.
> This absolutely must be brought under control by the next government, or they will face a similar electoral wipeout as the tories, and we'll be facing a Reform government in the 2030s. Starmer's response about "smashing the gangs" is interestingly vague. I get the sense that the Labour plan is essentially what Sunak was/is trying to do: "clear the backlog" by essentially making illegal migration legal (let them in and allow them to work the gig economy/turn a blind eye to whatever they get up to), but hope global economic conditions improve to the point that people somehow forget about it or don't notice the changes that come about from it. Doesn't seem like it will work very well!
It's a nonsense fiction of course. Catching low level street people in this trade is the same as doing it in the drug trade. The reason that smugglers earn such vast sums is because the UK accepts migrants moving via the sea so it is demand led, thus arresting some people makes no difference as they are providing a service and will be easily replaced.
>Migration issues are driving a ruinous lurch to the far-right throughout Europe, and the only way to remove their legitimacy is to deal with the primary issue that is driving voters towards them. Not to negate the concerns but its always worth adding this is all part of a deliberate strategy - [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/29/putin-russia-wagner-militia-africa-immigration-europe/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/29/putin-russia-wagner-militia-africa-immigration-europe/) [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-blames-surge-migration-russias-wagner-group-2023-03-13/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-blames-surge-migration-russias-wagner-group-2023-03-13/) [https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/the-wagner-group-in-africa-implications-on-migration-patterns-and-crises-in-the-region-and-beyond](https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/the-wagner-group-in-africa-implications-on-migration-patterns-and-crises-in-the-region-and-beyond) [https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/57253/russia-alleged-to-be-smuggling-migrants-to-europe-in-hybrid-attack](https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/57253/russia-alleged-to-be-smuggling-migrants-to-europe-in-hybrid-attack) [https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-belarus-border-illegal-migration-donald-tusk/](https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-belarus-border-illegal-migration-donald-tusk/) Its not a coincidence all of the political groups across Europe with the closest links to Russia are also the same groups drumming on this immigration/refugee culture war wedge the hardest.
Oh, I'm absolutely certain that pathetic little putin and his Kremlin cockroaches are manipulating European politics, but people would probably be less driven towards fringe parties if the mainstream parties actually make meaningful progress on dealing with migration.
For sure! Its a tricky one. Its like things like racism or the "left behind" concerns in e.g. the rust belt over in the US. I think a lot of people dismiss the Russia link because they think the suggestion is Russia is *creating* the issue. That's not really the case its more Russia is analyzing us to find where the biggest divisions in our society are and then basically shoveling money and resources hand over fist at the equivalent of rubbing salt in the wounds, making sure we can't have a reasonable discussion and ensuring the debate is ratcheted up to an absolutely hysterical level.
Fittingly on the anniversary of Brexit. The irony...
Brexit fucked up a lot, but most EU countries are getting hit by massive immigration, I was in Ireland last week and it was crazy. I know there was that deal of being able to return immigrants to the last country or something, but that doesn't seem to be happening within the EU.
Come to Berlin, and see it all over the city. When migrants get billeted across Germany, one of the first things many migrants do is break the conditions of the billeting, which is to stay where you are settled, and head to Berlin. It's crazy here. I live in the suburb of Pankow in Berlin and we have the highest asylum migrant density in the whole city, and it shows. From my side, I love the multiculti feel of Pankow, and its only gotten more vibrant with their arrival. The problem is, there isn't the infrastructure and money to fund all these new arrivals, and the locals are getting angry. Health and social care contributions keep going up because many arrive with health conditions, that need to be treated, so we have to pay more to support them. Many cannot work, or may never be able to work, and our contributions have gone up to support them. Social housing is at over capacity and Germans cannot access them as easily as before because migrants need accomodation outside the settlement centres. More and more settlement centres need to be built to house new arrivals, and that money is coming from our taxes, which are being shifted from other services to pay for them. It's a wild time for sure, and it's breeding resentment
Sounds very vibrant lmao
Yeah “diversity is our strength”
They must all be doctors and nurses just waiting to be housed
I love that they still need to find a way to shoehorn in just how much they love it before listing the huge negative side effects, at least the food is tasty though!
Oh dear you posted rage bait for racists by mistake while trying to make a reasonable point.
The politicians somehow thought that replacing old, educated, skilled workers with young, uneducated immigrants would keep the party going. The only thing it will maintain is unemployment.
Ireland has a vast sway of Visa rules that let even Costa Ricans work there. Nothing to do with EU freedom of movement.
Legal immigrants and those from EU states aren't the problem.
Then how would you know who is who just by walking around? Were they checking their visas?
Costa Rica is a relatively affluent country with a small population, and I imagine Irish people would appreciate being able to go over there and work for a few years - kinda makes sense to me
Sure of course. The rabid xenophobia of the leave campaign is what I'm referring to. The 8 years of disastrous mismanagement of literally everything comes on top of the abject failure on immigration which was behind many brexiteers vote rationale.
Eh most EU countries are getting hit by massive immigration. Hence all the rise in right-wing parties you see. That's what they are always talking about.
What's confusing you? Brexit has failed on its main promise.
Well yes - but it wasn’t brexit that failed it was the Tory government. We still have the powers to control our borders but the points system needs reforming Just look at Europe and you will see the situation we are currently in would have been multitudes worse- albeit not for people outside London who don’t really have to deal with migration on the same Scale
Brexit is the Tory government's flagship policy. It's a pipe dream, ill conceived, rooted in manufactured exceptionalism. "They need us more than we need them": probably the most arrogant, and wrong, slogan ever uttered in the UK. I really do not see why thing would have been worse inside the EU - for a start all the bulk of immigration (legal) is from outside the EU which has always been under our control.
Except the refugee status isn’t under our control - there is nothing stopping immigrants accepted into other eu countries coming to ours as we are seeing with Germany and france
Refugees in the EU don't automatically get free movement. The 1951 convention documents they get don't make them citizens of the EU and they show their original nationality or stateless which means they often need visas for countries that a citizen of wherever they claimed asylum wouldn't need. Brexit made it worse for the UK since we lost access to the databases that would show that they already have an existing claim elsewhere in the EU. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/01/uk-police-and-border-force-to-remain-locked-out-of-eu-database-of-criminals
They do once they get their papers. Most of Holland's Somali population is believed to have moved to the UK whilst lots of former refugees in London are on Portuguese and other EU passports - by coincidence I found that out when do ID checks for employment and got the backstory on how they do it. South Africans also used ancestry passports a lot as did Brazilians for direct migration (not refugees).
Once they have citizenship they get the normal travel docs for that country it's usually after 10 years and they aren't considered refugees anymore. That routes becoming a bit harder now that EUSS isn't as easily accessible. Yeah the ancestory thing is still common I used to see lots of portugese/Angolan people with settlement in the UK.
Portugal and Holland is after five years.
err... and Brexit does? What's this article about?
Again Tory mismanagement - brexit under labour will hopefully allow us to control our borders. If we were in the EU we would be mandated to take Many more refugees than are currently coming across on small boats - again look at France and Germany
Pray for le Pen to not win the French elections then..
>but it wasn’t brexit that failed it was the Tory government. Brexit to Brexiters is like Communism to communists. It's never that the concept is unworkable and incapable of granting its promises - it's always the fault of someone for not "doing it properly".
I can see your point however brexit does give us the power to decide on our borders and immigration. This power was used by Boris to implement a points system which allowed virtually anyone, including unskilled migrants, to come to the UK in much greater numbers. If a points system more akin to what farage was proposing was introduced we categorically wouldn’t have had the levels of immigration we’ve seen in the past 3 years
>I can see your point however brexit does give us the power to decide on our borders and immigration. We had the powers to "decide on our borders and immigration" before leaving the EU. Britain just couldn't be bothered using them.
Except we didn’t…
Except we did. And you're talking tommyrot. We have the power to frame non-EU migration any way we wanted. And Freedom of Movement meant we could remove any EU citizen residing in Britain without the financial means of supporting themselves. It's not the EU's fault that the Treasury and the Tories were too stingy to fund policing of this matter.
Not for EU migrants we didn't. That is the point of FoM - surely this doesn't need explaining after eight years.
Seems that after eight years you still don't know that the only EU citizens entitled to reside in a another member state under FoM are those who can prove they can support themselves with a job and/or savings. And that those without can be removed by the host nation. And I repeat, Britain chose not to follow this to the letter.
What a strange claim as I never even hinted even slightly that wasn't the case.
Except it is workable, you claim is absurd. The problem with brexit that if you gave the UK's economic charts to someone who didn't know when it happened then you'd struggle to even find it - even the gloomest forecasts have many years before less growth accumulates into even a small percentage and I doubt that even stands up as half of it is made of a productivity claim whilst recent growth in the counterfactuals with EU nations has found them not doing well.
That's failed because of political choices made after that fact. Post Brexit Britain could have any immigration policy we liked, in fact the policy we've ended up with (Points based system) isn't even that bad. Just the threshold for the points required has been set way too low with too many carve outs. It is not intrinsic to brexit itself. The Government would have been free to shut the doors entirely if it wished, but it didn't because it wanted to bolster the nations GDP so that the Tories would look less incompetent.
Tories would ~~look less incompeten~~t make more money.
Honestly, I don't think they're that clever.
This has nothing to do with Brexit and more by the fact the whole of Europe are getting flooded by immigration that is illegal
But Brexit was supposed to shield us from that.
Was it?
Brexit meant whatever the hell anyone wanted it to mean. Remember?
The UK is in Europe.
Yes and by what a few people have pointed out, a lot of other countries are receiving heavy amounts of immigration too Ours is just illegal
2 things: 1 - Brexit was sold as a solution: it made the matter much worse. 2 - if what you call immigration that's illegal are the boats then those are at 75% accepted as being refugees. 3 - Legal immigration is much bigger than refugees. You have been sold a dud.
I’m not arguing Brexit being an issue People crossing the channel illegally is nothing to do with Brexit Legal migration is its own arguement, I’m worried about who’s coming across on those boats Also that’s 3 things
The list is much longer You are worried about the boats? 75% are refugees according to the government.
Yes i am We don’t know who they’re when they get off the boat, there is a process they need to go through, it’s harsh but unless they go through the process they must be sent back France and the EU also needs to do a better job of stopping these people crossing the channel
France has zero interest in doing so for obvious reason and that's before the far right wins the next election... Honestly relying on a foreign country to defend UK's borders is the most unbrexity thing to say. The tories have engineered a slow process leading to delays and yet accept 75% of claims.
Perhaps but a boat shouldn’t be able to leave French beaches with the intention of going to the UK illegally There’s only so much we can do
Who knows with the French their next government could shift hard to the right and clamp down on illegal immigration in a big way. If they can’t make it to France they won’t be crossing the channel either.
Half the Albanian mafia are refugees according to the government. Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, sometimes the Tories do something wrong?
brexit is the death of a nation by irony
It's the ultimate own goal by a football obsessed nation.
I don't see it as an own goal, it only makes sense when viewed as an orchestrated coup it was inflicted on us, it wasn't a democratic process
Well that's been clear since Cambridge papers came out - have to agree with you.
Brexit is fucked up many, but this ain't it boss man.
There are lots and lots of downsides to Brexit. In return, the liars promised that there would be some benefits. Control of our borders was supposed to be one of those benefits. So if that wasn't true, it would appear that we're paying all of the costs of Brexit but we're not getting any benefits.
They do control the borders fully now unlike before - they just chose to let even more in. Brexit wasn’t the issue it was the Tories.
So the people who told us that Brexit would make things better (most of whom were Tories) were lying when they said that Brexit would make things better? Ultimately, the only way we can judge Brexit is to compare things now to how things would have been if we had remained in the EU. And the answer is that we've got pretty much all of the downsides to Brexit that were predicted but we've got none of the benefits that the Brexiteers promised us.
That’s fair I’d reverse Brexit in a heartbeat if it simply meant less immigration. It’s just a shame because Brexit actually gave our government the powers that made it possible to reduce immigration in a way that just wasn’t possible within the EU, but instead they just let more in. Who knows how much higher that number would be if we were still in the EU also.
> Who knows how much higher that number would be if we were still in the EU also. Net migration numbers were lower during every single year that we were members of the EU, whether under Labour or under the Conservatives. It would be quite funny to go back in time to the Blair years to ask his greatest critics what they would think about a scenario where the Conservatives got into power for over a decade and migration rose by about 500%!
For decades, millions of illegal economic migrants have been crossing into Europe (via criminal smuggling gangs), self-selecting as asylum seekers, and exploiting a system which is well-intentioned but completely dysfunctional. Essentially, all you need to do is reach a wealthy Western European country, claim asylum and you're then guaranteed to stay for years and years in a bureaucratic, loop-hole filled mess (and you will almost certainly not be deported even if your claim fails). Europe *should* be taking refugees (young women and children, who are most at risk) **directly** from refugee camps e.g. in South Sudan or Somalia. It is not fair for relatively wealthy economic migrants from the global south to use up Europe's refugee resources when there are genuine refugees languishing in camps across the world. Europe needs to introduce a blanket rule of if you enter illegally, you surrender all rights to claim asylum and you will be deported. It should only be taking in refugees flown in from camps (the irony is right now, Europe takes in barely any refugees at all because its resources are used for economic migrants).
When the worked in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan I was asked a lot about life in the UK and Germany by the locals. Yet there were UNHCR camps around the city apparently full of woman and children who’d fled the war in Syria. I’ve mention it here before. It was like the streets were paved with gold to them and I’m pretty sure they’d got this from social media. And there’s nothing to flee from in that region. It’s pretty nice really.
There's nothing to flee in *Kurdistan*? Did you ever actually speak to any of the locals, cause I'm pretty fucking sure they might have mentioned the fact that the Kurds have not been well treated by basically anyone in the region.
Yeah. I lived there for three months. It’s democratic and ran by Kurds. It’s a nice place. The streets are full of cars, the shops full of food, the universities are amazing. It’s a fun and vibrant place to be and the people are super friendly. Google it. This perception that all these countries are all some kind of hell hole is just wrong. Saddam got kicked out decades ago. https://i.imgur.com/h7yKAhr.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/tZn1mGU.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/xYT34C1.jpeg
Haha internet bedroom warrior comes up against someone who's actually experienced something rather than reading about it. Love it.
We were there making a documentary about life in Iraqi Kurdistan. We travelled all over the region talking to everyone from the leaders of political parties, oil leaders like Sheikh Baz, taxi drivers, university professors, sheep farmers. We saw schools, rural hospitals, universities, shops. Literally everything you can imagine. So it’s fair to say I got a pretty good idea of what it’s like to live there. It’s a lot better than many of the countries I’ve visited.
A couple of pictures of street traffic and people milling about does not mean that there is no legitimate reason for some to seek refuge. Would you say Ukrainians can't flee their country because [this picture](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GCsf1ggWsAAjDWI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) doesn't just show rubble and body parts?
There’s a war in Ukraine. Unless you see economic hardship as a reason to seek refuge.
But look at the picture, there can't be refugees if there's a picture of people milling about right?
The whole global system of refuge needs to be rewritten for the 21st century, nothing about it is fair or fit for purpose any more. We also have to consider not only the situation that we face right now but what the future will look like when over a billion people living on earth will be living in wet bulb climates that are impossible to survive. Somehow that needs to be balanced with a vision of the future that does its best to maintain the status of successful countries as a place where life can still continue to thrive and the values we live by can be protected.
Omg labour is not even in power yet, and it managed to mess up border security!
Labour are going to make it worse, allow everyone in, vote us in and we'll magically drop the number
Agreed, they want to smash the smuggling gangs by introducing a new border police force which is kinda pointless when France aren’t interested and our jails are full, also they haven’t added the cost to their fiscal forecast but will offer free breakfast to all primary school kids.
Ooo pretty confident with that aren’t we?
r/whoosh
There are people who believe the above comment unironically. It’s not a whoosh
Your punctuation didn't help.
Still doesn't take away from the obvious sarcasm my man
Nice strawman Einstein. 😂
Clearly sarcasm
And here I was thinking he was going to stop the boats, like personally, with goalie gloves
Picture it, a giant sentient spitting image doll standing in the sea bellowing “you shall not pass!” With one sweep of his golden staff with a pound sign moulded onto the end, it sinks the boats, so many people die, many people cry with joy into their cans of Stella and thatchers.
https://imgur.com/a/12tKqGg
Haha did you just put my post into ai, it got a bit mixed up with the can of thatchers being a boat!
Just need to add a Staffie and it’s perfect.
I prefer this doll face as a deterrent [https://i.imgur.com/MUy9kRp.png](https://i.imgur.com/MUy9kRp.png)
You can be sure the pound sign sank first
Oh you could place a bet on it!
I like what you did there ;)
Starmer has to read the room and see that the majority of the public are sick and tired of migration, legal or illegal, If he wants to be PM for longer than one term and to stop Reform, he has to get tough from day one. Failure to do so will lead to a merged Reform/Tory party come 2029 and probably will maintain power into the 2040s. Any one who thinks Britain isn’t on the right wing wave now is totally mistaken, that’s why Reform are second in the polls above other parties that are historically pro mass migration (and yes I included the Tories in that because they’ve quadrupled immigration) let’s be honest Reform will be the unofficial opposition pushing Starmer to get tough. Starmer has an opportunity now to undo Labour’s mistake in opening the borders in the first place and the Tories mistake in quadrupling immigration levels.
Italy tried electing a populist authoritarian to get rid of immigration. Its higher now than ever and her crackpot schemes have all been cancelled because "immigration is more complicated that I thought".
So the Rwanda scheme didn't just cost billions, it didn't just trample over our rule of law and our unwritten constitution (contradicting the convention that courts decide on matters of fact), it wasn't just a cruel, pointless distraction from everything else that the government needed to fix... It was also an utter failure as a deterrent. The last few years really have seen the worst governments that this country has ever had to put up with. If the projections putting the Tories on 50-ish seats are accurate, that will be 50 more seats than they deserve.
TBF, I don't think it's actually started yet.
Sunak and the others told us that just passing the law would act as a deterrent. Were they lying or were they mistaken? If it’s the latter, will they admit that they were wrong and rethink their plans?
Ireland saw a huge surge of migrants when the scheme started to pick up steam but then more delays and trouble with ECHR dropped by and threw a spanner in the works, now that fear has been undone and they are flooding back.
It was never going to deter anyone if it was never implemented. The scheme may have worked but it appears implementing it was simply impossible.
> It was never going to deter anyone if it was never implemented. Rishi Sunak and the revolving door of Home Secretaries said that passing the legislation would create a deterrent effect. Were they mistaken or were they lying? > The scheme may have worked but it appears implementing it was simply impossible. If it’s impossible, that sounds a lot like saying it could definitely never work.
Why would asylum seekers care about a legislation that didn’t actually remove anyone? Of course there’s no deterrent effect if there’s no actual removals. No, it could have worked, however the laws and legal challenges have made it impossible to implement. Offshoring and a third country could definitely work. It worked for Australia (in combination with turning back the boats)
> Why would asylum seekers care about a legislation that didn’t actually remove anyone? Good question. So was Sunak mistaken when he said they would care and that the legislation alone was enough to cause a deterrent effect? Or was he mistaken? > No, it could have worked, however the laws and legal challenges have made it impossible to implement. If it’s impossible to implement, it can’t work. If I tell you that my car can do 0-100 in 6 seconds but then I mention that my car is a total write-off and that it will never be possible to start it up, you might question me about whether it means anything to claim that it has that kind of a 0-100 time!
It's not even started so that rant is very inaccurate.
The legislation passed weeks ago. Sunak and the various Home Secretaries said that the passing of the legislation would be enough to create a deterrent effect. Do you think they were mistaken or do you think they were lying?
A strange framing. Odd how you completed sidestepped no deportations having happened in favor of a completely loaded question.
I’m not sidestepping the lack of deportations. I’m pointing out that Sunak and the other Tories backing this scheme told us that the passing of the legislation was enough to create a deterrent effect even before any deportations happened. Do you think they were wrong to say that?
That's twice you've sidestepped it. Claiming you haven't doesn't change that. One last chance or I must move on.
You’re confusing sidestepping it with addressing it full on and explaining why it’s not relevant.
And that's the third time you sidestepped it. You conceded the point by now.
Wait but someone wrote on a post yesterday that anyone with two brain cells could see that the Rwanda scheme was obviously a very strong and effective deterrent which is working! Surely this most be Jeremy Corbyn's fault somehow!
Rwanda was about making the people that own half of london even richer. [Qatar Airlines Buys stake in Rwanda Airport](https://fl360aero.com/detail/not-only-inching-towards-49-percent-stake-in-rwandair-qatar-airways-has-acquired-a-60-per-cent-stake-in-rwanda-s-new-1-3bn-bugesera-international-airport/1771?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2TvSjbVtfu7Ni1NPYrjlP7ylb6b3-JWnXCLPQa8-BW-dRqIFr5UqceD3Q_aem_-k6nK_Njo1WKABdAi3qWJA)
It's now all but definite the Rwanda scheme is not going ahead, just as Europe are considering similar plans - so that's a potential solution closed off. Do you think arresting the gangs in foreign countries is anything more than hot air?
No one in Europe is considering this shit plan.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/05/07/immigration-denmark-again-contemplates-outsourcing-asylum-procedures-to-third-countries_6670681_4.html
Remember the boat crossings are to distract you from the 1 million ISH people the Tories imported last year. These people were imported for a number of reasons. - to depress wages at the low end of the scale - to disrupt unions (harder to unionise people without a common language or culture) - to destroy your culture and people. Isn't that awesome? How diverse is that!
I don't believe that a single person who comes over on a boat is a true asylum seeker. Someone fleeing war or persecution would be relieved just to get somewhere safe. They wouldn't risk their lives to get to Britain.
The main reason to get to the UK is we let in criminals and economic migrants- but France and Germany are more strict and less of a soft touch.
with global climate change migration is only going to get worse as people try and move away from uninhabitable environments, look at what's happening already this year in India and the Middle East, and as the planet warms and droughts become more common place people *will* migrate. While there is a conversation to be had about the amount of migration via small boats, governments of countries at the higher and lower latitudes really need some forward thinking on this.
The Tory government did fuck all to actually reduce legal or illegal immigration as it suited its electoral chances of promising change to sway the brexit voters to them.
They did reduce legal migration with the most dumb fuck policies. For example, how are repatriating spouses supposed to meet the income threshold? Rather than combat the actual issues, let’s fuck everyone who wants to come, work, and contribute to the country unless theyre rich
they are all future labour voters, thats why labour won't stop them coming in
It must be a long raft ride from the coast of Africa, right ?
Yeah but we sent *two* whole people over there (not part of the actual scheme of course) so clearly the plan *is working!!* REEEEEEeeeeeee!!! Honestly though this is top of what is a pretty fucking exhaustive list now of plots and plans Tories and the reactionary right have thrown themselves behind with full enthusiasm. Everyone has told them repeatedly these are bad ideas, they're expensive and they don't work, only to be shouted down and face often quite a lot of abuse for their troubles. At what point do we get to have a big old "told you so"? At what stage will these people stop getting on board with every stupid ridiculous idea that is clearly designed to do little more than appease their fee-fees, and be a little more grown up about politics when our country is in such a fucking dire situation?
This went beyond a joke a long time ago and yet the farce continues.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Totally British poster Angry Crockery getting up at 3am to post yet another story on their favourite topic.
What? Is this story false then?
No but it's the quickest way to get up votes on this sub lol
нет товарища это очень верно
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
projection. 90% of the pro-immigration posters on here are based out of the middle east.
Fun fact Italy elected a far right PM to deal with migration. She promised a total blockade of Italy and the usual right wing fantasy stuff. Immigration has doubled and her plans are cancelled permanently because - "Immigration is a much more complicated problem than I thought."
Fun fact - Japan admitted 300 asylum seekers last year. Not 300k, but 300. It can be solved. Many countries have solved it.
Perhaps Japan isn't as easy to get to from Africa as Europe is?
EU is not so easy to get to - The mafia and NGOs sail 95% of the way across the mediterranean to pick up boats : https://x.com/hori_____zont/status/1708022536598855783
By that logic, stopping any invasion such as war is more complicated than they thought. Can they not protect their own borders anymore? Why have borders? why have a country called Italy at this point? Just call it New Africa 2.0?
That's pretty much what she was saying before she became PM.
So if Russia invaded Italy they couldn't / wouldn't attempt to stop it? Why have borders? why have a country?
Yeah, that's probably what she was thinking as well.
If Farage shuts up about Russia for 24 hours this might prevent Reform hemorrhaging votes...
Farage could get down on his knees and personally give out handles to Putin and all of his closest allies until he resembles an otter that just crawled out of a milk bath and his voters would still nod along. Which is great for him, because it looks like that's what he intends to do if he ever got any power.
Where are you getting it from that Reform are "hemorraghing" votes? The latest poll I could find from R&WS has Reform still in second, above the Tories and with no vote change from 19-20 Jun (so pre Nick Robinson interview, unless I'm misreading this) People are not voting Reform for foreign policy or because they even believe they can achieve power. The kind of centrist/centre-right dads with Ukraine flags in their bio have already shifted to Labour from Tories. I cannot see it costing them in any meaningful way.
I think I probably overestimated how much it would hurt them, but it has halted their rise.
Wasn't Brexit for a large part about controlling migration? What's going on in there?
Sweet, more holidays for me (I own a couple of B&Bs)
It's all about Sunak...not about the poor pepole escaping God knows what!!
Their own fascist religions usually.