Is the channel crossing crisis a global issue?

I would take in every girl and woman from Afghanistan. Not allowed to speak in public? Would that happen to any group of men?
I know we can't, but it illustrates the problem.

Yes they should be pressured on to make peace and respect human rights. That would stop many refugees from having to leave in the first place, and end corruption creating more economic opportunities for young people who’d otherwise migrate.

Peace, decelopment, rights. Many richer countries ranging from the UK, EU, China to the USA and others do lean on those source countries to do this - development aid, economic aid with conditions about improving human rights, - but it’s a long game. Involves diplomacy and building trusted relationships, trade deals, private sector investment. Too long for most short cycle politicians under pressure to show fast results.

Development aid is an important lever though but it’s often subject to cuts. China is actually good at this especially in Africa.

Countries choose their own regimes. If they choose a fascist theocracy, that's on them. No need to infantilise other nations.

It’s plain daft to think increasing legal routes would reduce numbers of others who select themselves.

Brexit is irrelevant.

This is business with a huge customer base and will not stop while humans in poorer countries know there are better places to live. The internet allows the business to operate. The lack of removals creates the draw.

Would the pro migrant people on here stomach a regime which returned anyone who arrived in a country illegally if those destination countries agreed to arrange a scheme of bringing over people who met criteria? (Women and children even!). There’s little capacity for the latter at the moment.

I always have to add that I have nothing against people who try and migrate for whatever reason. It’s so tiresome that anyone trying to get to grips with the issue is painted as a racist scumbag. I would happily see some families brought over from the Congo or Sudan conflicts in place of these young men from Albania etc.

Shouldn't the countries the people are coming from be made to fix the problem? The UK did not cause it

@Whothefuckdoesthat I'm glad you've posted that as the amount of times the Dublin agreement has been cited on these threads is high and it's not correct.

On what will happen maybe a while longer for the convention to fail, the EU will throw money at it to leaders who may be autocratic and problematic to get numbers down but it will keep driving upwards as the push gets greater

Parties are rising in power, eg the AfD but if they win in states others won't form a coalition with them. Perhaps when they don't need that we'll see a break

A new EU pact starts in 2026 which may change things

Starmer has created his own issue in going strong on smash the gangs and the UK will be more attractive and higher deaths. He seems to be thinking about Albania processing but there's no reason processing elsewhere will lead to a reduction

It would be nice, but I’m pretty certain it won’t make the slightest difference. I’ve seen so many posters talk about how awful it is that we’ve lost the ability to return people to Europe since Brexit and it’s just not true. Dublin was not the answer to lowering arrivals, like so many people think it was, and us withdrawing from it hasn’t caused the increase.

I hate to cite Wiki anything but the sources they use are on there and are reputable, so it’s convenient. ‘Of the 128,000 migrants, caught by German police near the borders in 2023, only 7.9% had been registered before by an another European County and the fingerprints of the rest could not be found in the Eurodac database.’ That means that Germany would only have been able to return 7.8% of asylum applicants, assuming they were able to meet the other conditions and in the timescale set out in the agreement. That barely touches the sides.

It’s nice to use it if you can, but it’s not doing huge amounts for Germany now, just as it didn’t do huge amounts for us when we had it. I don’t think the numbers support it being the huge loss that lots of people believe it to be.

I suppose we'll see if we ever make enough reciprocal arrangements to replace it.

I did see murmurs that some official in Germany was suggesting that they take over the facilities in Rwanda, which was shut down pretty quickly, but they are still having discussions about ‘…processing asylum applications in third countries under international humanitarian law and with support of the United Nations." according to the BBC. Do you think Germany will break from it? Or another country?

I’m very happy to stand corrected if you can find a better source of figures for removals under Dublin prior to us withdrawing from Brexit?

You might not like him, and that’s fair enough, but it’s still the case that the small boats aren’t down to Brexit. Many things are, but not the small boats.

I do think the next bogeyman to be given the special treatment will be boat-crossings/migration - to that end many things, including climate change will probably be front and centre. Trying to get people to give a toss about climate change is difficult but when you tie it neatly to the boogeyman, everyone's going to be drinking from cardboard straws.
Having said that, the world is getting worse and worse - climate instability, inequality, among other things will be difficult to reckon with. I'm not entirely sure what purpose a 'world forum' would serve. To be quite frank, this is very much the chickens coming home to roost.

Starmer's policy will prove problematic as the director of Amnesty International migration / refugee rights stated today the 'smash the gangs' will cause higher number of deaths in the Channel

Higher number of crossings and deaths will be difficult for him

You're correct this is not a Dublin agreement issue, the numbers were very low and the country has to accept people under certain conditions. We took more than we returned under that agreement.

On the question from the op I have thought International law will strain as we progress and today I wondered if a reputable country might break from it fairly soon which would break down the convention

Migration Watch? Fuck them and all who sail in them.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/andrew-green-a-divisive-peer-for-a-divided-time-9817055.html

@notimagain

ok maybe i was techinally wrong but hopefully ive made my point.

even when an opportunity is handed to the international politicians nothing is done. Nada. Not even a wimper about trying.

So, what hope is there when things are bobbling along with no easy (or at least easier) opportunity.

I think the UN are toothless. Be that by design or just international lethargy.

I might have missed it, but I can’t see that that report refers to the number of people returned under the Dublin Agreement? I can guarantee you that migrants and traffickers do not give a shit about whether or not the UK is or isn’t in the EU, or whether they can be returned to Europe under that agreement. Look at this report from Migration Watch. The numbers are tiny. Yet we didn’t withdraw from the EU until 2020. https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/444/transfers-of-asylum-seekers-from-the-uk-under-the-dublin-system#:~:text=There%20were%20just%20209%20transfers,4. These figures wouldn’t make sense if the increase in boats had anything to do with Brexit. The number of returns would have been much, much higher pre Brexit if Dublin was that effective.

The UK is searching freight in France and has invested a fortune in security and equipment to detect people. In comparison, a trafficker can just wander along to one of the local beaches, where there is no security, and pop 50 people in a boat, which would be a massive pain in the neck to do with a lorry unless they pay the driver to turn a blind eye. It’s quicker, it’s cheaper, there’s more chance of the boat making it to the UK and it’s safer for the traffickers than hanging round the port, where they can be watched.

Zero boat crossings before we voted for Brexit suggest otherwise.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4351994

"A key part of the issue is that the government failed to secure a post-Brexit returns agreement"

"the most effective way to stop more small boat crossings would be for the UK to agree new post-Brexit returns policy with France, and the wider EU"

"The report also claims that the argument that rising numbers of small boat crossings are creating the backlog of asylum claims, is not accurate. Instead, case worker understaffing at the Home Office, reliance on outdated systems and the abolition of six-month targets, are to blame."

Simply for the issue of channel crossings there is a solution, that doesn't need a global response.

Its a France and UK issue. France dont care cos they want rid of them so that leaves it as a UK issue. And yes it is a global humiliation but Starmer wont fix it given how wet he is.

Yes it's a global issue. Not an issue that a mere political party can solve sadly.

For info most if all authorities/airports suspended the "use or lose" slot rule for a big chunk of pandemic period.

I think a bit of confusion might have been caused by the fact there were flights with airline callsigns operating with no passengers but carrying a lot of freight.

There were also reports that a lot of flights flew empty to allow the carriers to maintain airport slots.

Good article in DT about the problem in the Canary Islands. It seems to be the most deadly route and has become more used since Italy reduced the boats coming from Tunisia.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/15/canary-islands-el-hierro-graveyard-small-boat-migrants/

@Feelingstrange2

A bit off topic but I have to comment on your claim that:

"During COVID the world's airplanes were grounded."..

They weren't.....

The reality was there was a massive reduction in commercial schedules across some regions (not all) and a fair number of passenger flights continued to operate because many individuals in what were deemed as essential roles had to travel long distances quickly.

Air freight certainly carried on, indeed demand for air freighting of essential items was such that some airlines were flying some really essential freight such as surgical masks and other items of PPE from overseas into UK in the cabins of passengerless airliners.

There’s another thread about this issue and the recent fatalities, and I gave all the reasons it wouldn’t work on there, but it was easy with Ukraine & Hong Kong because it was only two countries and we weren’t going to refuse any of them.

If we allow asylum applications from outside of the UK, it won’t stop the boats because people who are refused asylum will still want to come. But they’ll be trying harder to evade the authorities, which means taking bigger risks with weather, quality of vessels etc, which means more fatalities.

And safe passage means that anyone who is refused a visa but wouldn’t have gone on a boat, doesn’t have to simply stay where they are, they can just come to the UK and do whatever they like and we won’t be able to prevent it.

It is a global issue but until the UK does something useful to help the problem of people coming to the UK, then it seems a bit irresponsible to turn to the rest of the world for a solution.

This country should be providing safe routes and allow asylum applications from elsewhere. If they can manage it for all the Ukrainian refugees and all the people from Hong Kong, they can do it for people from the Middle East and Africa too.