Crossing the channel in boats

[MarshaBradyo]

Listening to radio re terrible situation on the water but also in camps in France

It all sounds very hard

What would you like to see happen?

@MarshaBradyo

Surely there is communication already given support with funds

I don’t see the point in stopping discussion over a mutual issue

Even if it gets some backs up

Well vote for a government that agrees with you. You can't control what the French do, whatever you may read in the Daily Mexpress. But you can tell the UK government what to do.

Presumably your strategy around parenting is to ignore what your kids get up to, but insist other parents follow your rules ?

Right now, a lot of life in the UK seems to be in spite of, not because of, our government.

NotIm yes I agree and listening to radio got the same impression

Re Daily Mail accusations it’s just usual snark I cant be bothered with as just pointless

To pp not to Imagain

Re DM part that is!

First victim to be named, Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59439533

no mention of id cards

A few statistics to ponder

In 2020, Germany received the largest number of asylum applicants among EU countries (122,000),
followed by France (93,200),
Spain (88,500),
Greece (40,600),
and Italy (26,500). Together, these top five countries received 79% of asylum applications in the EU27.

For comparison in 2019 (latest figures ) the UK had 46,100 applications ,half the number of France ,.

Applications per 10,000 population in EU countries and the UK in 2020 were Cyprus 84 per 10,000 people , followed by Malta (48), Greece (38), Luxembourg (21), and Spain (19).

The UK had 6 asylum applicants per 10,000 .

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01403/SN01403.pdf

"According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by the end of 2018 there were 126,720 refugees, 45,244 pending asylum cases and 125 stateless persons in the UK."

"That’s around one quarter of a percent (0.26%) of the UK’s total population."

"People seeking asylum are not allowed to claim benefits or work in the UK. If they are destitute and have no other means of supporting themselves, they can apply to receive asylum support. This is set at around £5.66 per day"
www.refugee-action.org.uk/about/facts-about-refugees/

Very interesting @peridito , but to make it a true reflection I think the size of the countries are relevant compared to the figures

@workwoes123

Macron hasn’t “cancelled” BJ. He has said that he is not being serious in his approach to this. To be “serious” in the french context is a bit different to that in English. To be “pas sérieuse”, especially in a formal context (business, politics et) means to be acting inappropriately, not following the correct procedure for a situation, not acting like a grown up, taking the piss a bit, making a fool of the other person. Certainly, issuing a series of demands on twitter rather than sitting down like adults to discuss something would fall into that category.

The phrase that we'd use in a work context here would be 'unprofessional conduct'. You know, the dickhead office joker who uses his unfathomable position as boss to turn up late to meetings, looking like he's just walked out of a year 1 end of term party (with his shirt untucked, petit filous smeared over his jumper, a giant tear in the knee of his school trousers and finger paints in his hair and left nostril, making animal noises and shouting 'you're a poo bum' at everybody), then checking his phone in the middle of a meeting when he isn't saying things like 'That's what she said' and 'fnar fnar' when someone uses phrases like 'we need to get on top of this'.

The sort of person you don't bother having meetings with if you can get out of them because they are just a waste of time - and he'll invariably be overheard in his office telling others a completely fictional account of how he completely mastered the meeting and saved the company with his superior intelligence and wit before falling asleep at his desk after lunch.

@WayneKorr yes I agree ,but don't the figures per 10,000 of population show applications relative to size of country ? Or are you thinking geographical not population size ?

Applications per 10,000 population in EU countries and the UK in 2020 were Cyprus 84 per 10,000 people , followed by Malta (48), Greece (38), Luxembourg (21), and Spain (19).

The UK had 6 asylum applicants per 10,000 .

In 2020, the UK registered 5.78 asylum seekers and refugees per 10,000 inhabitants, compared with 16.93 for France, 19.52 for Germany and 60.57 for Greece

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/25/fingers-pointed-across-the-channel-as-deaths-renew-uk-france-blame-game#:~:text=France%20also%20grates%20at%20moral,Germany%20and%2060.57%20for%20Greece

Sadly there are many millions of people who live in in poor conditions and would choose to move to the UK with their families. The channel migrants are only a fraction of the strongest/richest/most driven of these people.

We need to help other parts of the world be better places to live. No idea how though.

The sort of person you don't bother having meetings

I find this a bit silly tbh.

It wasn’t even him going.

Macron does have form for reacting like this - Aus deal

[quote Frymetothemoon]@IntermittentParps

Because in the EU countries I've lived in, you basically cannot function unless you are properly registered. You can't have a bank account, a phone, a legal job, a car, insurance, proper healthcare, etc.

I just think it would be far more difficult to operate outside the system in these countries than it is in the UK, that's all.[/quote]
Have you tried to get a job, bank account, rent a home, register with a new GP practice or even pick up a delivery from the post office in recent years without a birth certificate issued at the time of birth, passport or driving licence? It's hard enough for poor people to access these things when they've lived here all their lives, their ancestors are traceable back to 1846 and there is no doubt they're British born and of English origin if they don't have the money up front and somebody to complete a passport application. And if your face is brown/your accent is not quite English, you're also going to have even more difficulty - the Windrush scandal is still going on, FGS.

@MarshaBradyo

The sort of person you don't bother having meetings

I find this a bit silly tbh.

It wasn’t even him going.

Macron does have form for reacting like this - Aus deal

You can’t let the personality side of this go can you Marsha?

Imagine what the response would have been in the UK if there had been AUFRUS deal that was deliberately engineered and discussed in great secrecy to undermine an existing BAe contract….

I suspect many British voters would hope Mr Johnson would behave in robust manner……

I can’t accept what people are saying no. Macron has made a mistake and has been reactive. I’ve been listening to various speakers say the same - French / Labour even

The formal channels were followed and the information acknowledged

Is there a formal arrangement around secrecy on this?

In any case, We have relatives in Australia but that doesn’t give us the right to live there. If we wanted to we would have to apply through the proper channels and fulfill the criteria. We couldn’t just rock up.

@Newnameneededxx you have no reason to need to rock up.

If you'd lost everything, your home, your security, your safety and you massively feared for your children, where would you want to head? If just 20 miles meant the difference between a country that was treating you badly, where you didn't speak the language, and where you'd continue to be homeless, or Australia where you had family woul would take you in and keep you and your children safe, what would you do?

@Kayjay2018

My dad happened to be fishing on a beach in the uk on Wednesday when the uk lifeboat brought a dinghy extremely overloaded with migrants safely to the coast to be met by Border Force. He has always been of the send them back to France attitude until that day. As they unloaded the people, all he could hear were children crying and screaming, so very distressed by their experience, some the age of my daughter so about 18 months old (which I think is why this really hit him harder than normal- he has seen a few boats of adults come in before). He said they sounded so very scared it really really hit him just how desperate you have to be to get on one of these dinghy with your children, he was really tearful telling me about it.

I don't think there is any quick and easy fix otherwise it would have been done years ago. I only hope that this tragedy will bring out the human side to the crisis, give people a name, some details of their lives, there is more to them all than when we are shown them on tv living in a tent on the French coast. The first victim was a 24 year old woman trying to reach her fiancé, not an anonymous person who won't be missed by anyone. Maybe more people will be able to relate to these people and some kind of solution can be found.

I think this is what got to me

My dc was cold and not enjoying walk to school and I thought of the dc on the boats and how terrible it must be for them

I can’t accept what people are saying no. Macron has made a mistake and has been reactive. I’ve been listening to various speakers say the same - French / Labour even

Well we’ll have to continue to disagree…you have a view of Mr Macron’s personality that seems to consistently grind your gears but OTOH there are plenty of sources, including those not all aligned with Macron such as BFM TV analysts found the Johnson letter/whole approach to this weekends talks quite astounding and in a nut shell highly highly unprofessional.

I hope the professionals that are involved in these talks make some progress.

Well same could be said for you re PM here.

Yep agree to disagree.

No one has convinced me he’s made a good decision.

And listening to speakers has further informed my view.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, refugee and migrant rights director at Amnesty International, said the U.K.’s stance as revealed in those proposals is that asylum should be “someone else’s responsibility.”

So yeah, let's just blame Macron/France

And not meet.

Yeh that’ll solve it.

Why is saying these proposals do not work

Let’s continue with discussions

Not an option

How do we get anywhere with difficult problems to solve and heavy interests on both sides if not to meet

The meeting will still go ahead with just France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission.
And t Home Office officials remain in Paris and they want to work closely with the French government.
Communications have not been closed down completely.

Fundamentally it’s a shame that in the rush to get Brexit done and signed off somebody, anybody, in the UK PMs entourage or even in the wider UK gov didn’t ask….”are we still covered by the Dublin Regulation and if not, what are we going to do about it”..

(Actually on second thoughts maybe they did ask the question and the answer was “we’ll keep blaming the French”)

@DuncinToffee

The meeting will still go ahead with just France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission. And t Home Office officials remain in Paris and they want to work closely with the French government. Communications have not been closed down completely.

Yes it will

UK is still a key player in situation so it’s not that comforting to see list of others still there