The immigrant barge - what’s actually wrong with using it?

[NC523]

Educate me!

I looked at pics from the inside, it all looks very much like standard student accommodation to me, including common rooms/relaxation areas/health support on board. Residents can go on & off the boat, it’s passed fire etc safety and been used to house people in lots of other situations. I don’t understand why people think it’s not ok. Can anyone explain please?

In the late 80s to the late 90s I swear every second person in London was from New Zealand or Australia, huge numbers of people coming to the UK for work, mostly in bars.

Not quite sure why its ok for them and not ok for people from the middle East?

I think that some people need to take a good look hard look at the reality of life for the average working person with no family support or inheritance now befpre complaining about the quality of accommodation we donate to people from elsewhere. Why is there always so much hand wringing about the quality of life offered to strange men from abroad when that offered to women from here is so much worse? I se headlines a a bout how hard Afghans have it because they are still in temporary accommodation. Well guess what, people who have lived here and worked all their lives get nothing more.

If the middle classes want more of us to be more sympathetic to every one else across the world, especially more men, then there needs to be a bit more sympathy to the reality here first. Where work and education do not earn you a decent living and haven’t done since house prices first went up massively in the 2000s, many of us were forced into shit private rent for life for the crime of having poor parents, and we were told that we didn’t matter and to suck it up.

Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be a great destination if you were a Shia Muslim fleeing Iraq or Iran, or if you were being persecuted for promoting women’s right in Afghanistan or for being gay in a Nigeria. The world is more complex and nuanced than you think @EllenVannen

I think we know exactly why 😉

Exactly

That's what the problem is

Nothing wrong with economic migration, I’m a child of migrants and have moved again. But a) if you are an economic migrant you should ask a country if they want you first and do it legally b) and this is the big one for me, it dilutes the very real support that people who have actually been terrorised need. Some of the stories out of Syria are horrific. There are people who really really need asylum and help putting their lives back together and getting their families to safety.

It's nothing new in Blackburn it seems,

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/5854192.get-tough-asylum-seekers/

There's definitely a reason the most vocal supporters are middle class and it's not because everyone else are bigots.

In the late 80s to the late 90s I swear every second person in London was from New Zealand or Australia, huge numbers of people coming to the UK for work, mostly in bars.

Not quite sure why its ok for them and not ok for people from the middle East?

People aren't coming over on temp visas though are they as a lot of young people who work in hospitality from abroad do? Unless you have a skilled or in demand job its hard to move abroad to be honest, what jobs are most going on to do? Is there any data on this?

All those stating that the conditions on the barge are inhumane should maybe read the following at the end of this comment. Hardly awful; and to this I will add that there is no curfew -a local taxi firm has a contract to bring residents home free of charge anytime after the last hourly bus has gone- and residents can also leave the barge for seven consecutive days should they wish to. There is also an onboard nurse practitioner to meet medical needs and an open all hours canteen.
So many claims for asylum are granted because the Home Office is utterly incompetent and there is an effective amnesty for people from certain countries (or claiming to be, hence the destroying of ID papers). However the barge, and the ludicrous Rwanda proposal are pointless distractions from the main issues. As a country, we cannot cope with current levels of immigration, of any sort. As the French quite rightly point out, we need to deal with the draws for the current unsustainable levels, and reform the benefits system and address the enormous grey economy. And as quickly as possible before everyone's quality of life is affected (even the wealthy virtue signallers who think unlimited population increases are a very good thing)

"Leanne Palk, the assistant director of asylum accommodation at the Home Office, said: “I wouldn’t say that it was a luxury facility to start with, but it meets what we require in terms of adequacy. It is not a floating prison. It is open and airy.
“People are not restricted to just being on the vessel. They can access the compound [on the quayside]. We have a significant number of activities organised by the local council, and volunteer organisations for people to enjoy. What we want here is for people to feel like they are part of a wider community and not restricted to being here.”
Voluntary organisations and Dorset council, which is being paid £3,500 per migrant as well as a £380,000 grant, will provide excursions and off-site activities including cricket, cycling, hiking and guided walks, trips to farms and sports events and the chance to cultivate vegetables and flowers on local allotments.
As well as a fully-equipped gym with running, cycling, rowing machines and weights, they will have two spacious TV rooms, five lounges, IT room with desk top computers and free wifi, classroom for twice a week English classes and a conference room which they can book for meetings, activities or hobbies"

@SomewhereWithSomeone I certainly am here - it does take time to read through so many posts (thankyou everyone) and to look up certain things online

Some of us are the average working person. It doesn’t affect my empathy or my sense of right and wrong.

And we don’t have to keep pitching different groups into a battle with one another. Most people don’t care less about other groups being treated badly just because we are treating asylum seekers badly. You can say this is wrong and still think other things are wrong too.

It was a tongue-in-cheek-post.

Saudi are very careful who they accept and most work contracts only last 2 years.

Well, there are a million empty homes, so problem solved, every empty house to be requisitioned to council control and rented out at social housing prices, empty the 15-year waiting lists in one swoop and plenty left for new incomers..oh wait...

There is quite literally nothing I would put past Braverman.

I certainly am here - it does take time to read through so many posts (thankyou everyone) and to look up certain things online

I didn’t mean you were not reading here still, I was questioning your motives for posting.

Does not ironing make you unsanitary??

I don't even own an iron.

‘every empty house to be requisitioned to council control’. There might be some legal obstacles to that, including the Human Rights Act 1998. It incorporates the ECHR which takes a dim view of confiscating private property, especially without compensation.

So you believe she'd contrive to incinerate them just to reduce the backlog, really ??

@LauraNorda "All the other refugee camps in the world you see on the news are just tents, even when there is snow on the ground."

But.... that's heartbreaking. I'm trying to understand how you think this is justification for lowering the bar on what we as a country consider to be basic necessities for human life and dignity.

‘So you believe she'd contrive to incinerate them just to reduce the backlog’. Oh, mate.

Never mind fire, I hope no one onboard gets Noro or it'll go right through them. Look at the cruise ships that have had a Noro outbreak - they can hardly cope and I'm sure have more toilet facilities!

It’s tickled me slightly that if Silas exists his address is Gibraltar Street.

Yup, last bastion of the Brits on the Iberian Peninsula.

As I said 'oh wait'...😅