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?

Not sure if you mean my comment, I said that if you had been in the navy, you would consider it spacious! The sailors on big ships just get on with it.

The government needs to pull its finger out, spending millions a day on housing applicants is no good frankly. But I suspect that making everyone uncomfortable is the point.

Ofcourse there are economic migrants, it’s naive to think every single person is under direct threat from conscription etc. People often live in very difficult circumstances, it was part of the push for Albanian migrants, there have been various articles about the motivations and it’s to send money home which is completely understandable. Theres an article on the bbc about migration from Pakistan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66362327

The reality is many of this people have little chance to enter western countries through normal visa procedures because they just wouldn’t qualify. Many people from africa the middle east and asia legally migrate west every year because they have skills which enable them to secure entry. If you have very little then migration is seen as a way to improve your families circumstances quickly.

Still the government are failing everyone in this, genuine asylum seekers are left in limbo, people who chanced it to make a better living are probably sitting on their hands while their families are missing the income they could generate and the tax payers is picking up the bill.

I'm guessing you thought you did something clever there but you didn't. If you're so concerned about the living conditions of people why not research for yourself and see how you can get involved.

Ukrainian men were banned from leaving the country when Russia invaded, do you not remember the heartbreaking photos of them being pulled off buses and out of cars and having to let their families go without them?

Can anyone imagine if something like Covid breaks out on there? Guaranteed deaths, that's before if a riot breaks out & someone starts a fire.

This was one of my first thoughts when they said how many people they were proposing to house in there. It’s just not safe.

My friend was an asylum seeker from Burundi. That was over 17 years ago. It took over 5 years for her claim to be processed. The day she was granted leave to remain she was told she had to leave her accommodation as it was only for those with refugee status. She ended up in the council housing list for over a year. All she wanted was to not live in limbo, be able work and study and get her life back. The asylum system was a total shambolic mess then and it still is now. It’s a bloody disgrace. Nothing has improved and they are unable to deal with claims in a reasonable time and end up cramming asylum seekers into unsafe and unsuitable accommodation.

And luxury cruise liners aren’t at more than twice capacity when full. Ever watched Titanic?!!?

Regarding them being granted status then homeless ~ I'm sorry but that's the same for any adult , you get a job and you pay rent , that's the deal when you're an adult they could use the time their claim takes to process to learn English and do courses or look at options , why should the council house anyone capable of working and paying rent ? I can't get a council house , I'm expected to rent privately and no one is offering to give me subsidies on housing because I'm now I'll with a long term healt condition , I've got to find a way to pay my rent or it's the streets .

And my health condition is TB in the bones which I probably contracted from picking up asylum seekers who travel here in the back of lorries which I've done for 15 years . Where's my free accommodation? I'd happily live for nothing in digs . I'd save a fortune .

I don't see what the alternative is when the home office is taking so long to process claims . And many do disappear before the claims are processed. I work with a missing person team and I'd say a third are asylum seekers who vanish and there is little to be done about it .

If you are given permission to remain as a refugee you can apply for your family to join you. I imagine that’s part of the reason it’s so many men. Makes sense for the strongest and most likely to survive the journey to come and get ready for their wife and children to join them.

Exactly. All these are distractions from their utter failure to keep on top of it

Because civil servants are sitting at home on their arses blocking every endeavour to get them working effectively.

Get the F....K back to your offices and do the jobs we, the public, are paying you for!

And DAMNED WELL earn your gold plated pensions the like of which many of us will never see!

Aside from the safety issue, I think the fact that we are segregating asylum seekers away from the main population offshore really does risk othering them further, as a previous poster said, since they can't mix with the local community. It makes me very uncomfortable as the implication is almost that they are inherently a threat/not worth housing onshore with the rest of us.

Labour are against use of the barge - refugees should be in houses and other simliar accommodation - that's a good idea hahahhahhah

I’m interested to hear more about it, and as people are wondering why no one is talking about it I’ve offered to boost the conversation. Nothing more and nothing less, it’s a genuine offer.

I imagine more people are talking about asylum seekers living conditions as it’s constantly in the news to stir up froth and anger at asylum seekers. It suits the government more for the poor to turn on each other than turn on them.

Surely there should be a transition period. They wouldn’t have been able to pay for jobs before the leave to remain was granted so how can they pay for private rent?

Half the country think it’s a disgraceful fire hazard and a cheap Tory stunt to “Be seen to be doing Something about something” given they’ve run pretty much every other facet of the country and they’ve no positive legacy of any sort after more than a decade in government.

While the other half seem to think the accommodation is the height of decadence and it should be used to solve the problem of 300,000 people in the UK.

Then there’s others who are shocked at the level of coverage it’s getting full stop. The country is a mess and this temporary refugee accommodation scheme is dominating the headlines?

"If it gets scrapped as a immigration barge, maybe they can offer it to Dorset street homeless people. I'm sure some would prefer it to under bridges and car parks, particularly over winter. 🤔"

Exactly what I've been thinking. The refugees get a roof over their heads and three square meals a day. Unlike the homeless already here who get no help at all except families with children crammed into one room in rooms over pubs etc.

The gov needs to speed up processing of claims - yes but do you think it's easy ?
Surely no one is going to say I just want a better life so choose to be here. They will tell all sorts of largely unverifiable claims I would think - to deal with that quickly you'd have to tell them they are lying. Then they'd get lawyers on to it.

Labour borough in London housing our own, mothers and children, in converted shipping containers which have sewage coming up the toilet bowls and shower traps so that the children have to be washed with water from a kettle! Ya go labour!

Because people who come from Ukraine can legally find a sponsor from Ukraine to house them in the UK and arrange to travel safely on a plane or ferry and be housed, women and children can safely arrive in the UK. The refugee scheme for Ukrainians does not extend to refugees from any other countries so most other refugees have to enter illegally across mainland Europe and then the channel. This means they are at risk of mugging, trafficking, gang activity, rape etc plus all the issues that can come from having limited to no access to healthcare. Obviously women and children are more at risk of most of these things, and then even if they make it to the UK border the refugees and have to enter the UK riskily and illegally on dinghies and in the back of trucks, not on a plane, as they have no legal right to enter.

Men go without their families because the journey is unsafe, however once they have received asylum they can then apply to bring their family over and the family can then travel in legally using regular transport. That’s why men often come over without their family and many likely don’t realise that the actual asylum claims can take years even once they’re in the UK and that they won’t be able to bring their families over quickly or easily.

The situation for Ukrainian refugees is completely different because there is a government scheme which makes it safer and easier for women and children to come over legally. Men are conscripted so they can’t do the same and as such Ukrainian men can largely only enter by illegally escaping Ukraine, they can’t just get on a plane at the airport as the women and children can because they would be stopped by Ukrainian officials at the border for failing to fight for their country. There isn’t an expectation women and children fight so they can come over once they have a sponsor in the UK with the support of the government, which as I said refugees from other countries cannot do as easily because it is a scheme only for Ukrainian refugees.

Well not really. With that level of overcrowding and stressful living, also trauma panic could easily break out in a fire making tragedy much more likely.

Obv nobody wants to be on any boat in a fire but I'm sure it would be a lot easier to manage the numbers of people on a cruise ship and keep things calm. Probably higher staffing levels and space per person to maintain control too.

I wondered that too OP. It was previously used as accommodation for oil workers.
If it was somehow picked up and put on land it would be okay I guess, it’s just that it’s on the water.

It could be the Gov are encouraging slow processing and lots of publicity about long waits, bad accommodation to discourage others - it could work in that some may stay in France etc rather than crossing the channel.

Yes he would, if it was the only chance your family had, long term, of all escaping. The fittest go first, not because it’s a great escape from their wives!! Because they have the best chance of getting over borders without coming to harm, and then eventually finding somewhere to grant them asylum. IF after all that, they are successful, they can apply for their wives and children to join them. That’s a massive ‘IF’ and they know it. They also know they are saying goodbye for maybe years. That is unimaginable for most of us here thank god, but it’s reality for millions! So if they ever happened here you better hope to hold your husband would have the courage to take that one, very outside chance, of a better life for you all.

Of course it’s not going to be easy, but that doesn’t change the fact it needs doing. As it stands at the moment we don’t have legal pathways into the country from most places and then when they do make it here they are left in limbo while things are sorted.

if the claims process was efficient then those given leave to remain wokld be able to contribue to society