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?

Yes, you'd think so, but the communal areas are incredibly small for the number of people expected to be housed on the barge, as a lot of the communal areas were converted to bedrooms so while it might look fine from the photos, realistically, you're not going to be able to sit for long in the TV room if it seats 12 and there are 500 on board. Similarly there's not much gym equipment for 500.

If that's true why are they throwing their documents into the English Channel or come in by legal means ??

bellac11 · "My view is we have a population growth deficient and millions of jobs unfilled, give people asylum status, let them get working"

How many? The traffickers will gratefully pass the word around that everyone is welcome and the flow will never end.

And where will they live? There are not enough homes for british people so we must evict some to make room.

New powers to confiscate privately owned homes and repurpose each one for a dozen illegals perhaps? I'd almost like that to happen to see the looks on the faces of the "let them all in" brigade when they realise it will affect them.

@EllenVannen - what legal means would they be then?

There aren't any legal means.

Presumably the people who keep mentioning France are ignorant of the law. The convention does not require asylum seekers to claim asylum in any countries they pass through on their way to their destination. Passing through France to get here does not make them illegal because France is a safe country. It’s not any more illegal for them to arrive on boats than it is through any safer routes we might offer them. The point at which they become illegal is if they arrive here and do not claim asylum or if their claim is turned down and they don’t leave.

The dead give away on this is when any competent journalist interviews a Tory MP and points out that the people on boats are not entering the country illegally. MPs avoid the question and change the subject as quick as they can. They know what the legal status is. They’d just rather the British public didn’t.
Does make it fun to watch them squirm though.

Perhaps the people already here would have more dc if there was actually affordable accommodation for them

It is true, I live nearby. But what kind of existence is it being in a hotel room 24/7, even if it is 4 star? They've been there for months

Isn’t it just?

Oh gosh, I see. The government needs to pull its finger out and process the applications!

We take a small percentage of refugees compared with some other European countries.

From full fact
"In the UK, between 2016 and 2022 just over 78,000 asylum seekers were granted protection at initial decision.

According to EU data, over the same period, Germany (1.1 million), Spain (159,000), France (211,000), Italy (175,000), Greece (116,000), Austria (114,000), Sweden (121,000) and Switzerland (83,000) all issued more positive decisions in asylum cases (though this data may not be perfectly comparable with the UK figure).

According to the Migration Observatory, between 2016 and 2021 the UK was the sixth-ranked among EU+ countries when it came to the total number of people offered protection through both asylum and resettlement schemes, though we can’t say for certain how the number of cases accepted by countries in 2022 may have affected this ranking."

Something tells me OP isn’t here to listen or be ‘educated’. 🙄

This thread is so depressing. The amount of people smugly despising and othering people based purely on their misfortune to be born in a country they are unsafe in.

There are are no safe and legal means available to asylum seekers to enter the UK, ie you can’t make a claim for asylum outside of the UK, @EllenVannen . That’s why the numbers of small boat crossings has shot up in recent years. Our having left the Dublin Accord when we left the EU has also made it very difficult to send people back, eg to France. Some of this situation is of our own making. Including allowing the processing of claims to back up into the 100s of thousands.
As to people throwing way their identity documents, I don’t suppose you or I know how often that happens, is it a common thing.

It really is disgusting. How fortunate they are, you know it's just luck that you were born in the uk? You weren't special. Have some humanity

Then don't engage - byeeee !

I don't really care about it being a barge, either.
Attacks, fires, boredom, all that happens in hostels or budget hotels, too.

I would prefer a processing model that started by assuming these are traumatised people who will get asylum. They need structure, routine, affirmation, to help restore their peace of mind, self-confidence, sense of security and give them the best future. Therefore their environment should be stable and give them things to look forward to and space to process their past... talking therapies, skills-building sessions (learning English or job skills etc.) and lots of small low risk activities that can help restore their self-esteem. I always imagine they could be doing community work (eg litter picking) or making useful things or learning cookery, a trade, IT skills, etc.

I think all that is possible while being housed on the barge but it probably won't happen, nor would it happen if they were in hotels. They're treated like consignments not people, is problem.

When you say let them all in, are you refering to the governments apparent new policy of simply removing asylum seekers from the list of applications they are considering?

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1687901561282772992.html

And what are these legal means?

They haven’t even properly sorted the stuff that would prevent another Grenfell. This government are not bothered about its own people dying. They are definitely not bothered by immigrants dying.

A poster on another thread helpful provided this explanation of the law.

https://levinslaw.co.uk/dinghies-in-the-channel-illegal-entrants-and-immigration-offences/

Not the NHS? Or social care? Or education? Or crime and justice? Or our sewage filled waters? Or climate change? Or SEN provision? Or the housing crisis?

It’s all very well saying everything should be ‘priority’ but by definition not all of it can be.

What do we tackle first? Bearing in mind we’ve very little cash to play with.

This. So much this.

my own situation has brought into focus the callous nature of so many on this forum.

Where is your humanity.

See also this website:
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/

"An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This made up 5% of the UK’s foreign-born population in 2019 of 9.48 million, and 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more (Figure 1).

The bold part is my emphasis. They have a very small impact on housing needs/NHS/schools at only just over half a percent of the UK population.

2019 was the last full "normal" year of figures before COVID affected things.

The sort of people who dont want to help refugees, are the same sort of people who couldnt care less about your situation either. The two tend to go hand in hand

Most people that say 'charity starts at home, we dont want them here, havent got room for them' are likely to say to you 'why dont you find your own accommodation instead of expecting the state to house you'

Doesnt feel so good does it?