Acid attack in Clapham

[PawsAndReflection]

Has anyone else seen this horrible news story? Apparently 9 people have been injured, looks like the original targets were a woman and two children.

What is WRONG with people?!

My feelings are that the current system- in so far as it can be described as anything as organised as a system- is pretty much the worst of all worlds. Instead of being targeted at the most vulnerable- e.g women and girls from Afghanistan- it's a kind of survival of the fittest scramble to reach the UK. Once you get here, it's likely you'll get to stay, irrespective of whether your story about why you need asylum is obviously (to all but the hopelessly naive) a load of bollocks.

So, the majority of those who get here are young men, often from the countries where women and girls are treated terribly (like Afghanistan). And while it would be nice to imagine that they have come here because they strongly oppose misogyny, and want to live in a country where girls are allowed to go to school and women can leave the house without being accompanied by a male relative, realistically the vast majority have come for totally different reasons, and they bring the extreme misogyny with them.

Aus had an empty island with ready access too, all migrants were then sent there

We don't

Well there's Taransay jasflowers, though it's only two thirds the size of Nauru which Australia uses

However considering the outcry when folk were sent to Bibby Stockholm it's not hard to imagine how that would go down

In Saudi Arabia the border officials open fire on them.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/08/21/they-fired-us-rain/saudi-arabian-mass-killings-ethiopian-migrants-yemen-saudi

oh you don't need to tell me what a crap idea it is.

Headline grabbing nonsense or Batshit as Cleverly said, even Sunak thought it was a waste of money when he was Chancellor.

the Navy has refused to partake in redirecting these boats on a permanent basis, in part because it’s inhumane

Out of interest, MCOut, what would be "inhumane" about redirecting them to France - especially if that's where they departed from?

If they refuse or don't have fuel or the french say Non!!!
Maybe the boat capsizes?

What then?

This stuff just isn't thought through.

Yes I get those issues, jasflowers, though personally I'd have called them logistical problems
Edited to add that refusal needn't necessarily be an option and that a boat being towed wouldn't need fuel or be as likely to capsize, but I do agree it wouldn't go down well with the French who'd believed they were now someone else's responsibility

It was the "inhumane" thing which interested me though, and I wondered if something else was perhaps being suggested

This issue will grow

Looking at these posts it’ll get worse

If the boat capsizes, surely they would be rescued by French lifeboats? Or are you saying the French would stand by and watch them drown? Seems like quite a serious slur to make against our European neighbours.

Who was found guilty of not rescuing that boat last year. I can’t actually remember the French blamed us and we blamed them

ultimately though it was the smugglers mind.

You would need France to agree and I’m assuming they’re not going to. So if the boat is for whatever reason unsafe and they can clearly see that, you are asking them to prolong a potentially life-threatening situation or watch people die. That’s not fair to the refugees and it’s not fair on the navy.

I'd read the posts if i were you.

It was suggested that UK turn around boats either in UK waters or on the edge of them.
No french boats near and it certainly wouldn't be in French waters.

This is the problem though it’s all wishy washy. Oh we can’t do that because…. So the smugglers know we or France won’t stop them because inhumane and so they keep coming.

sadly the boats won’t stop till the worse happens regularly and people realise they won’t be rescued. But what country actually has the balls to do such a thing with the outcry it was cause though it would ultimately likely stop the problem after a month or two.

Musing not saying we should let people die, but our actual help does actually
lead to deaths too Because more people cross and more people die.

Quite, we are entering the realms of fiction now.

How about a EU/UK reset and lets fully engage with them on stopping this evil trade?
Boats and engines are imported into Europe and/or they are made there so that means taxes, paperwork, documentation, sales, distributors etc.
Can't be that difficult to find out who orders boats and small engines.

The alternative is increased crossings, drownings, gaming the system and potentially crimes

It doesn’t sound that great

This is it. We help people cross and die.

we make a stand people die and the crossing would decrease or maybe stop.

but people die both ways.

So we have at least 2 posters advocating letting migrants drown because thats exactly what you re suggesting.

The numbers required to die before it became a deterrent would be huge, 1000s have died crossing the Med and into Greece too, still no deterrent.

See it could be a vote winner for the Tories.

Exactly jasflowers comment. Also why would the French bestir themselves to rescue when there is a British naval vessel right there? Someone who knows better than me can correct this, but I thought there is an international law which requires reasonable attempts to rescue unless it puts sailors in danger

I don’t want anyone to die.

I just don’t see how we stop the boats and such when we help the boats either

If the boat is on the edge of UK waters, then it is presumably in French waters. Or do you think there's a kind of watery no man's land in between?

Boats and engines are imported into Europe and/or they are made there so that means taxes, paperwork, documentation, sales, distributors etc.
Can't be that difficult to find out who orders boats and small engines

There'd be an awful lot of them to sift through of course, but this is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind about preventing them sailing in the first place

Admittedly it wouldn't work for the wrecked old boats too many use, but I wouldn't have thought that insurmountable with decent intelligence

The Med has a large amount of drownings

Aus I’m pretty sure have none

Then social unrest and issues around who should be here

Male violence on top as with this case

Trafficking may be hard to stop but it’s not the nicer option

Lots of definitions of illegal immigrant including a legal visa entrant who overstays their term; a failed asylum seeker who does not leave the UK; an immigrant who is not a genuine refugee seeking asylum (Albania isn’t at war last I heard). I may be an old cynic, but many of the men arriving on small boats are using the asylum route to suit their own ends. It used to be in the back of, or under lorries. The immigrant in this case abused the asylum system. I don’t think he’s the only one.

I remember groups of people who came here for refuge including Jewish survivors of WWII, Hungarians, Chileans, Ugandan Asians. All mixed ages, and young males were certainly not in the majority. They all had known, genuine reasons for leaving their own countries. Europe cannot take in all those who now feel entitled to come, nor can the UK. And unless we see some real integration, and a change in some cultural attitudes, we’re heading for serious trouble IMO.

Sadly, the only party prepared to discuss the real concerns of many of the public on the subject of immigration, is Reform. I doubt they’ll win a seat at the next GE, but they’ll be knocking on the door.

You never heard of International Waters? which exist in all but the narrowest part of the channel, do you think UK waters extend half way across the Atlantic until they meet US ones?

Its UK that you want to turn around boats, why would a French boat be nearby? have we an agreement for this?

@jasflowers I agree, this sounds sensible. An actual plan, rather than the total mess we've got at the moment with the government wasting huge amounts of time + money on ridiculous ideas that are never going to work, like flying people to Rwanda ffs.