We can't stop the boats without leaving the ECHR, right?

[Notmycircusnotmyotter]

forgive my ignorance, but this is the case isn't it? And yet other countries ignore judgments and deport illegal immigrants (Poland for example).

I don't really know where I sit so this isn't supposed to be goady but the collective mind will know more. My question is, why isn't this part of the discussion? Government / media never shut up about small boat crossings but short of drastic action (towing them back? Deportations?) what can they actually do?

Exactly. There are no strategies other than Farage sending them back to Calais. How would this play out in practice?

We do deport illegal inmigrants.

Lots of boat crossings now are Albanian men. We deported many Albanian men , and others: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2024/how-many-people-are-returned-from-the-uk#small-boat-returns

However most people who arrive by boat claim asylum and most of these are found to be refugees.

Who do you want sent back? Where to? And to what life?

It’s the UN 1951 agreement on refugees, funnily enough Afghanistan is a member of the UN. I think that sums up how completely defective that organisation is at the core. The world was a very different place when that agreement was made. Lots of post WW2 guilt thickening the pot.

Poland owes over 200 million in fines that they haven’t paid. The UK bill for asylum seekers last year was 1.5 billion. That’s direct from a Government blog, not some scurrilous SM made up stat. I think if we had a referendum right now proposing something similar to what Poland is doing it would be the highest turn out for decades.

I think it's 2 things -

An agreement with France for UK ships to stop the boats entering UK water (ie. send them back to France), which France would only agree to if we took X number of immigrants via legal routes.

Or, leave the ECHR and have more freedom to return people when they would otherwise have a legitimate asylum claim.

I think both options would be very unpopular for different reasons.

France is only too glad to see the back of the migrants as they sail away across La Manche. Some might say that the French actively encourage them in their endeavours to leave French soil.

Who knows what the answer is - I'm just glad I don't have to come up with it.

Why did Labour promise to "smash the gangs" then in their GE manifesto. Did they blatantly lie just to get people to vote for them? Was Starmer's speech yesterday on reducing immigration just to draw attention away from the small boat crossings and his failure on "securing our borders" which Labour also promised.

Not sure what the answer is but in the last 3 days alone nearly 900 migrants have come across in small boats, how many of those were women and children I wonder.

Probably none

And to what life?
Not our problem. We're not a rehab centre for world conflict. We're allowed to have boundaries.

Probably to first question.

And compassion.

We can be compassionate and we are. We take in a lot of people. However I also feel compassion for the poorest in our society that have to put up with large numbers of "new arrivals" largely men

I think it's unfair to those massively struggling communities.

Between 2018 and 2024, there have been 4,995 returns of people who arrived by small boat.
but then
Not sure what the answer is but in the last 3 days alone nearly 900 migrants have come across in small boats, how many of those were women and children I wonder.

It's not a great percentage is it?

It's more complex than that.

Under the Refugee Convention and other laws, there is the principle of non refoulement which means you can't send people back to a country where they have a well founded fear of persecution. That's why the Rwanda scheme failed.

Farage and others want to come out of the ECHR because of certain articles such as right to a family life which prevents some from being deported and because you can challenge the government.

However, the ECHR is baked into our EU trade deal, the Good Friday Agreement and the Human Rights Act as well as other laws.

It protects our fundamental rights and enables us to challenge the government when our human rights have been violated.

It wouldn't enable us to deport asylum seekers without due process.

@MiloMinderbinder925 so before ehcr we didn't have decent rights and right to challenge in the UK.

I find it odd that one of the oldest democracies in the world that has been a bastion of freedom and fairness compared to many other places has to rely on something from the ehcr?

I don’t know how illegal migration can be controlled-and it should be controlled, but get rid of the ECHR? You can’t just get rid of human rights for “those annoying people over there” without getting rid of human rights for everyone else. Which human rights would you personally like to do without?

Deciding that some humans are not proper humans so their rights don’t count is a very slippery slope that history tells us never ends well.

Until we left the EU, I think we actually could have sent them back to France. But now we can no longer do that.

I think it's a great question and realistically, there's no easy answers. I mean, we could have a proper system of applying for asylum in the UK. But people have been coming across the channels for thousands of years - we can't possibly monitor 350 miles of coastline and then what?

I've no idea what we will end up doing when millions of climate change migrants try to cross the channel. Probably end up with war, I suppose.

It was a couple of hundred. We took more than returned. It was a way in not out.

Before 1948 we had the Bill of Rights which limited the power of the monarchy and set out the rights of parliament.

Included was the freedom to petition the monarch, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments and freedom from being fined without trial.

In 1948 we had the UDHR which set out a range of rights and freedoms to which everyone, everywhere in the world, was entitled.

In 1950 we had the ECHR which secured basic rights for our own citizens and for other nationalities within our borders. It set out our rights under the law. It enabled us to challenge the government at the court in Strasbourg.

In answer to op it probably will be proposed by one or two parties at next GE and potentially go ahead.

You don't imagine that it's an easy trip bouncing around the English channel in a flimsy boat do you. Not to mention the rough living conditions of various jungles. Contrary to common perception they don't live a life of luxury when they get here either.

I'm not surprised the men do it. They go first and hope they'll make it so their families can join them.

Well there is a really really simple solution:

• open up safe legal routes so people can apply for asylum from abroad and don't have to risk their lives crossing the channel
• Speed up the processing of asylum applications
• deport those who are not found to have a claim

Easy!

What I don't understand is that surely refugees would be only too glad to arrive in a safe country. Any safe country - including France. Why are they all so desperate to leave French soil, a country which is also signed up to the ECHR.

By travelling through one or more safe countries in order to arrive at their preferred country of choice, how can they still be considered refugees? This puzzles me somewhat.

My compassion exists for sure. I have compassion for women and girls in Afghanistan, victims of violence against women and girls, victims of sex discrimination, women not able to be in control of their own bodies wrt reproduction etc. What I will no longer support is unboundaried illegal immigration to the UK of mostly men. I will declare my interest here: I live in the county that bares the brunt financially and socially of this. I did not, have not and will not ever vote reform, ukip etc, but it is not surprising at all that the county overall did. Kent Count Council is on its knees financially - yet is struggling to adequately support children with sen or support the elderly with adult care. So yeah I have compassion but not for the whole world's population.

Good news, we don't have unbounded illegal immigration to the UK!