To think that UK bound lorry drivers should boycott Calais?

[Libitina]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33240475

The local police would soon do something to protect them then. If it was my husband (he's not a lorry driver) I would be so worried about his personal saftey. How long before someone is hurt or killed?

There are few women and children Fuji - these are economic migrants, young men seeking work and "a better life", rather than true refugees fleeing war. There are some genuine asylum seekers mixed in of course, but they're very much a minority.

The French are being utterly duplicitous disingenuous about this. I have been looking at the French papers to see what coverage they have about this situation.

Nothing, nada, niente, not a sausage.

They do, however, have a story about all the migrants in Italy who are waiting on the border to come into France. Guess what - they don't want them to come into France, they would prefer them to stay in Italy!

I am disgusted at the lack of support given by UK and French governments to this issue. People are going to be seriously hurt. Property is being wilfully destroyed and frankly the French police are doing very little. Why aren't they deporting them?

Just this very morning the police where guarding a little clutch of V V dark skinned dirty men by the side of the M20 on my way to work. Seen it a few times.
I live near where those 6 or 7 were spotted climbing out of a tanker on a roundabout too.

There certainly are women and children as there is a separate camp for them where conditions are said to be a little better than for the men.

rale124 it's actually extremely easy to work on the black in France - indeed, it is almost a national sport - as long as you are white, and french ;) However you're right that there is very little prospect of these migrants obtaining work of any sort legal or illegal in France.

Ingrid plenty of coverage of today's fiasco in the French media actually.

You're right, though, that there is a certain hypocrisy given the almost identical situation developing on the italian border (where the french are acting illegally in defiance of the Schengen Agreement).

To answer the OP, won't haulage firms have 'preferred ports' that their drivers are obliged to use? So drivers can't decide just to go elsewhere. And Calais to Kent is a shorter crossing than, say, Hoek to Harwich, and the south coast ports - so cheaper.

They can't deport them Cherries - they destroy their papers so they have no country to be sent back to. If someone has no official documentation to say where they belong, and they refuse to tell immigration officials their nationality, they cannot be deported - where would you deport them to? Which country would take them? The only thing we can do is stop them from getting here.

France does not want them, we do not want them, Italy does not want them. No European countries are exactly swimming in jobs and cheap housing right now, and an influx of largely unskilled, uneducated immigrants, who may be unwell or have criminal records, or even have links to terrorist organisations (a very small minority, but a risk nonetheless) is not an attractive prospect.

We need a change in international law to allow these people to be sent back to their countries of origin, combined with targeted programmes at the source to stop these people leaving their home countries in the first place and a series of strikes at the people smugglers. Once these migrants leave their own borders and destroy their documentation, they become stateless and a logistical nightmare.

Many perceive Europe to be incredibly rich and a land of opportunity, and I can understand why they think that. They think they will have jobs, houses, can bring their families over when they are settled and all live happily ever after. The reality I have observed however is them living in tatty old tents on roundabouts in Peterborough, or begging on the streets. It is not good for us or for them to let them in.

Presumably lots of migrants do succeed and manage to work and live in the UK, or the word would have got around that it was impossible. Am I being unreasonable to think I would feel safer if people were allowed to do this legitimately rather than forced into crime and trafficked across the EU by violent criminals?

i feel sorry for the immigrants. But the whole purpose of Europe Community is free movement and this just wrong. The UK should have got ID cards which would make it easier for illegal immigrants to be discovered and deported (although stateless issue is a problem).

They could do it legitimately missy but they won't because they know they will be refused (in which case I would humbly suggest that resorting to crime is not the best option, staying put is, unless you are genuinely fleeing war or persecution).

And besides, what jobs would we offer them? Where would we house them? Who is going to pay for them to be taught English, if they need it, and all the other associated costs?

We're already in an increasingly tight housing market. Jobs are not exactly growing on trees. We don't need to import more people just to be unemployed. If they're lucky they might get a job in the black market with no documentation, which will pay far below minimum wage. Or if they're even luckier round here they might get a seasonal job fruit picking, but again, with no documentation, they cannot be employed legally, and that job will not support them for more than a couple of months. The cost to process them and provide them all with papers etc would be tremendous - and in the meantime, who is paying to keep them?

I am all for helping asylum seekers and refugees as much as we can, but these are not refugees.

You're correct in that it would be safer, but the UK and the UK economy can't handle the population it's already got. We need to prioritise immigrants with qualifications, training and skills that we need; those kinds of immigrants are unlikely to be the ones at Calais.

are the british news blaming the refugees for the calais protests,because French news are saying its a protest over dfds buying ferries from myferrylink

No Branleuse the British news say it's a strike over job cuts - it's the lead on the BBC news today. However they're focussing on the migrants exploiting the slow lorries, rather than the strike.

I take the point about ID cards but it is getting to the point where car drivers will be hick jacked and forced to carry people over. Everyone is playing pass the parcel abd letting them move around to the next country. We surely need a quota system based on size and jobs housing etc where immigrants get told they are going to x country. Though even this is unsustainable if half of Africa and Syria etc will seek refuge in next 5-15y.

How unsafe is it? I have primary aged school children returning on Thursday from a school trip (ferry crossing) will there be a chance they have to leave from elsewhere?

Most of them will probably succeed eventually because otherwise the word would have got around that it isn't worth it. If we invested our efforts in offloading each and every one before the ship sailed then the problem would surely reduce.

Anyone else wondering where all the bleeding hearts have got to tonight - it's very odd to find a thread like this without them?

Apparently the border to the UK is at Calais not Dover. And I read somewhere, but don't quote me on this, that countries do not have to house them, they can move them on to the next country and as we are the end of the line as an island there is nowhere we can send them on to.

WTF is going on? I thought this was MN, this thread is like a DM love-in.

Those migrants are people and I don't know how anyone can look at somebody less fortunate than themselves and tell them they don't deserve the chance to have a better life.
I know full well it isn't as straight forward as that but the general tone of this thread is disgusting. There seems to be very little understanding of immigration law and procedure too.

Have you thought why these people are so desperate to come here? Who are you to determine what constitutes a good reason to want to come to
the UK? Deportations do happen, you just won't hear about those as it probably doesn't fit with the narrative in the papers you read. It's not a free for all and its not as simple as 'sending them home'. As for measures to prevent people from leaving thir home countries, does that really sound right to you? Sorry, I forgot that we should keep those nasty forriners out at all costs.

I do agree the situation is being managed poorly but there is no cut and dry solution other than helping make their countries of origin better places to live so they don't feel they need to come to Europe for some sort of a chance in life.

TurnOverTheTV

I don't know how safe or unsafe it is (not very safe by look of it) but a few months ago my DS's school cancelled their French day trip .

Patapouf ^"As for measures to prevent people from leaving thir home countries, does that really sound right to you? Sorry, I forgot that we should keep those nasty forriners out at all costs."

"...no cut and dry solution other than helping make their countries of origin better places to live so they don't feel they need to come to Europe for some sort of a chance in life."

So in other words you would advocate exactly the same solution as me "Targeted programmes at the source to stop these people leaving their home countries in the first place" as I originally said. Exactly what did you think I meant, ring their borders with minefields?

Yes, these people do deserve a better chance in life. But they will not get a good life by coming here illegally and being exploited for a criminally low wage, or (god forbid) being forced into prostitution or strong-armed into organised criminal gangs, and then being stuck here because they are unable to afford to return, or lack the documentation to do so.

I also ask again, where are all these jobs that we can offer them? Many people here are already struggling to get a job that pays the bills - what jobs will these migrants do? And in what houses would they live? Having ideologies is great, but we need to be able to back them up with real-life practicalities.

It's not a case of seeing them as less-than-human or less deserving. It's merely a case of being practical. So many have already come and found themselves sleeping rough and with no money. Like I say, I live near Peterborough and there are a number of small migrant camps under bypasses and on roundabouts - they have no other option. Their life has not been made better by coming here.

Before we can start inviting more in, we need to sort out everything else first. You need to build a house before you can move people in.

Patapouf - If they were true asylum seekers then they should be seeking asylum in the first "safe" country they come to. Being they are in France which I am assuming is hell of a lot nicer and safer than where they are running from - why do they all want to come to the UK? I suspect to have got to France they have also travelled through many other safe and decent European countries too, where they could have sought asylum. They don't HAVE to be in Calais throwing themselves onto lorries and I wonder if they would if they realised they stand a good chance of living in underpasses and disused warehouses/railway bridges in cardboard boxes. As has been mentioned above, this is the reality for many.

Do we just keep letting them in? All of them? For how much longer? This year? five years? ten years? forever?

Its just not viable to keep letting more and more people into the UK and even Europe. The UK is quite a small island compared to some other European countries. We will literally run out of space at some point. As it is,our country's infrastructure is struggling - not because of immigration but austerity, but by not controlling immigation; housing, schooling and health issues and shortages will get worse.

There was a Welsh family that got all the way back to Wales in their motorhome last summer, only to find a couple of immigrants clinging on underneath (who ran off if I recall correctly) when they arrived home in Wales. So its not just the freight lorries they use. I cannot imagine what it must be like clinging on underneath a moving vehicle esecially all that distance from Calais to Wales!! Must be bloody terrifying.

Patapouf - If they were true asylum seekers then they should be seeking asylum in the first "safe" country they come to. Being they are in France which I am assuming is hell of a lot nicer and safer than where they are running from - why do they all want to come to the UK? I suspect to have got to France they have also travelled through many other safe and decent European countries too, where they could have sought asylum. They don't HAVE to be in Calais throwing themselves onto lorries and I wonder if they would if they realised they stand a good chance of living in underpasses and disused warehouses/railway bridges in cardboard boxes. As has been mentioned above, this is the reality for many.

Do we just keep letting them in? All of them? For how much longer? This year? five years? ten years? forever?

Its just not viable to keep letting more and more people into the UK and even Europe. The UK is quite a small island compared to some other European countries. We will literally run out of space at some point. As it is,our country's infrastructure is struggling - not because of immigration but austerity, but by not controlling immigation; housing, schooling and health issues and shortages will get worse.

There was a Welsh family that got all the way back to Wales in their motorhome last summer, only to find a couple of immigrants clinging on underneath (who ran off if I recall correctly) when they arrived home in Wales. So its not just the freight lorries they use. I cannot imagine what it must be like clinging on underneath a moving vehicle esecially all that distance from Calais to Wales!! Must be bloody terrifying.

I have worked with a lot of immigrants. All levels of education, wealth and abilities and skills. As a country we can't just let everyone in because they want to come here. We can't turn a blind eye. People end up being exploited and living outside of the system. This means they don't access healthcare and live in poverty. Parts of London have the highest level of tuberculosis outside of India. There is also a housing shortage and people end up in appalling conditions. So it is just completely unrealistic for people to say that we should just accept unlimited number of immigrants.

The strike is nothing to do with the migrants. When seafrance closed the ex employees got together and sorted themselves out with eurotunnel coming on board. Somebody somewhere doesn't like their success and they have been attacked by the monopolies and mergers and told they can't dock in Dover. Eurotunnel is selling the boats to dfds and they will not keep the staff. The migrant problem is making a smokescreen that is distracting from the issue of the day-Calais people need jobs. Exaggerated press about the migrants is killing the town.Shops and restaurant s are struggling.