AIBU to wonder why France is being blamed for allowing migrants to cross the English channel to uk?

[Rebbecia1234]

Surely, UK has as much responsibility as any other country to accept asylum seekers fleeing from desperate situations? Why should France be tasked with the responsibility of preventing asylum seekers to cross the English channel in boats to the UK?

1. There are official routes for asylum seekers to be placed; they are supposed to register for asylum in the first safe country rather than continue travelling (a sort of queue jumping argument; you can argue how many spaces there should be but systems do exist to take in asylum seekers)
2. The boats are run by criminal organisations of people traffickers and the French border force are paid by the UK government to stop them operating
3. It's incredibly unsafe for individuals to cross with all the shipping and in unsafe overcrowded boats; lots of people have drowned trying to make the crossing, including children, that is why it should not be encouraged as a route.

didn't the french get paid to help stop it?
dreadful that people are going to die before anything is done.

The U.K. pays France a shit load of money to stop them. If they don’t want to they could stop accepting the cash.

Because it’s dangerous and these boats are organised by criminal gangs who are profiting from people’s desperatness

YANBU. If the migrants were carrying on through Britain to Ireland we’d be pumping their life jackets up and giving them sandwiches, not stopping them.

@MRex

1) There are official routes for asylum seekers to be placed; they are supposed to register for asylum in the first safe country rather than continue travelling (a sort of queue jumping argument; you can argue how many spaces there should be but systems do exist to take in asylum seekers) 2) The boats are run by criminal organisations of people traffickers and the French border force are paid by the UK government to stop them operating 3) It's incredibly unsafe for individuals to cross with all the shipping and in unsafe overcrowded boats; lots of people have drowned trying to make the crossing, including children, that is why it should not be encouraged as a route.

These are all very valid points. I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly instead of paying the French to do this. I'm not really understanding why policing of the border must be down to France.

@MaskingForIt

YANBU. If the migrants were carrying on through Britain to Ireland we’d be pumping their life jackets up and giving them sandwiches, not stopping them.

Never a truer word!.....

Putting aside the human tragedy for a moment, paying France millions (£53 million for the last payment?) is like paying a double glazing company money to stop people throwing stones at your windows.

Also bear in mind coming to the UK is now way more attractive - no longer an EU member so the Dublin agreement is no longer valid in the UK. So once the migrants are here, they are here to stay.

@tanstaafl

Putting aside the human tragedy for a moment, paying France millions (£53 million for the last payment?) is like paying a double glazing company money to stop people throwing stones at your windows.

Exactly.

I think the term was "taking back control of our borders"

@tanstaafl

Putting aside the human tragedy for a moment, paying France millions (£53 million for the last payment?) is like paying a double glazing company money to stop people throwing stones at your windows.

Well put.

The problem is caused by European countries like France and Italy not taking care of refugees, so they don’t want to register there & try their luck elsewhere. The UK will always be a popular choice as English is spoken so widely. But actually Turkey (and to a lesser extent Egypt and Morocco) is the country that not only accepts the most refugees, it is also the country where most refugees register to stay, so don’t believe the propaganda. Europe doesn’t accept nearly as many refugees as it should.

@AnneLovesGilbert

The U.K. pays France a shit load of money to stop them. If they don’t want to they could stop accepting the cash.

What do you expect them to do? Build a wall along the entire coast line ? I don't think it is fair to assume they are doing nothing !

@Rebbecia1234 - the British border force can't patrol French beaches, make arrests etc; all that would be able to do is shoo boats back into French water. At which point, presumably if they weren't being paid then the French would pop them back into British waters again.

The French are doing everything they can to look the other way while the migrants leave their shores. They don't want the migrants to stay in France, they are thrilled to see the back of them.

Well over a 1000 got over this weekend, surely the French must have noticed ! Beginning to feel as if we are being invaded here in Kent.
Surely its not beyond the French authorities capabilities to find out where the boats are being sourced. However suppose its in their interests to move the people on out of France.

If it were ever proposed that the asylum process should be changed so that anyone who wished to come here should have to endure an obstacle course in order to ensure that only the fittest, most resourceful and most ruthless would be able to get here in order to request asylum, then people would rightly ask what on earth would happen to the most vulnerable, the women and the children.

Those who propose that we should simply accept anybody who has made it to the channel is proposing exactly this.

These are all very valid points. I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly instead of paying the French to do this. I'm not really understanding why policing of the border must be down to France.
It's not "all down to France". We have a shared problem with France in that there are numbers of people who wish to come here and France is the last place on their mainland journey.

As others have said, we pay France to help us, and as an encouragement to take action to prevent people leaving the French coast in small overloaded unsuitable boats.

I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly
It does - but once boats are in the channel they cannot be easily turned back to France - it's risky for everyone concerned, most notably of course, the people heading to the UK.
Once people arrive here they cannot be simply returned to France - the French will not accept them and they generally have destroyed any identity documents they have by then.

Of course we have obligations to help people fleeing persecution - but we have to try to prevent a steady large flow across the channel for the safety of everyone - not least the people in the boats.

OP you seem to have a very simplistic view of the issues.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

These are all very valid points. I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly instead of paying the French to do this. I'm not really understanding why policing of the border must be down to France. It's not "all down to France". We have a shared problem with France in that there are numbers of people who wish to come here and France is the last place on their mainland journey.

As others have said, we pay France to help us, and as an encouragement to take action to prevent people leaving the French coast in small overloaded unsuitable boats.

I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly
It does - but once boats are in the channel they cannot be easily turned back to France - it's risky for everyone concerned, most notably of course, the people heading to the UK.
Once people arrive here they cannot be simply returned to France - the French will not accept them and they generally have destroyed any identity documents they have by then.

Of course we have obligations to help people fleeing persecution - but we have to try to prevent a steady large flow across the channel for the safety of everyone - not least the people in the boats.

OP you seem to have a very simplistic view of the issues.

I agree that I do have a simplistic view of the issues. However, I also feel that it is simplistic to blame France for "allowing" asylum seekers to reach the UK by boat, when in reality it is not in their interests to police the France/UK border effectively.

I agree that I do have a simplistic view of the issues. However, I also feel that it is simplistic to blame France for "allowing" asylum seekers to reach the UK by boat, when in reality it is not in their interests to police the France/UK border effectively.

But it's fine to imagine sneering at the Brits for the exact same imagined behaviour if the migrants were heading to Ireland?

Of course it's logical for France to ship as many over as they can so it's "our problem" - but in practice both countries need a role in dealing with the legal and humanitarian issues. If, for example, France could be more effective at preventing people leaving their shores in unsuitable vessels for a risky crossing of one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, they'd be helping to prevent the inevitable tragedy we all know is coming.
People are entitled to ask why France can't be more effective - and why in particular they are apparently powerless to enforce some of their own immigration laws - and people are entitled to ask if we're getting value for money for the payments we are making to France.

It’s not just asylum seekers coming in this way. Criminals do it too.

@Rebbecia1234

"These are all very valid points. I am therefore wondering why the UK government doesn't police the UK border directly instead of paying the French to do this. I'm not really understanding why policing of the border must be down to France."

Because once the boats have left France they are on their way to the UK, you can't really turn them back and tell them to go back to France..
It's also a very dangerous route with a high death risk, you want to stop the departure from France - not have an army of border control enforcers at the UK coast refusing to let a beat up rubber dingy full of desperate migrants through. It's a terrible situation for these people, but they will risk their life to flee and it's irresponsible to not stop this journey from starting in the first place and that is down to France to manage the borders well enough so they don't have a chance to make the trip in the first place.

OP, I'm not sure why you think France shouldn't help here?

TBH I'm amazed that we (the rich world as a whole) don't see a lot more of this sort of determined migration. They have the internet, they see the disparity of wealth (or a curated view of it) even setting aside people fleeing ISIS or the Taliban and thinking of the people just wanting a better life, who can blame them rocking up wanting their fair share of the worlds riches. Probably the best (but hardest) way to end this sort of migration is to make a fairer world for people.

However, I also feel that it is simplistic to blame France for "allowing" asylum seekers to reach the UK by boat, when in reality it is not in their interests to police the France/UK border effectively.

They are coming from France. France allowed them into entry into their country as they elected to have no borders. They should be the ones dealing with them.