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?

Earlier posts... not the one that was a response to something else being introduced.

Basically, I am short tempered with the intorduction of "Oh but what about Ireland?"

It's not a thread about Ireland, either part of it. And I don't see why I need to apologise for not giving a monkey's about soemthing that the thread isn't about.

Start a thread about Ireland the English. I'll happily ignore it!

I don't know why we seem to have a continuing narrative that we should be more like France, Belgium etc

It's not necessarily that the UK should be like France etc but rather you can't have it both ways. A lack of regulation and enforcement of what is there and a lack of rigour in employment requirements will make the UK attractive to those who wish to take advantage of those circumstances. It's a statement of fact, rather than a judgement. There are benefits and disadvantages to both approaches.

It really depends whether your concern is the health and safety of refugees or putting blame on England rather than France.
France is failing refugees. Lots of organisations working on the ground with refugees have pointed out that the French system has obvious gaps that enable people traffickers and criminal gangs to exploit refugees and put them at risk.
The English system is also too slow and too bureaucratic but one of the biggest points of risk for refugees is leaving France and crossing the Channel. England can't stop that. It has to be controlled in France.
The problem is a global one, not just an European one. And there are definite failings across different countries. You should Google it OP . There are lots of articles and research papers available about it. Assuming that you are interested in the issues and not just wanting to start a bunfight on MN.

@ShinyHappyPoster

It really depends whether your concern is the health and safety of refugees or putting blame on England rather than France. France is failing refugees. Lots of organisations working on the ground with refugees have pointed out that the French system has obvious gaps that enable people traffickers and criminal gangs to exploit refugees and put them at risk. The English system is also too slow and too bureaucratic but one of the biggest points of risk for refugees is leaving France and crossing the Channel. England can't stop that. It has to be controlled in France. The problem is a global one, not just an European one. And there are definite failings across different countries. You should Google it OP . There are lots of articles and research papers available about it. Assuming that you are interested in the issues and not just wanting to start a bunfight on MN.

Careful now - your post is a bit measured and factual for AIBU :)

It's not a thread about Ireland, either part of it. And I don't see why I need to apologise for not giving a monkey's about soemthing that the thread isn't about.

Obviously you don't. But your argument tends to be stronger if it's factually correct...

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.

Mrex for the win.

To be fair, migrants are asked what their destination is.
If they say UK then they will be passed onto UK and France, realistically shouldn't stop them.
If migrants say that they have family here then France will let them pass.

The fact that the UK has a paltry system in place to get migrants is the government's fault, not the migrants' fault.

That we have a benefit system that is relatively easy to access ( apart from UK citizens) means that the UK is a desirable place to settle.

Before anyone asks, my parents were not born in UK.

@ShinyHappyPoster - that is one of the most sensible posts I've seen. I agree that every country is failing.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus

The British Isles is a contentious term that is used by the British, not the Irish, to describe the Islands.

You stated "the UK is the last outpost of the west of Europe" and "the UK has the geographic disadvantages of being an island and the furthest you can go west".

Firstly, the UK is not an island. Secondly, the discussion is about migrants/refugees arriving in the UK, not in these islands. If it was about them arriving in these islands, then it would be considerably more complex as the Dublin Rules apply to Ireland but don't apply to the UK. There are also different governments dealing with the issues and different laws in each jurisdiction.

As I said, can we retrun tot he subject of the thread rather than insist of centering anyine ekses politics?

To be honest anyone who feels the need to tytpoe that out, on a UK/British Isles focussed board might want to check why?

I am a fully functioning adult of a certain age. I am fully aware that we are ' a collection of islands' and that many areas have devolved governments and even that part of the British Isles are not in the UK. However on many threads, like many people, I will use "the UK" as a loose approximation of here, not the European mainland etc. And, to be honest, I couldn't care if some do find it offensive, I am British. I can't help it if you find that offensive.

We are an island nation, we are as far West as is possible to go before the big watery gap. That obviously includes both parts of the island of Ireland. Like it, lump it. I am not bothered!

At this point you'd do better to pretend you were are a flat earther and believed that Britain was on the western edge. (Ireland being on the easten edge)

You'd seem less ignorantly and idiotically arrogant.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone thanks I have friends who work in this area. I hate the political footballing and faux concern that are so commonplace in these discussions.

The hideous red tape around employment in France is hardly a shining example to the rest of the world?! I think not.

Macron is sad, he is sad because the UK left the bloc, and they are now saddled with a massive financial black hole and can't control what the UK go on to do next, and could become a major competitor on the doorstep. He is aggrieved that we are still fully functioning and doing rather well, and this spills out in the form of abusing companies that make vaccines in the UK, stealing vaccines and stopping production, blocking ports and the tunnel at a moment's notice, stopping food and medicine deliveries on a whim, threatening to cut the electricity, allowing French fishing boats to ram UK boats in the channel, threatening war and other hostile actions.

And then some hopeful soul on here pops up and says 'ah but if we ask nicely'.....just seriously deluded and out of touch.

@Fairylights25

Macron is sad, he is sad because the UK left the bloc, and they are now saddled with a massive financial black hole and can't control what the UK go on to do next, and could become a major competitor on the doorstep. He is aggrieved that we are still fully functioning and doing rather well, and this spills out in the form of abusing companies that make vaccines in the UK, stealing vaccines and stopping production, blocking ports and the tunnel at a moment's notice, stopping food and medicine deliveries on a whim, threatening to cut the electricity, allowing French fishing boats to ram UK boats in the channel, threatening war and other hostile actions.

And then some hopeful soul on here pops up and says 'ah but if we ask nicely'.....just seriously deluded and out of touch.

What is your solution then, start bombing Paris or something? I am reading a lot of ranting about the French (most of it fair comment to a point) but nothing about your better plan.

Have you already forgotten that gut wrenching photo of Alan kurdi found face down on the beach drowned in Greece?! By not stopping these boats before they leave shores that country is responsible for them people's lives. France is responsible for a hell of a lot of refugees at the moment and has placed them in shitty camps where they are paying criminal gangs to go on dangerous dingeys and inside bloody freezer trucks to get to the UK. Their safety and the safety of everyone else is key to what safe country they have arrived in first. France is not only putting migrants in danger, it is allowing a developing criminal underworld and putting the national security of the UK in danger by not taking care of people as they should be.

@Fairylights25

Macron is sad, he is sad because the UK left the bloc, and they are now saddled with a massive financial black hole and can't control what the UK go on to do next, and could become a major competitor on the doorstep. He is aggrieved that we are still fully functioning and doing rather well, and this spills out in the form of abusing companies that make vaccines in the UK, stealing vaccines and stopping production, blocking ports and the tunnel at a moment's notice, stopping food and medicine deliveries on a whim, threatening to cut the electricity, allowing French fishing boats to ram UK boats in the channel, threatening war and other hostile actions.

And then some hopeful soul on here pops up and says 'ah but if we ask nicely'.....just seriously deluded and out of touch.

Goodness me, what a lovely fiction! Like many other foreign leaders, they are aghast at the folly of the British leaving EU. UK incidentally has also left the Dublin agreement which meant EU member states agreed an equitable system of accepting refugees. Did you hear this story on GB news?

I'm sure you can rehash your Brexit arguments and compare biased sources on one of the many thread devoted to just that. This is supposed to be about refugees.

@54ShinyHappyPoster - absolutely, you are my internet star of the week! I think lots of people in the UK have forgotten that it was not that long ago that the UK welcomed persecuted people during WW2 who have gone on to make the UK their home and contributed lots to our society. In my case Jews fleeing central Europe and my amazing late mother in law whose family left all their wealth behind to flee Burma and whose children have gone on to be higher rate tax payers and just amazing people who call UK home. My job means that I often have to support families who have sacrificed and risked every thing to bring their family to safety- doctors, scientists and engineers who are not allowed to work and contribute but desperately want to. It is a cliche but their children are in school, having arrived with no English, desperately wanting to go on to do medicine, engineering etc with no garantee they will remain. This is a global issue and I think people need to rediscover empathy. We live in a global society and it is not okay just to take the bits you like and ignore the responsibility that goes with it.

@MRex - the law states that refugees DO NOT have to seek asylum in the first country they reach.

Also France accepts far more refugees a year than the U.K. does.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone - where do you get this rubbish from? The total population of Southall is c. 70,000

@Fairylight25 it has been a big problem for years and years
It wasn’t unusual to see them jumping from lorries and running across the fields
Now they come by boat . Some run when they land others wait for the authorities to turn up

Europe doesn’t accept nearly as many refugees as it should.

Countries like the UK are already heavily overpopulated.

@Fairylights25

Macron is sad, he is sad because the UK left the bloc, and they are now saddled with a massive financial black hole and can't control what the UK go on to do next, and could become a major competitor on the doorstep. He is aggrieved that we are still fully functioning and doing rather well, and this spills out in the form of abusing companies that make vaccines in the UK, stealing vaccines and stopping production, blocking ports and the tunnel at a moment's notice, stopping food and medicine deliveries on a whim, threatening to cut the electricity, allowing French fishing boats to ram UK boats in the channel, threatening war and other hostile actions.

And then some hopeful soul on here pops up and says 'ah but if we ask nicely'.....just seriously deluded and out of touch.

That's quite some fantasy world you've created there.

Whoever asked upthread about whether we'd paid the bill yet, as far as I'm aware we paid some of it about £20million out of the £60million after a lot of cajoling. I'm imagining that given the general level of trustworthiness of Boris and the UK at the moment they aren't confident about seeing the rest.

Possibly France could do more, but since it never has been and likely never will be necessary for people to claim asylum in the first safe country they can't exactly force people who don't want to be there to stay there. So while the UK is doing its absolute utmost to close of as many safe and legal doors to asylum as possible people will find unsafe ways of trying to make the journey.

@Fairylights25

France are being paid millions and millions to police the border. They have been filmed repeatedly standing around watching the boats launch from the beaches. The UK have a team in Calais, but obviously we can not police the border INSIDE another country.

France are using migrants (not unlike other European countries I might add looking at you Belarus) to barter over fishing rights. The fact that actual human beings, children and babies are drowning daily does not seem to faze them. Over the last few months France have become a hostile nation towards the UK, cranked up considerably now ready for the election and Macron is fighting for his political life. Expect things to get worse not better. I hope you have your Christmas shopping stocked up because for sure that is coming next in time for Christmas.

What we are seeing now is the true colours of our 'allies' and neighbours the French, threatening to cut off electricity, blockade the channel tunnel and the ports. What this really tells us is that we they were very happy when we footing the bill to the tune of tens of billions every year so their agricultural department could receive huge EU handouts, but now that easy money has run dry they will find another way via demanding and blackmailing us over people trafficking.

My French friends are embarrassed and mortified, and now also pretty terrified at the prospect of having their first far right President in the shape of Monsieur Zemmour.

Wasn't that ultimately the point/key benefit of a European Union though? To keep the peace. Take that away and it's every one for themselves and that's what UK voted for with Brexit.

@CorrBlimeyGG

They are not asylum seekers, but rather they are financial migrants

Over 60% are, after the arduous application process, accepted as asylum seekers. Categorical proof that you're actually wrong.

Is that before or after all the human rights lawyers get involved? They appeal for years when actually refused and liberal/soft judges are bamboozled by hotshot lawyers.