Flight to Rwanda

[lbab1702]

I’d love to get a flight to Rwanda. Beautiful country and people ( I’ve been there before) but I don’t understand why refugees to the U.K. should go there.

We can join Russia in being the only country to leave the Council of Europe. What an inspiration.

beware

The ridiculous suggestions here of us funding the end of worldwide poverty are the ONLY suggestions that has been made, and everyone knows that is entirely impossible to achieve. It just can not be done. The rest of the lame suggestions are just tinkering around the edges and you know it, and not dealing with the root issue.

We could make our country less attractive over night by removing free healthcare, free schooling, free housing and the welfare state. Do you want to do that instead?

I thought not. So we have to deal with the situation precisely as it is.

You seem to think we have this endless budget to build new schools, new houses, new hospitals, new health centres, not to mention the enormous social care system....where is all of this money going to come from??

It is not about political decisions, Labour couldn't do it either, because it is entirely entirely unrealistic!!

It is also magical thinking to hope that putting more deterrents in the path of a refugee will stop them. As I said hope is a very strong human survival emotion…when you are fleeing bombs, famine, torture, imprisonment etc hope, however small, will make you do some pretty dangerous things if you think there is at least a chance of a better future.
we all experience that in life to a lesser degree..clinging onto hope and doing things that in hindsight we’re pretty dumb. These people are absolutely no different.
Whilst it maybe a monumental undertaking it is not impossible. Think about it…are the refugees we see now coming from the same countries they were 20 years ago, or 50 years ago? Are the Vietnamese still fleeing in large numbers in boats, are the Jews still trying to exit europe, are somalians or Kenyans still fleeing as they did in 1970-80s no. This country has always had refugees entering- in some times actually encouraged even economic migration such as the wind rush. People flee due to war, famine and political persecution. These are usually (even famine) man made events and in all cases those issue do end with time, but by then situations have developed in other countries. So, no not impossible. But it has to be an international will and cooperation which is what is lacking right now. This government attitude to isolationist policies like Brexit, and it’s massive reduction in overseas aid is not helping at all.

We can join Russia in being the only country to leave the Council of Europe. What an inspiration

If it is going to save our country and its values, our NHS and welfare state I am happy to do it for sure.

Yet it still can have deep impacts on our poorest.

I guess the question we should all be asking is why are the poorest so poor ? Is it because as Boris suggest's they are feckless and so ultimately its all their own fault ? Or could it be because there has been very little in the way of actual investment in certain areas, a lot of hot air about levelling up but very little concrete action ?

@GrinAndVomit where it does impact the poorest is due to how the government handles asylum seekers. Asylum seekers can’t choose where to live. The government have decided to rely on uncontrolled boat crossings rather than safe routes and resettlement schemes, meaning the burden of asylum seeker care falls on councils in the south east, where the boats land, who have their own problems with poverty.

Add in to that, asylum claims that should be resolved within 6 months are now taking up to 18 months/2 years due to procedural changes. That’s 18 months of asylum seekers being “trapped”, unable to work and contribute to the economy, through no fault of their own, and councils having to house and manage them.

It’s unsustainable. But it’s what the government have decided to do.

Freerangechildren:

"So you either understand FULLY what you are signing up to by washing your hands of the immigration issue, and fully comprehend what that will mean for you and for your family and your children OR we do something meaningful about it.

You can not have your cake and eat it. As much as you think you can. There are hard choices to be made."

"There are hard choices to be made" ...

... Indeed there are. Such choices are known as moral ones. Doing the right thing often comes with a cost.

Sometimes people exaggerate the cost so as to exculpate themselves in their own eyes. This is quite a common response when faced with moral imperatives: if the cost is so large, one thinks, doing the right thing becomes more than strict duty requires - it becomes supererogatory. This is a kind of moral sleight-of-hand.

I think you maybe are engaging in this sort of thing, Freerangechildren. Do you see what I mean?

Anyway, of course there is a moral imperative that we as a society do our share and take care of refugees from war, oppression, famine and all the other human tragedies. Of course there is. We should take care, also, that we do not overstate the costs to ourselves of doing so in order to try to excuse ourselves from doing what we know to be right.

Not so?

[Looks at years of an econimic crash, austerity, brexit and a housing crisis. Then looks at asylum seekers]

"Yes, the poor are poor because of some asylum seekers."

if you cannot see the difference between leaving because you want to invade other sovereign states and leaving because you want to control your borders without your decisions being adjudicated on by a foreign court, you are beyond help

THIS. Poorer & marginalised people are now watching lawyers and privileged people stop these flights. They may well themselves want to have the flights stopped for ethical reasons! But ultimately, they're the ones that are going to be sharing the meagre local council housing and handouts and educational and health resources with the influx of refugees and migrants, not the well-paid lawyers and the vocal twitterati behind their gated detached houses

@Freerangechildren Sorry, you’ve lost me completely. Nowhere did I make the suggestion to end/fund worldwide poverty or make our country less attractive. Nor did I mention an endless budget.

It’s quite clear in my post.

I asked you why you think the government doesn’t use the resources it clearly has to prioritise you?

Do you even realise EmilyBolton what this country is facing?

A cost of living crisis that might mean many old people die in their homes this winter from cold, food poverty, a housing crisis, ballooning inflation that could see millions of families homeless and a biting recession like no other with an NHS that could topple with a new wave of covid, since we now know the new strains of Omicron does not activate any kind of immunity? All of this with the mountain of debt accumulated from the pandemic.

Have you any idea what is actually coming?

And your only idea is for us to eradicate world wide poverty on a global scales funded by??? And delivered in what way?? And of course in your world the most poverty stricken countries are not run by corrupt governments at all that will simply absorb all of the money given to them. In your magical world the children will beam and flourish, problem solved.

I truly despair.

Except history shows where other countries have done similar that it changes nothing. Lives are not saved, the traffickers don’t stop

Oh and the money this is costing will outstrip the cost of not doing it. Money which could go towards dealing with the cost of living crisis….but don’t let that ruin your viewpoint.

I asked you why you think the government doesn’t use the resources it clearly has to prioritise you?

This is not about me. I am not in dire need of a council house living in one bedroom with five children.

Oh I see. You do see how it affects them but fuck it, they’re already poor for other reasons. Righto

It is also magical thinking to hope that putting more deterrents in the path of a refugee will stop them

if you look at Aus figures numbers have fallen markedly

I think it was reversed briefly, numbers went up, and then reinstated. Iirc highest about 20,000 at around 2013 people to 0 or near

It’s a tough one as obviously some very harsh measures have been adopted, but they have impacted figures

I don’t know what the answer is to the bigger problem - which is climate change and migration that will increase

Right now it’s doable as numbers are small but how much will that change

ultimately, they're the ones that are going to be sharing the meagre local council housing and handouts and educational and health resources with the influx of refugees and migrants, not the well-paid lawyers and the vocal twitterati behind their gated detached houses

The paucity of social housing etc. is not down to well paid lawyers. It is the result of the failed austerity programme that the Tories implemented after the world wide banking crisis.

This current government could make thing better if it wanted to, although the current cabinet lacks the necessary talent to do so. Right now it is completely entrenched in saving Johnson's skin and has little time for anything other than populist, half arsed policies which will mostly be kicked into the long grass at some point because they are unworkable.

Except history shows where other countries have done similar that it changes nothing. Lives are not saved, the traffickers don’t stop

Actually that is incorrect, it has worked very well in Australia why not look at the actual facts for a change.

You really have NO idea how it works, do you? It wasn't Macron or any other EU leader who asked the ECHR to intervene, it was the parties to the dispute.

Australia have huge success following exactly this policy, so it does work.
You cherry pick the fact to support your claims of helplessness and nothing will ever work.

Well it worked a treat in Australia, and now has a great deal of public support

I just can't get over how much money this government has spent on

• a stunt
• a distraction from bad headlines.

It was a stunt because they were told it wouldn't 'work'. It had been tried already in Israel - and it was unworkable.

Johnson and co knew that.

So this was a stunt.
A cruel, ethically bereft stunt.
A stunt that makes us all - because this is our government - dirtier, embarrassing.

And it has cost so much money.

Half a million to keep that plane on the tarmac.
More millions to the Rwanda government.
Hours of work for civil servants.

When prices are going up.
And the public sector is on its knees.

Millions of pounds in a blatant attempt to turn headlines away from incompetent venality surrounding Johnson.

Millions of pounds to piss off and alienate a whole load of voters (many of whom are Conservative) in order to try and reach a tiny core who think this policy was great.

(And it is a tiny core. Most people know the difference between monitoring immigration and a crazy, wasteful, cruel wheeze like the Rwanda scheme.)

And for what?
To try and distract us from the domestic failings of Johnson.

It's obscene.
It's such an obscene unethical and wasteful use of money - for the most tawdry of self-interested reasons.

This government is squandering money on the most self-indulgent things.

When that money is needed elsewhere.

And that money was squandered in a way that makes us, the U.K., look shabby in the eyes of the world.

So squalid.
So shameful.
So profligate.

This government: made up of individuals so privileged, so entitled, so cushioned from reality that millions of pounds, spent in the most tawdry, unethical self-promotion, is nothing to them.

Whilst the majority of us are feeling squeezed.

We cannot afford this government.

Who do you think are paying for these very expensive laywers? The penniless migrants? Or bigger organisations with vested interests?

Seriously I wonder how anyone is so naive. Of course countries have influence, and influence is powered by money and political interest/outcomes.

*lawyer