Asylum seekers costing taxpayers £6mil a day

[HoraceCharlie]

Firstly- I appreciate this may be an unpopular posting.

I will say I DO agree with people seeking asylum if they genuinely need it- war etc.

But am I in the wrong they should be expected to DO something when they are here?

Provide them with adequate shelter, 3 meals a day, warmth and electricity and vouchers for clothing based on need. Include nappies and formula for babies.

Give free childcare to the children and they have to work on voluntary basis for a set period before they can apply to officially stay

thoughts?

@frustratednomad if you look at the nationalities of the people who commonly try to come to the UK, Tunisia is not high on the list. Tunisians tend to make for France because their colonial past means they have a common language there.

But nice fearmongering there, well done.

@pointythings How is the truth fearmongering?

Because it isn't the truth. The majority (95%+) of those Tunisian refugees will want to settle in France. That's a fact and if you knew anything, you would know that.

'Some' is an elastic concept. We know more boats will come, until our useless government put some work into setting up access from outside the UK. But you're doing the same thing Nigel Farage did back in 2016.

How do you feel about the idea of having a safe, efficient and humane asylum system that allows for applications from outside the UK?

How do you feel about the idea of having a safe, efficient and humane asylum system that allows for applications from outside the UK?
This is what I think they should do.
How long before this message is deleted? My previous 2 were deleted but were about my feelings against the people who operate the boats.

@pointythings that's all very well but what happens to the people that are refused entry into Britain, if they are still determined to get here they will still get on a boat.

@L3ThirtySeven Think about how hard it is to change your own views on something and then try applying that to hoardes of men whose beliefs about women have been deeply ingrained and you will see that is just pie in the sky thinking.

@frustratednomad given that 75% of asylum applications to the UK were approved at first asking in 2022 and at appeal a total of 44% were successful, I reckon that the number of people who are actually here illegally, i.e. not refugees, would be substantially lower than it is now... The total % of successful applications for 2022 sits at about 88% - let that sink in. 88% of the people who come to the UK are found to be genuine refugees.

@pointythings but we can't continue to take in everyone that wants to come here, genuine or not. We are already building on every spare space, schools, doctors, hospitals and roads cant cope, plus when they are settled and apply to bring family it will put us even more under strain. These are mainly young men, mostly untrained, how are we going to train them to become the professions that we need when most of them cant speak good English.

Uk benefit bill is over 260 billion. 6 million is a drop in the ocean

What 260 billion a day, I don't think so. It's costing 6 mil a DAY not per year. Also benefit bill includes all state pensions.

Last year there were 72,027 asylum applications relating to 85,902 people according to gov.uk. We just cannot house 86,000 people arriving every year when we don't have enough housing for the people already here. Really the worlds governments need to get together and sort something out properly for asylum seekers because the way things are right now it's not working for anyone.

They can't be refused entry as there is no way for them to apply from abroad

No we aren't building on every available space.

I live in London and there is old industrial land, retail units, office blocks and pubs that are being deliberately left empty in my part of London.

Why?

As then when the developers try to cram high rise studios onto the plots in 10 years time they think they will get planning permission.

Most don't realise that the residents will object and demand low rise 2+ bedroom flats, or a mixture of houses and flats.

Oh and there are school places in London e.g. zone 1 were most normal people can't afford to live.

Point is our housing and planning system is broken.

Ah yes, the old 'we have no space' argument.

That's a failure of government. There's scads of housing standing empty - in the south, owned by foreign billionaires and allowed to stand empty, why do we allow that? In the north, abandoned and neglected because this government doesn't care about levelling up.

We need young workers. There's a labour shortage on. And really, English isn't that hard to learn. We don't just need 'professionals' - we need farm workers, skilled tradespeople, labourers. So let's invest.

Oh, and the UK doesn't take a lot of refugees comparatively speaking. That's a myth.

@Reugny not everyone lives in London. I live in a village in the largest vegetable growing area of the country, the spaces in between villages is being built on everywhere, joining the villages into one big area. School places are very limited, as are doctors and dentist appointments and fields once used to grow food are sold off for housing. Much of these houses are bought by people moving out of London because they are being crowded out but so what, I'm sure we can squeeze a few more million in.

@frustratednomad the lack of school places and availability of GPs and dentists are solidly down to this government. They had census data, they knew what would be needed and yet they chose not to fund additional GP training places, they chose not to fund NHS dentistry and they chose to starve state education of funding. It's honestly not down to a few tens of thousands of refugees.

Your 'millions' rhetoric makes you sound like a huge Suella Braverman fan - not a good look.

This is just untrue, we are taking far far fewer than our fair share

@pointythings no, I'm not a fan of SB, I am a fan of retaining fields for growing food and for protecting our wildlife and for preserving our green spaces , you on the other hand seem keen to over populate our country with anyone in the world who wants to come and live here, and that's not a good look either.

If you're that worried about it, leave? I mean, you're concerned about the environment and green spaces. Go somewhere else and bequeath your home over to the national trust. Go to Alaska, lots of space there.

Or do you just not want to share?

All the points about housing and services are the fault of governments failing to plan and invest, not asylum seekers coming here. Asylum seekers haven't stolen your school places or your housing or your access to a GP - the government have, they'd just rather deflect the blame elsewhere.

Not at all. I want the UK to take its fair share of asylum seekers from conflict zones around the world. Just as other countries do. That's completely different from 'overpopulating our country with anyone who wants to come and live here'.

Answer me this: do you think the UK should take refugees? If yes, how many? Should the UK do its fair share?

@User1990C why should I leave, this is my home and I like it here.

@pointythings yes, we should take asylum seekers, the ones fleeing war etc, not the chancers who come for an easy life or to live off crime, and don't try and tell me that none of them come for that. We should also help them to make their own countries better places to live in but then we get blamed for interfering.

We have done so much already helping other countries, such as access to clean water etc but as soon as we leave they give up and things get bad again. We have to do more about climate change also or more people will be forced to leave their home countries.

@frustratednomad as I posted a little way back, in 2022 around 88% of asylum applications were succesful - this includes those that went to first appeal. That suggests that the number of 'chancers' is actually small. And of course if we had a well funded, efficient and humane system, those whose applications failed could be removed.

May I point out that a country can have clean water and still be a country where people are hideously persecuted to the point where they absolutely should be granted asylum? I am particularly thinking of places like Uganda.