The People demand that the Boats are Stopped.

[noblegiraffe]

I keep reading about the Tory government working hard to deliver the people's priorities:

"Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Government are focused on five immediate priorities. We will halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting lists and stop the boats."

Halve inflation (will happen anyway), grow the economy (vague), reduce debt (vague), cut NHS waiting lists (maybe by paying nurses and doctors more?), stop the boats (what?).

Maybe it's just where I live, but I'm not seeing this immediate urgent need to "stop the boats". It's certainly nowhere near my top 5 priorities for the government to be immediately tackling. If it was, I'd probably look at creating legal routes for genuine asylum seekers as a first step rather than shipping them to Rwanda.

Is it in your top 5 urgent government priorities? Are they speaking to the people and I've just completely missed it?

YABU: Stopping the boats is in my top 5 government priorities.
YANBU: I'm more concerned about something else and would bump Stop the Boats down the list.

Not read the full thread but….

I live in the SE, not far from Dover. We are below average income, and I don’t care about the boats.
reasons being - firstly, both dh and I come from immigrant families. Yes our parents/grandparents come from European countries and came over legally but they were not British but came over and worked hard, never claiming a single benefit, contributing towards the economy, like the vast majority of immigrants do.
secondly, I cannot imagine having to pack up my belongings into one bag, leave my friends and family behind, trek halfway around the world and then have to sit in a dingy to cross the channel. I can’t imagine, sitting in my comfortable social rent home with my heating and electric, the desperation someone has to have to risk their lives like that. And they must be desperate. I did not choose to be born in the UK. They did not choose to be born in a war torn country. We got lucky, they did not, and it is our duty - as humans on planet earth - to help each other. Not just ship them to another country because we don’t like the look of them.

i agree with sending back those who break our laws, 100%, but they are a tiny minority. The vast majority of illegal immigrants simply want to live in safety, and work and provide for their families.

I think that asking which of the top five government priorities are "your" top 5 priorities might have been a less contentious way of asking the question.
I don't think any of them are in my top five, which would probably centre around NHS, education, investment in public services and housing/rental crisis.

Suggesting that "stopping the boats" will solve any of these problems is crazy. There are many better ways to handle immigration/asylum seekers if the government wanted to. They don't want to.
But as someone said above, they are also not doing anything to "stop the boats". Presumably they will use this again in their next election campaign.

I live in Kent quite close to Dover.

Dover and Thanet just voted for Labour in the local elections. So even the areas at the centre of the so-called ''small boats'' problem voted against this vile government.

If the government really wanted to address the issue they would work with the French to process applications in Calais.

Everything they do at the moment, from the Rwanda madness to the hate-filled language used, is all about posturing and appalling to the right-wing of the party. It is not about actually dealing with the issue and finding practical ways to address the problem.

It also is way below the cost of living crisis in term of priorities for most people.

Martha’s Vineyard syndrome. Look up what happened in Martha Vineyard in the US when illegal immigrants were lived to a nice left part of MA. Everyone‘s in favour of channel crossings or at least indifferent until the migrants end up in their backyard.

Is there a war in Albania?

What about the migrants who don't arrive here on boats? Is it only a top 5 priority to stop the ones who do?

I think you're being a bit facetious now.

@Garethkeenansstapler - no idea what that means

Seems that way. Legal migration is at an all time high, but doesn’t seem to be as big an issue. Probably because it doesn’t cost £2bn a year in housing, as with boat arrivals.

You don't think the legal migrants use schools, doctors, hospitals etc?

Because no country has an endless pit of money to support an ever increasing population of people we know nothing about

A large chunk of the problem, is that there are far too many, white, middle class areas, - including market towns, villages and even the middle class housing estates, etc., that just aren't doing their bit to shoulder any of the strain of providing accommodation, or school places, for incomers, legal or otherwise.
It's way past time that places like Bourton On The Water, Broadway, Chipping Sodbury and all the rest of the similarly white middle class areas did some of the heavy lifting.
Without a doubt, some properties on middle class housing estates need to be subject to compulsory purchase and used as temporary homes for asylum seekers.

The majority of people here in unofficial ways didn't come on boats though, why not focus on overstayers as it's a way bigger number?

YABU

Most people either cannot or choose not to see the obvious links between what they deem to be important vs what they believe is irrelevant.

Our society is quite heavily socialist relatively. We have heavily state-funded healthcare, social care, education and welfare system to name a few.

In any socialist funding structure you have "net providers" i.e. those who contribute more than they receive and "net receivers", i.e. those who receive more than they contribute. Also you can have varying levels of both.

Every socialist system strikes a balance between compassion, and the scale of net providers to net receivers. Swing too far towards making everyone net providers, you condemn the disabled to a life of misery. Swing too far towards compassion and you no longer have a functioning society.

Following on:

Illegal immigration is a huge burden on our resources and is growing year on year exponentially due to our soft-touch response.

Almost every single illegal immigrant is a "net receiver" and heavily so, not even borderline.

In turn, virtually every illegal immigrant that we continue to allow in chips away at yours and my quality of life, stretching state-funded services a little more.

Much like every car that drives over a road chips away at the tarmac, you may not notice the difference every day. But over time you will see the hole forming, and growing, and growing, until it becomes so big that it destroys the suspension of your car.

My priorities are the NHS, housing and social care.

Our housing situation in the UK is a catastrophe. Nimbyism is a particular British sickness and needs to be addressed if we're going to sort our housing problems out.

Legal migration is at an all time high, but doesn’t seem to be as big an issue. Probably because it doesn’t cost £2bn a year in housing, as with boat arrivals.

Does the 2bn a year just include housing people arriving by boats ? what about families from Afghanistan being housed in hotels or the Government paying families to house Ukrainians ?

I thought the Government had decided that it could deport people back to Albania as they don't have legitimate asylum claims ?

"Illegal immigration is a huge burden on our resources and is growing year on year exponentially due to our soft-touch response."

Actually it's not increased that quite as much as all that, it's just that the government has almost stopped processing applications, so the numbers waiting for a decision has grown exponentially

"Almost every single illegal immigrant is a "net receiver" and heavily so, not even borderline."

They wouldn't be if they were allowed to work while their claim is being processed.

Of if their claims were processed in a timely fashion and those without leave to remain deported swiftly.

"In turn, virtually every illegal immigrant that we continue to allow in chips away at yours and my quality of life, stretching state-funded services a little more."

Asylum claims increased steadily under the last Labour government, while public services, particularly the NHS, improved. But then the Labour government was committed to improving public services, whereas the Conservatives are committed to trashing them, and then selling them off.

I don't disagree, but at the moment it's just more misery being piled on each time another boat arrives. Even moving at pace, it won't be sorted out quickly. I have no idea how long it will take at the current glacial pace.

But I’m not ‘shocked’ that other people do. It’s a very mumsnet thing, this middle class bafflement that other people think differently to them, or care about other things.

Yes, I’ve noticed that too, people being ‘shocked’ about things that aren’t actually shocking, but just opinions different to their own.
I mean, why is it shocking that people with different life experience might have different views?

FYI - according to the Migration Observatory:

"The share of asylum applications that received an initial decision within six months fell from 87% in Q2 2014 to 6% in Q2 2021"

So there you have it - the government has created an immigration crisis.

I think only communities affected should be allowed a voice on this and tbh I'm sure people are seeing their own schools, NHS services , Care services , lack of decent homes diminish and wonder why hundreds of millions can be found for people who shouldn't be here .
The good folk of Islington should shut up with their righteous indignation because they aren't going to be living alongside these newcomers . It won't be them battling to a doctors appointment, fighting for quality rental property, etc etc

izimbra - You have to take COVID into account though, that would have affected figures in 2020/21.

Education, healthcare, transport, cost of utilities….it is probably the case that some of those people in boats have the qualifications and/or experience to help improve education, healthcare and transport if we were to give the poor, desperate sods a chance

I think only communities affected should be allowed a voice on this

Like Dover? Whose council the Tories just lost to Labour?

Don't people coming in as immigrants (most without qualifications or money) add load to an already strained welfare state? The way I see it everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Complain about the human right violations, and then complain about the NHS and over welfare services.

Bad, bad government.

What exactly do these people expect the government to do, print more money? People just want to be be on the right side of history when in the game.

Leaving the EU and the pandemic have messed everything up.