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.

Huh? She hasn't said any of that 😂 Look, I cant speak on behalf of the OP, and she's welcome to correct me, but she's been pretty clear she think the boats should be something we look at, however, it seems in the context of all the other problems in the UK now, it's a bizarre thing to put in your Top 5.
It seems stopping people drowning isn't actually on the Tories agenda though. France has asked lots of times for a processing centre to be set up in Calais, which would enable safe crossings in actual boats to happen. The govt has denied this, instead setting up a, correct me if my figures are wrong, £100m processing scheme in Rwanda.

I haven't stated my own top 5.

I've also said how I would tackle the small boats problem and it's not by shipping them off to Rwanda.

However, if you're wanting stopping people dying unnecessarily as a priority, I don't think your top 5 policies would include stopping the boats either.

France has asked lots of times for a processing centre to be set up in Calais,

Not the French Government though, so not France. Unless I missed something?

@Dodgeitornot Wiki - not always reliable perhaps- lists UK as 52nd out of 248 countries by population density. Not as squashed as Singapore but still quite high. I understand our services have been unfunded but I think more money is not always the answer, Humans seem to have a real issue understanding resources are finite. It wouldn't feel less overcrowded if we had put more money into infrastructure. We are at a tipping point in our country and we need a government with ambitious social aims to serve its people, and its people first.

Don't get me wrong, I do genuinely agree with you on the overpopulation and finite resources. However, 'the boat people' aren't the ones causing the huge increase in population, their numbers are really quite small in comparison to l the other immigration routes. Since leaving the EU, the amount of international students has ballooned, making uni spaces for home students really difficult. There's also masses of other ways to migrate to the UK, all of which have seen a huge increase.

It is a top5 priority for me because we need an urgent rethink of immigration rules due to issues affecting many parts of the world such as wars, climate change etc.
It is no longer feasible for countries such as the UK to take in migrants without any questions asked, even if they are genuine asylum seekers due to infrastructure problems in our own country. There needs to be a global worldwide rethink of refugee rules to ensure countries such as the UK are allowed, in an increasingly hostile world, to limit which asylum seekers can enter the country, as it is not beneficial to UK citizens for all asylum seekers to be allowed in.
the UK should only allow people who will conceivably improve the UK economy such as by working in skill shortage areas. This targeted migration will help the UK Government, whether Blue or Red, from ensuring migration helps UK citizens without any of the drawbacks. This is because the Government’s main duty is to its citizens without regard to others in the world.
These policies would give us the benefits of migration (higher labour force, fill skills gaps etc.) without any of the issues (e.g. shortage of housing, or local health service pressures), allowing the UK to ‘have its cake and eat it’.

This is a larger issue than many others because migration policy has the potential to solve other issues such as the NHS workforce shortage ( we need to incentivise doctors to come from abroad).
The ‘stop the boats message’ refers to uncontrolled migration as a whole so it is disingenuous to think that it is just about the actual boats migrants are travelling on.

Apologies for any typos

@Dodgeitornot OK, yes I see your point. I agree that people on boats is quite a small issue in the larger topic of population increase.

These threads are always an interesting display of left wing general contempt for everything about the country they live in and is citizens! Especially about any one that holds any sort of notion that a country is entitled to control it's borders.

I often wonder why left wing people get so upset by Putin entering the Ukraine. If Russians want to live there they should be allowed, they have qualifications and can work after all!

Ultimately you can now immediately tell left wingers by their utter contempt for the UK, especially for their co workers in left wing dominated services in the public sector, which the left wing all describe as terrible because there's a Tory politician somewhere that's making all the left wing employees useless.

Down with capitalism! Hate those Tories. Lefty people run the best services. Apart from all the terrible ones you have mentioned here they are all someone else's fault!

It's a sad life being a lefty!

Well where was it reported? I did a search before I posted and found nothing other than Macron and French Ministers arguing over whether they or British government is responsible for rescuing the boats and blaming the people smugglers.

@Anklespraying I am left wing, but I do believe we should have control of our borders.

Thank goodness for that 8state.

I think people by an large misunderstood OPs post tbh. The question was, would this issue be in your top 5, not whether it wasn't an issue. Just whether this would be in your top 5. An onslaught of immigration arguments started, with few people actually answering the question and not attacking OP.

I'm so baffled why my message was deleted, I can't even remember what I said tbh.

@Dodgeitornot It is a top5 issue for many people including myself as stopping the boats touches many aspects of our lives. Firstly it puts less pressure on local housing and nhs/education services. Secondly it kicks start a discussion on only having migrants we as a country value- for example those who will improve the NHS through working in it.

I struggle to understand why refugees from country A are encouraged, sponsored and given priority in local services, whereas traumatised refugees from country B are rounded up and sent to a faraway place with awful human rights, no facilities and no prospect of safety.

Possibly we are confusing migrants with asylum seekers. We don't take asylum seekers because they are useful, we take them for moral and legal reasons.

Suffice to say it was not answering my question as to where you read that France has asked many times for the U.K. to set up a processing centre in Calais?

That's a fair point. It's interesting seeing these arguments as I do think the internet causes so much division on this topic. You've basically said what lots of lefties say, but in a different font. The asylum process is completely unsustainable at the moment, and all people, whatever side of the argument they're on, want a fairer and quicker system as it alleviates the pressure on public and charitable services. There are so many charities helping asylum seekers who can't work but need to be sustained somehow. They get their £8 or so a week. Those charities could be helping local kids, elderly or education. Unfortunately politics seem to use this topic of illegal immigrants as a very easy subject to pick up, whenever things are going wrong in the background, to distract from everything else, and than don't actually do anything about it. I mean that for all parties, whatever side.

@8state And that is why we need to have a discussion on future immigration rules as our world is becoming a more volatile place and perhaps our country will not benefit by keeping these moral and legal reasons for taking in asylum seekers. There needs to be a global rethink of rules to ensure that countries have the flexibility to take in asylum seekers when they desire, and not take them in when it would have a detrimental impact on citizens and permanent residents of that country.

@Dodgeitornot
Huh? She hasn't said any of that 😂 Look, I cant speak on behalf of the OP, and she's welcome to correct me, but she's been pretty clear she think the boats should be something we look at, however, it seems in the context of all the other problems in the UK now, it's a bizarre thing to put in your Top 5.

I said stopping people drowning isnt in nobelgiraffes top 5 issues. She's clear about that. You're clear she's said it's not in her top 5. So why are you saying she hasn't said that?

Ah sorry, someone linked an article a few pages back. I learnt about it on this thread, so I'm no expert.

The ‘stop the boats message’ refers to uncontrolled migration as a whole so it is disingenuous to think that it is just about the actual boats migrants are travelling on

@Theworld12 Is that your personal take on it or the Governments ? What other uncontrolled migration are you specifically refering to ?

So in a previous post, you said that asylum seekers got no benefits, well that £45 per week is a benefit, it's not an ' out of work, or disability benefit but it is a benefit, as is the rent free/council tax, fully furnished accommodation they are given, which judging by some rental prices, isn't exactly only tuppence ha'penny worth.
Why did you try to make out as if they got nothing whatsoever? It's almost like you're trying to con people. Lying by omission?
Worth remembering btw that Carers Allowance is only £75.??pw, for a minimum 35 hours work, though no carer that i know does only 35 hours, so £45 without having to fulfil any work obligations, could be worse, a lot worse.

Thank you, I will page back through the thread.