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.

They don't want to spend any money on anything that can't be used as a way to funnel money to their wealthy mates and families.

This government has an outstanding record of claiming they want to be/do one thing but doing the opposite and getting away with it.

Because brown skinned people arriving in small boats are a convenient scapegoat for political failure.

I was listening to the radio this morning, the Illegal Migration bill is going through Lords. The government is saying that they should pass it because it is ‘the Will of the people”.

I don’t believe sending genuine asylum seekers to Rwanda was in their manifesto?

Where do they get off proclaiming their shit is the “people’s priorities” or “the will of the people”?

Why do you misrepresent the situation to suggest that only young men are asylum seekers? It's obviously not true, and it's not surprising that there are more young men because young men are more of a target for regimes that don't like political opponents; also if the whole family is in danger it makes some sense for a young, healthy member of the family to leave first to try to set up a home in another country. I'm perfectly realistic that there are a lot of illegal immigrants who are young men who should be deported, and that is why we need the backlog of asylum applications to be dealt with efficiently.

As a 61 year old who has never voted Tory I also resent the ageist shite.

As far as the EU right to send people back, are you saying you think the boat traffickers have researched this and informed all the people getting into boats?

In the final years of our EU membership we actually received more people than we returned under that agreement - so it seems a bit odd that the absence of something we never used is the cause of the increase in boats.

@peonyoalace

Thank you for sharing your experiences. What do you think would help you to resolve this in your town?

Do you think that the government speeding up the time taken to process the claims would help so that people can either move forward in their lives, get a job, so less time to harass you, maybe move to another part of the country so not all concentrated in one place, or be removed from the country quickly if their claim fails would help?

Do you think that people being able to apply for asylum from another country, so not being in your town at all would help?

Do you think some education on our laws around harassment would help, either before they arrive or as a condition of asylum?

What did the police do when you were chased down the street? That must have been frightening so I hope the police took it seriously.

What are the police doing about the interracial wars, and the no go areas? This isn't something I would expect to find in Britain and is something I would hope that those in charge of your town council and law and order are actively working to prevent? What are they doing now, and what else do you think they should be doing?

My expectation is that any asylum seeker behaving in this way would be putting their application at risk, that this would be made clear to them and followed through if the behaviour continues. I don't know the legalities of this though (maybe someone else here does). What do you think would change this?

In the final years of our EU membership we actually received more people than we returned under that agreement - so it seems a bit odd that the absence of something we never used is the cause of the increase in boats.

There were a lot of mechanisms available to the UK within EU membership that the UK chose not to use for political reasons. Mostly to reduce the potential benefits of membership to protect the UK rebate.

LakieLady
losing our Dublin III rights

Yvette Cooper keeps 'name dropping' the Dublin regulation - perhaps someone should bring this article to her attention (her 'Dublin' plan has more holes in it than a leaky boat);

Germany unable to send back most migrants under 'Dublin' rules.
... in 2022 Germany tried to send back over 68,000 migrants to other EU countries under rules governed by Dublin accord. The majority of those attempts failed.
Just 4,158 asylum seekers in Germany were sent back to other EU countries where they had first claimed asylum in 2022.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/46133/germany-unable-to-send-back-most-migrants-under-dublin-rules

It is important to me. I think it's all gone about rather strangely but something needs to be done. I'm from a coastal town in SE that has been ripped apart by more and more people coming in with no regard whatsoever for their effect on the local town

As with another comment by a PP, there are areas where asylum seekers are being concentrated. If claims were being processed in a timely fashion this wouldn't be the case. It's also a deliberate strategy to stoke-up problems in specific areas to exaggerate the issue in those specific constituencies. Ask yourself, what would the biggest issue be in this town if there were no asylum seekers?

The government could speed up the claim process. It could distribute asylum seekers in smaller numbers across more towns. It chooses not to do either. Why?

No it's not in my top 5. But the hard right press have successfully created a false narrative around this which results in a sizeable minority believing that they're stealing jobs, houses and money to which born and bred Brits are not entitled. Those who understand asylum laws and the benefits system are fee and far between and therefore this false narrative goes largely unchallenged. Added to this, the Government has not adequately funded/ supported those areas experiencing the largest influxes, resulting in increased deprivation and further fuelling those feelings of resentment and alienation. It suits the government narrative to feed this cycle. It is entirely within their gift to address the issues in a balanced and humane way and achieve better outcomes both for local populations and asylum seekers. They are choosing not to.

Mentioned this thread to my husband last night.. and he reminded me about a phone call I had about a month / 6 weeks ago.

I love surveys! Had a phone call from a well known survey company asking if I would answer some questions, so I did, happily. All questions were around government policies - and one was to list my top 5 priorities!! At the end, they gave me the usual blurb and that "this survey was conducted on behalf of the Conservative party"

Hmmmmmm!

I think this is a fair analysis on the whole. One thing I would point out however is that there seems to be a lack of openness on all sides.

The myths about all the stuff arrivals receive perpetuate because there isn't a transparent narrative about what is happening - the government is quite secretive about a lot of it.

Also, while the idea that someone coming here is "stealing my job" may be ridiculed, the alternative narrative that everyone arriving has zero impact, costs us nothing and has no effect on services is clearly also not true.

The fact is, a guaranteed place to live and subsistence (however poor) is much more than these people could hope for in their own countries and while we absolutely should provide this for people fleeing wars etc, it's a pull factor for people from countries that are simply too poor to take care of their citizens.

Indeed there were - which makes it more than a little odd to claim that the loss of something we never used is the cause of a huge increase in boats.

I can't answer for @peonyoalace @LookingforMaryPoppins but in my town it mostly goes unchallenged, people know it goes on
We may even live in the same place from the description
It's frightening

The current plans are to follow Germany's abhorrent practices and cram asylum seekers into tiny temporary containers as initial accommodation. If people in the UK are comfortable with that happening then they should also be fine with these containers being used to reduce social housing waiting lists.

The causes of the rise in the numbers of small boats is quite well understood. Primarily it's down to much better control measures on the lorry-stowaway routes, plus.. the continued absence of legal routes to claim asylum in the UK, the perception that post-Brexit the chances of being deported from the UK are much lower, and the continued draw of the mother country of an empire that once turned half the land area of the world pink on maps.

Do you have any idea what initial emergency accomodation is like here? It's mostly motels, communal kitchens and bathrooms. It takes months for councils to find you proper emergency accomodation. That's mostly mould ridden, rat infested flats once it's found. The UK has some of the worst quality housing in Europe. Yes, this is for UK families who get evicted and approach their council for help.

I have very good knowledge - I work with a local asylum seekers charity.

The naivety on this thread explains why some don't realise what is actually going on.
The police do not care. Whatsoever.

It is not for me to manage country wide policy, shame the people up top can't do a better job. However, what do I think has to happen?

1. Stop people going back and forth from the place they say is so dangerous they can never go back. This will deter some of the clear piss takers.

1. Expect a certain level of English and cultural integration to happen before granting asylum (as other EU countries often do), but we provide English lessons free to achieve this and insist they attend classes to be granted asylum. This helps them as well as us and gives them something to do instead of hanging around aimlessly on the streets,

1. The reason the asylum seekers are concentrated into certain areas is because the resources they require are also concentrated. If you spread them out you need more resources which cost money that doesn't benefit local people. So it does make sense they're sent to certain towns but this does result in the wealthier towns with their left leaning, comfortable folk crying 'save the people' when they hear anyone might get deported because they literally have no idea what's going on.

1. My town was a dump but it was a fairly safe one prior to the arrival of en masse asylum seekers. Drugs and crime were kept to certain areas. Now, many asylum seekers come from countries that absolutely loathe the English. They think nothing of it to go after the women or assault white English people especially. Anyone claiming asylum that commits a crime here should be immediately deported (will never happen) even once granted the ability to stay here, their sentiments against local people don't then magically change.

1. Now this bit is what I actually think absolutely needs to happen and I hope one day it does, the way the voting system for the prime minister and the party in charge works needs to be changed.

Working on the basis of popularity of votes doesn't work any more for the benefit of the country imo, All the Party's are so scared of stepping a toe out of line when it comes to asylum. The Right want them out completely (I don't want all the asylum seekers gone, I just want to see the correct policies applied so the twits that are ruining our society go) the Left cry out, 'it's disgusting to ever deport anyone even dc rapists' and the government are effectively too scared to immediately deport anyone. The press riles up theLeft, then The right blah blah and the cycle of cowardly governance goes on.

Also there's big money and numerous jobs involved in keeping people here. How do you cancel the whole system based around having you many asylum seekers here, Lawyers, social workers, hotel workers etc. I think this is where Rwanda comes in, no one will lose their job the lawyers and social workers etc will keep things chugging along that people keep coming and going. If anything there will probably be more jobs created. A sprinkling of people may well be sent to Rwanda as a PR job but nothing will change overall.

6.In addition to this, it's my opinion the government want the birth rate to go up. I think we need this to happen too though. Asylum seekers often have more births per family than U.K. families. Rather than help U.K. families out that want more dc but can't for the numerous obvious reasons, (the biggest one being affordability) they bring in the asylum seekers who have more dc.

The biggest problem with regards to this approach to rapidly boost the birth rate imo is people coming into the U.K. often raise their dc with their own cultural values that clash completely with British ones. We, the local people, have to sit back and watch our own culture be demolished until it's unrecognisable,

And we also have to put up with the resources available to us that were already terrible be stretched further and further.

There are plenty of people smarter than me that know what to do, but no one seems to be out there with the guts to risk losing their power over doing the right thing.basically the usual case of corruption keeps this whole saga going on and on.

In relation to the OP, YABU and ignorant.

Yes, I think the reality is somewhat different to what people, from other areas, think.

All areas say we should take them in - but then the minute they hear about any being housed near them, all hell breaks loose, with demo's.

I believe some councils are taking the government to court to prevent accommodation being restructured or built near them. 🙄

https://www.lgcplus.com/services/housing/more-councils-plan-legal-action-over-asylum-places-07-11-2022/

I'm not talking about asylum seekers. You said we should be ok with the same treatment for the social housing list. I'm saying the treatment is the same.

@peonyoalace Does the UK not give asylum seekers an education programme? Teaches local customs, manners, food etc. I know every country in Europe does, and you have to pass a test. It's normally run in the local FE colleges. I don't know anything about asylum in the UK though, but it sounds like the UK doesn't have anything like this in place? Or does that happen once asylum is granted?

The treatment isn't the same. We're not currently planning to place UK citizens in containers with complete strangers often with complex health needs and who may not even speak the same language, crammed together in a tiny space.

The reason the asylum seekers are concentrated into certain areas is because the resources they require are also concentrated. If you spread them out you need more resources which cost money that doesn't benefit local people. So it does make sense they're sent to certain towns but this does result in the wealthier towns with their left leaning, comfortable folk crying 'save the people' when they hear anyone might get deported because they literally have no idea what's going on.

They're very clearly being overly-concentrated in areas where the resources are not adequate, otherwise there would be fewer problems.

Maybe if you are in the same position as my niece you would also want stopping the boats a priority. She, her partner and 5 year old have been living with her in-laws in a 2 bed house and on the local authority/housing association waiting list for 5 years. The last 6 suitable properties have been given to people who arrived by boat. (She knows this because a family member works for the housing office). Do you not think she has reason to be pissed off?

Not everyone is in your privileged position.