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.

^ this

Drop them in the sea or burn them before setting off. Putting them in a bin after you arrive in the UK doesn't work - it's such an obvious set-up for the camera.

@DogInATent I don't understand how that's working even in EU countries. Why does Turkey have so many and countries like Poland or Denmark so much less? Are they just taking a very long time to decide which participating countries are going to take people?

@DogInATent OK, maybe not Turkey, but Cyprus seems to have a lot.

Because the FSC agreement was never fully agreed or implemented. The Dublin Regulations had provisions that under some circumstances allowed refugees to be relocated if they'd passed through a FSC without claiming refugee status but these were limited.

And Turkey is not and never has been an EU country. Talk of Turkey joining the EU in the near future was one of many Brexit lies.

@DogInATent I am confused. If FSC was never fully agreed/implemented it doesn't serve any purpose. It isn't helpful in allocating fair quotas if it isn't in practise, I would have thought.

Exactly. It's a nice idea, shame it never really existed.

But you get people repeatedly saying refugees should claim refuge in the first safe country they enter. But there's nothing says that they have to, and there's no benefit to them in doing so.

@DogInATent The Britsh are not particularly arseholeish, I don't think. They may disagree on how many people from abroad we can accommodate, but it is a relatively safe, peaceful country. We can't be that bad.

One of my former employees tore his up and flushed it down the toilet on arrival at Heathrow. Leaving them intact and possibly traced back to you would be a bonkers risk.

It's got a whiff of ecstacy wrappers to it

@DogInATent Well, we can hope the idea gets revisited with a bit more commitment. I hope brexit doesn't mean we can't co-operate with the rest of Europe at all, that seems ridiculous.

Fair enough. It's going to happen sometimes I guess.

What's Gary Lineker got to do with anything?

If you were Italy or Greece would you trust the UK to hold up its end of such an agreement for longer than it took for the ink to dry?

(also addresses the arsehole issue I referred to - no matter which UK government is in power when the agreement is signed you know there will always be a Patel/Braverman along before long to blow the dog whistle and abandon commitments)

Don't know about Denmark but Poland has, for a very long time now, had a very racist view and refused to accept any. They've been threatened to be kicked out of the EU for this and various other violations. One of the reasons they've said no to accepting asylum seekers is that they are not going to be building any mosques for people and most of the migrants aren't Catholic, therefore threatening their communities and ways of life. Alongside the argument they are mostly men that have reaked havoc on crime rates across Europe. They currently have an extremely far right government. They previously stated it's also because they can't help their own citizens, so why would they accept others. When questioned why they accepted so many from Ukraine, they said that's their neighbours and they are the first safe country for them, so they will be accepting them.
Before anyone attacks me again. None of this is my opinion.

If you believe that we need to follow other countries example and accept more refugees, what is your suggestion to ensure we don't see a massive increase in sexual crimes like these countries have experienced?

I can dig out the figures but from memory Denmark has seen sexual crimes double, and in France almost 20% of serious sex crimes including rape were committed by asylum seekers who make up around 1% of the population. The figures from most of the countries that have taken high numbers of immigrants are pretty dismal and most people seem blissfully unaware and of the opinion we need to ramp it up and welcome more. With around 70% being male and 80% of these men being under 35yo I'm not so sure.

1200 sexual assaults on one NYE isn't something we'd have seen a decade ago.

@Dodgeitornot Thank you for this. The EU seems to be divided in how to deal with asylum seekers.

"It's not MY priority" is what people say now when they're in favour of an issue that harms society, but don't want to be held accountable for that position. Just say with your chest, you like open borders and stand on it.

Exactly!

I don't understand how people could logically want open borders, poorer countries would empty and the wealth of the richer countries reduces. The world is unequal , world poverty wouldn't be solved by opening borders it's swapping one set of problems for another. I would advocate increasing aid budget but no open borders isn't the answer.

@8state Yes. The increase in crimes @StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar has quoted, is a large part of Poland's arguments. Compared to a lot of European countries, they have stayed relatively safe. Attacks on women are normally only the domestic kind, however attacks on males that are not white, can be high and police tend to turn a blind eye, so even though refugees have freedom of movement and could technically move to Poland, they obviously won't. The opinion in Poland, both the right and the left, seem to agree with this view. They are very much not in agreement in almost every other topic, so it is interesting that this take on asylum seekers is similar in both political spheres. They take the mick out of Germany, Sweden and the UK and use them as examples in political comics. Laughing at the west and how they've handed their countries on a platter to criminals. Very often they're extremely crude and racist jokes. Poland is generally extremely patriotic and fiercely proud of the fact they have regained independence time and time again. They often say they will not give their country away to others who expect them to repaint Poland's culture to fit their own. They do have a very high % of Drs and other professionals from various countries in Africa and Asia. They don't seem to mind that.

There was talks about them being kicked out the EU as alongside this they've also made it illegal for judges to comment or make judgements against the government, as well as making the church the head of judicial policies, or something like that. This talk of being kicked out seemed to have stopped since the war. They've far exceeded their quota of asylum seekers now, and have been painted to be extremely welcoming to them on a global scale. Doubt the EU would want to lose them now anyway, esp with their geographical location. In fact, it's now Poland that's threatening to leave.

Or as per the question, it's not in my top 5 priorities...

A very different thing to thinking fully open borders are a good idea. Very few people have said it isn't a concern on some level

🙈🤣🙄

The question is , is there anything wrong with the Polish people wanting to maintain a monocultural identity? Japan and South Korea do this and no one bats an eyelid.

The loss of the Dublin III right to return asylum seekers to the "first safe country" was discussed in the media at the time, so I suspect any people trafficker worth their salt was aware that the UK lost that right. The extent to which it was used by the UK is neither here nor there.

I know coincidence doesn't necessarily mean causality, but I can't think why else the numbers have shot up since the start of 2020.

Unless. of course, they've gone up by a similar proportion in EU countries, in which case it's a sign that more people are seeking asylum generally.

@Brittl I think people do bat an eyelid actually. Korea and Japan are getting lots of hate online for their racism, especially in the 18-30 demographic.

I won't comment on whether there's anything wrong with the Polish wanting a monocultural identity. That's not a discussion that's relevant to OPs question. I wrote what I wrote as it explains why Poland has such low refugee rates. That's quite relevant as it helps see how other countries handle what the UK sees as a 'boat people problem'.
I'm not really interested in getting into in depth discussions of rights and wrongs of it on a public forum filled with keyboard warriors who quote out of context. I'm not necessarily talking about you, but others on this thread.

Social care crisis and funding for a rapid response for the NHS are in my top 2.