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.

Yes good summary @Walkaround

Well said.

I just thought I’d pop these here.

Tory policy, including Brexit, has increased all kinds of immigration dramatically.

Not just refugees and asylum seekers.

So are people saying that Tory policy is abysmal and treats people badly and yet (per poster above) has directly caused increased immigration? Doesn't make sense.

The Tories have a hands off policy to almost everything i.e Let the Market Rule!! otherwise we have to believe they are totally incompetent.... which may well be true.

Not enough housing? keep out of it and let the market decide!
Same with health and education.. not enough hospitals? let people pay for more private insurance!

Migration is treated in exactly the same way... the Cons simply don't have a policy on migration.... the forecast is that net migration will increase to 1m extra people coming to the UK each and every year.

Tory response is "so what?"

A free market approach to managing immigration cannot and will not deliver the reductions the tories have promised over the years.

Well….unless life in the UK becomes so shit that people no longer want to come here. Oh wait…

But in all seriousness, there are different kinds of immigration and all need active, coordinated management to ensure that we have the people we need for our workforce, that our universities are thriving, that entrepreneurs can set up businesses here, as well as meeting our obligations to refugees fleeing war and persecution. All whilst ensuring the infrastructure is sufficient to meet the basic needs of everyone.

Most of us who have delivered large, complex projects outside of politics know that they have to be carefully planned and managed. Immigration management is not special or different. This extreme free market ideology that the tories like needs to be put to bed. I would hate to work in the Home Office right now. I imagine morale is at rock bottom having to work with these truth twisters.

This article from 2017 is interesting.

The problem is that the Tories have a "hands off, let them come" policy and Labour have a "the more the merrier, let them come" policy.

The problem is that the Tories have a "hands off, let them come" policy and Labour have a "the more the merrier, let them come" policy.

That's not true of Labour if you look at what they have actually said.

It is true of Labour if you look at what they actually did when they were in power. Maybe they'll be different if they get back in again but you can't blame people for being suspicious.

mrsgreggspastry
That's not true of Labour if you look at what they have actually said

To be fair - it is more or less what Starmer said in 2020;

Sir Keir Starmer has said he would argue for the reintroduction of EU free movement after Brexit, if he becomes Labour’s next leader...
“We need to make the wider case on immigration,” he said, speaking at a leadership event at Westminster Cathedral in London.
“We welcome migrants...
“Of course: bring back, argue for, challenge.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/31/keir-starmer-labour-should-argue-for-return-of-free-movement-brexit

If EU free movement was reintroduced, govt can reduce number of non EU working visas they issue which have shot up recently.

Fererr
If EU free movement was reintroduced, govt can reduce number of non EU working visas they issue which have shot up recently

How many non-EU working visas have they issued (not including seasonal worker visas)? If Ukraine join the EU at a later date, how many of the 44 million people would come to the UK, bearing in mind that Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe even before the war started?

Makes perfect sense - a godawful, chaotic, incompetent, utterly uncoordinated system for processing immigrants must be hugely appealing to traffickers and other criminals, as it is easy to take advantage of and to “disappear” people in large numbers into the black market economy and modern day slavery before anyone has properly accounted for them. Once in the hands of criminals, you don’t have much control over where they choose to take you. Also, the UK’s imperial past has come back to bite it and there are some it can’t turn away, as it has been obliged to formally invite them over (and some it delights in inviting over for political point scoring and strutting purposes on the world stage, even if it treat them poorly when they get here). Also, the UK is poor at training up its own population and favours ready-trained, highly qualified, cheaper labour from overseas if it can get it. There are myriad reason why the UK can be both a shitty destination to end up in and a destination that high numbers of people still come to - yet still we aren’t actually processing our fair share of asylum seekers (it’s hard to know if our fair share are nevertheless making it here, as nobody responsible appears to be very good at counting), so that just goes to show what a state the world is in in general, with all our stupid human wars, pollution, selfishness, inequality and human-induced climate crisis.

Why can't the government reduce the number of non EU working visas without us having EU free movement?

Because they need to offer them as a bribe to get these amazing trade deals they keep telling us about...see India.

Brexit increased immigration.

It started rising while the Big Ben Brexit Bongs were bonging and shows no sign of slowing.

Brexit trade deals increase immigration.

India wants millions of immigration visas before they’ll sign one.

The Tories are pretty desperate to be seen to be doing Brexit Trade deals and the other countries know it.

So any country or trading bloc can get pretty much anything they want off the UK when we go cap in hand to them for a trade deal.

verdantverdure
India wants millions of immigration visas before they’ll sign one
The Tories are pretty desperate to be seen to be doing Brexit Trade deals and the other countries know it

UK opposition Labour Party to prioritise trade links with India.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/uk-opposition-labour-party-to-prioritise-trade-links-with-india-8204536/

If Labour get into power and throw the gates open again the Tories will have an absolute field day.

🤣The Tories have nothing left to have a field day on, just a track record of lying and making everything they touch turn to shit.

the Cons simply don't have a policy on migration...

David Lammy mentioned the Dublin agreement yet again today (Labour's policy actually appears to be 'mention the Dublin agreement') - has he not read this;
In 2022 Germany tried to send back over 68,000 migrants to other EU countries under rules governed by the Dublin accords. 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...
Ihttps://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/46133/germany-unable-to-send-back-most-migrants-under-dublin-rules

Or this -
Last year [2022] the European Union, Switzerland and Norway recorded the largest number of asylum applications in seven years, with countries receiving nearly 1 million requests for international protection.
This comes in addition to around 4 million Ukrainians who have sought shelter in Europe...
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/ireland-sets-record-number-asylum-25883154

This -
Ireland set a new record for the number of new asylum seekers in 2022.
13,319 people from around the world [not including Ukrainians] applied for asylum in Ireland last year - the highest figure since records began, exceeding its previous record high of 11,634 in 2002.
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/ireland-sets-record-number-asylum-25883154

The gates are wide open.

The Tories and Brexit opened them wider than ever before.,

Thats why where there were 400 people a year coming in little boats now there are 50,000.

Where immigration was 100,000 a year pre Brexit bongs now it is over 500,000.

The people who voted for the Tories because they said they’d control immigration were conned.

Problem is Labour aren’t saying much and it was T Blair who started the 300,000 pa when he opened the door to the east Europeans - I just don’t trust Labour at all ( they like to be ‘kind’ and inclusive so why would they fix immigration).

Much of the immigration is students +families which unis want for finance

I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Loads of the Ukrainians that did manage to get to the U.K. under our clustefuck of an ‘open channel’ for refugees went back home. Turns out lots of them felt living in a war zone was better than living in the U.K.

It’ll take them years to join the EU. By that time we’re likely to be one of the poorest countries in Europe.

IF Ukraine joined the EU, it would be many years before FOM to all EU countries became available and we aren't in the EU, so could fashion FOM to suit....

Plus, Ukraine will be getting trillions in aid from around the world, Ukrainians will want to stay and rebuild the country they have fought so hard to keep sovereign.

EU migration was mainly white european and most assimilated into the UK easily and could easily go back home if they wished, this is not the case with migration now, many are older, lack equivalence in skills and will never return plus bring in family dependent members.

Tbh your post smacks of the sort of guff we heard during 2016 "Millions of Turks heading to the UK..."