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.

I don't know what the answer is but it needs the co-operation of all European countries.

What a shame that 52% of the country stuck two fingers up to our European neighbours then!

Nobody wants to acknowledge this though.

They just want to say ‘tax the rich’ and pretend building over green spaces isn’t contributing to flooding problems especially in the light of climate change. They won’t acknowledge we have finite resources and space, they won’t acknowledge anything. They live in cloud cuckoo land.

YANBU

Some priorities are:
Education
NHS
NHS dental care
Housing
mental health services
review of benefits
Social care
children’s services
tackling the cost of childcare
Transport
(Not necessarily in the same priority order all the time)

Dealing with immigration in a joined up and sustainable way
saying “stop the boats” is like one of Boris’ slogans. It’s not as simple as just saying those words.

Everyone deserves to live somewhere safe. And I do mean everyone.

I would do anything to get my children somewhere safe. And living in a tent through winter isn't what I consider safe.

Stopping the boats will ease pressure on:

• Housing demand
• NHS usage
• State education
• Prison population
• Benefit system
• Care bill (in future, because boat people age too!)

Have I missed anything?

@Eyesopenwideawake
Sorry it was supposed to be sarcastic!
There are indeed legal routes but since it is nearly impossible to access them then they may as well not exist imo.

Here is some more info fullfact.org/immigration/khalid-mahmood-safe-routes-refugees/

I think the quickest way to stop the boats would be to let people travel via Eurostar (as happened with Ukrainian refugees) but I don't think that is what the government mean

and how many illegal refugees access these services?

My top one would be education with health including dental not far behind.

My DParents health including social care.

FIL stop the boats may well be high - he's convinced the hotels here are full of asylum seekers from boats - they now book a hotel on visits - despite fact none of us locals are aware of any such thing and they don't seem to be when they stop in them. He insists there no other explanation ignoring fact it often cheaper to stop in this city than nearby cities and they often have big events on. Logic or local knowledge make no impact - so clearly it plays well with some voters.

Me too. These people don't put their babies in leaky boats for nothing. Have you watched the footage from Sudan, for example? Read 'War Doctor' about some of the horrendous conflicts that make people abandon their homes, crops and animals and flee to a place of perceived safety. And the reason the ones heading for the UK want to come is a legacy of our colonial past - you choose where you can speak the language and have some sort of connection.

It’s in the millions.

Housing would make it onto my list before immigration but I think immigration and esp uncontrolled immigration is hugely important to lots of people.

I agree that it is terrible that people are dying needlessly in the Channel due to a lack of safe, legal routes to claim asylum in the UK.

Is it one of your top 5 priorities?

The ones who are processed? Thousands. We need to step back and acknowledge people's concerns around this. If we don't it's going to cause mayhem.

Is trolling Mumsnet one of yours?

I would very much like to stop the boats. Not because I am anti-immigration, but due to drownings, to criminal gangs running the operations, to families losing their life savings in often-futile attempts to reach other countries.

Not in my top 5, though.

That's stopping the people rather than the boats specifically though isn't it?

Loads more over stayers than boat arrivals but considerably less public awareness or anger, or concern for services arises from this

No.

It's one of the government's top 5 priorities. They say it is what the people want them to tackle.

Therefore it seems relevant to ask if it is one of your top 5 priorities.

Do you agree with the government?

Some one else thinking everyone in the SE is rich and living a life of luxury🙄

It's a very recent problem. Small boat crossings of the Channel were a negligible issue until very recently.

The government represent the public. Clearly enough of the public have voice concerns over this matter for them to put it as a top 5 issue to be addressed.

Where I rank it on my personal scale is irrelevant

Yes it is number 5 or 6 on my list. Obvs NHS CoL more pressing.
To accommodate these arrivals will cost us a lot of money, we shall have to build houses to accommodate them. Our population has been increasing over the last 10 years. Why do you think house prices have shot up over the last 10 years? A shortage yes!

If we build a city the size of Swindon every year it will still not accommodate them all. There is too much building on farmland already. Our Utilities are not coping, we cannot afford to build new water or Sewage works. We are broke on a personal level and as a country. Those services have to be built first.
They should stay in their own countries and work to improve conditions there, not leave and abandon their homeland to the iffy politicians and crooks as they have.

Well yes talk about shooting himself in the foot! 🙄😂

Yabu

Most of these things would be fixed if there were fewer people in the country to share the scarce resources. Doctors and nurses don't come over on boats, but people who use them do.

People need to analyse a bit more here. This is all a clever ploy to distract us all.

The whole boats issue is a very convenient distraction technique that gets all the right wingers riled up while taking focus off the Tories multiple failures as a government.

It's ideal to have a scapegoat and someone for Us all to blame and be angry about. They do this deliberately to take focus off themselves.

Wish people would do some critical thinking rather than take everything government says at face value. This is why Brexit happened, people just believed all the spin and lies and never did research.