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.

Is it any wonder? People know that if they express any concern for this issue, they're likely to meet with responses of racism, bigotry and ignorant from those who claim to be unable to empathise with them and the impacts they're seeing.

...they’re basically all young men who have left behind wives and kids and they go mad...

Or they might go, "How do you know that?"

I'm with you @Starplekk. No intelligent engagement, OP just keeps asking the same question.

I too am "pretty close to the action" as OP phrases it. It has a massive impact on local services - GP, schools etc. They're (mainly men) holed up in big local hotels for months, my daughters won't walk that way any more. Different cultures, bored individuals, different languages. Easy route for sex trafficking.

Approx 80% are given the right to stay, processing time is the major problem along with lack of support services and integration. We should be making this better for local communities and the asylum seekers.

I also won't be saying if it's in my top 5 even if @noblegiraffe hounds me.

People put themselves in leaky boats for one reason only - to leave France for the UK. Personally I don't think France is that bad.

OP you may not be bothered about immigration, and MN on the whole may not be bothered either. David Cameron also underestimated how the public felt about immigration, which is why he lost the Brexit vote. People can say what they like, but we all know it was uncontrolled immigration and freedom of movement that led to Brexit. Most voters didn't look beyond the influx of Eastern European men when they put their cross in the box.

Here here

Not in my top 5. I do understand wanting to stop the boats from a safety perspective, I'm not anti immigration there needs to be a safer way

I am not a fan of people risking death by drowning in the Channel.

I am also not a fan of bored young men from very different cultures hanging around deprived town centres all day. I doubt that many people on this thread have to live in said towns, or can conceive of the myriad reasons why this might be a problem.

So yeah, stop the boats.

People put themselves in leaky boats for one reason only - to leave France for the UK. Personally I don't think France is that bad.

France don't give them the amount of benefits they can achieve here

YABU, I don't want people born on a different body of land coming onto MY body of land! Think of all the effort I put into being born in the UK and not a war-torn/impoverished country! Don't you know we don't have any homegrown criminals?!

DISCLAIMER: The above is 100% a joke, there are more pressing issues to worry about and am not fretting and wringing my hands over The Boats™️.

Are the problems people are discussing being caused by "the boats" or the asylum backlog though?! My understanding is that it's been roughly the same amount of people arriving each year for the past 10 years, what's changed is that it's now much harder to arrive by lorry (the previous route of choice) so they are now arriving by boat.

Clearly you don’t live in Kent. I do. The county’s resources are absolutely at breaking point and as uncomfortable as it makes some people, yes, the boats are a problem. I would have a row with anybody who wants to label me a right wing racist for acknowledging as much.

My number one concern relating to the boats is security, the fact is that we don’t know who many of the people are and have no way of knowing how many are coming and disappearing into who knows what networks (and potential slavery). Then there is the pressure on public services which are stretched to breaking point as it is. But in the grand scheme of this countries monumental problems it is a drop in ocean.

Precisely it’s the backlog that’s the issue. But I suspect those in favour of the Rwanda policy just don’t want asylum seekers/refugees arriving at all.

I think it's pretty ironic that some from South East feel that those who live faraway should consider their plight, when their argument is that they're not obliged to consider the plight of those from even further south and east.

I live in a coastal town in the SE. It's a priority because:

Local hotels are being taken over by the Home Office to house migrants, therefore tourist footfall (and related income) is down across the area.

The influx of additional people into small towns and rural areas puts a massive strain on local services and infrastructure.

People feel unsafe (fully prepared to concede fears may be ungrounded but this is one reason it's a priority issue for a lot of locals).

People are putting their lives at risk! Many of us in the small town I live in have family/friends/acquaintances who work for Border Force or Immigration, or who volunteer as Lifeboat crew.

You really can't imagine why some people in areas where lots of unaccompanied young men have been stuffed into hotels might see it as a concern?
To me it makes sense that the husband/fathers would go first, leaving the kids and wife at home for example.
If it was us, I can't imagine travelling hundreds,possibly thousands of miles on foot and dodgy boats on the open seas when we had nowhere to go.
Surely it makes sense to try and establish a life somewhere first?!
Why are they a concern? That's tarring them all the same just because they're immigrants and men ones at that.
They're people, and I take people as I find them.
Interesting use of emotive language too - unaccompanied, stuffed, concern....... usually done to provoke a negative response.
OP, YANBU. Sick to death of all these culture wars being stoked up, when there's stuff like people going hungry as food prices too high, or not being able to heat their homes etc.
They need to focus on that instead of trying to make us all blame each other.

Could you please tell that to the British youths in our surrounding cities? McDonald's staff are terrified given the amount of outlets which have been swarmed recently, resulting in them being verbally abused with objects thrown.
Or, I suppose solving our drinking culture might also help.

I'm also genuinely interested how you know they're from other cultures, and how their behaviour differs to that of Brits in the town centres?

I hate to tell you this but the whole of the UK’s services and resources are at breaking point. It’s got nothing to do with asylum seekers. There were 30 ambulances queuing outside my local hospital last week - there’s no boats rocking up here!

If the people at the "epicentre" as it were, So Dover & Folkestone areas, are so desperately against it, why have they both just ousted Tory councils in favour of Labour? I am in both regularly, and have very close family living in both. Neither, especially in Dover, feel any less safe. Dover isn't somewhere I would be walking alone at night generally anyway.

@Bogofftosomewherehot If it's mainly men, how can the schools be badly affected?

Sentiments like this don't help.

Imagine living in your town with the issues your A&E/Schools wherever have and then add on a few thousand vulnerable surprise visitors. Then try and understand why these towns and their residents behave how they do. Then you'll understand why this is an issue for many.

Knowing the healthcare system in Kent extremely well, I can assure you that asylum seekers are not the cause of them being at breaking point.

Dover MIU was excellent 3 weeks ago and I would say much better and faster than any local to me.

Everyone harking back to that time in 1854 that Dover was a utopia.

Benefits in France are higher actually, but the general treatment is less good.

@Swingstotheleftslidetotheright

"Then try and understand why these towns and their residents behave how they do."

Behave how they do? What, voting against Tories?!! Do you think if asylum seekers were ruining their lives as you make out, they would vote Left?!