To think people who want "safe routes to migration" into the UK are hopelessly naive

[ForestGoblin]

We could spend every penny of public money on bringing refugees to the UK in comfy and safe boats and planes. We could make it mandatory for every home to provide accommodation and food. We could ban healthcare for anyone except refugees.

And there would still be thousands and thousands of boat crossings every year and millions more people languishing in bad situations and trying to figure out how to get here or elsewhere in northern Europe.

It's a crap situation. Life is bad. I feel dreadful for them.

But "safe routes" is a load of glib nonsense that can't work.

When talking about this it's important to get the language right. Refugees have been granted the right to remain and work in the UK. They are part of society and have rights like you and I. I believe you are referring to illegal immigrants who enter illegally and remain illegally or asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution and waiting on a decision but who can only make an application once their feet touch British soil leaving them no choice but to illegally gain entry in order to make their legal application.

Not all asylum seekers and illegal immigrants want to come to or attempt to come to the UK. Also not all people living in conflict zones want to leave so the idea of 2 billion people coming here is far fetched.

The reason young men make the journey is because it is a dangerous one that might not result in refugee status but if they make it their family can derive rights from them.

We opened our arms and welcomes Ukraine refugees because the threat of war coming to our shores is real. They are part of Europe and therfore more relatable. We have limited involvement in the actual fight where as we declared war in Iraq and Afghanistan, spent years fighting and did a half arsed pull out that resulted in the Taliban gaining control. We gave women there a taste of what their life could be like as equals and now it has cruelly been taken from them. There are things going on there that would horrify British people and yet we cannot seem to show an ounce of empathy towards those fleeing for a better life. We went in shouting how we would help and save these people only to let them down and now we deny them any safe route to claim asylum. Its luck we were born in a safe country with a very low risk of natural disasters, accessible health care, free education and basic human rights.

@Sunsnet I despair.

It is just not as simple as "we need to train more doctors and nurses"

People don't want to BE doctors and nurses anymore because the pay and conditions are so crap - why do you think they've been striking?

But the government don't want to pay enough for these careers to entice people, so people just won't train for it - and more who are already trained will leave the profession or go abroad where the money and conditions are better.

Same with teachers.

Same with building houses. Don't you realise the huge companies who build houses are all about profit? The average UK person can't afford them, I doubt very much refugees or economic migrants could. If the building company can't make the profit they want, they just won't build the houses

It would need to be a global solution with quotas for every safe country. I’m not optimistic.

It's been a short war so far. Let's see how they're doing if it sustains for decades. That's an absurd inference that other nations just roll over and accept instability and conflict.
Ukrainians are not unique.

How do you think it could be "implemented" to help in any remotely meaningless way on our cost of living crisis public service catastrophe cork on the sea?

You're going to need to provide a translation for that, OP.

Climate change means within the next few decades there may well be 100s of millions of refugees. Wait till that happens and all the good intentions in the world will look hopelessly naive

The post war system set up will likely be strained, the huge industry of smugglers but also those who help movement in other sectors are going to find things change

And millions of them are in displacement camps close to where they live because they wat to be close to home. Do you not pay any attention to what I'd going on beyond your doorstep. Millions have been in countries like Lebanon for years because they want to go home. If we helped properly instead of acting like dices over foreign aid and realised that it is act in our interests not to be tight wads even more would stay put.

Why is it absurd when it’s plainly truthful? Which other nations have taken the approach that Ukraine has?

You don't seriously believe they all want to come here, do you? The.reality is that we many, many fewer than other countries in Europe and near the danger zones.

The only way to stop these illegal migrants, and most of them at the moment are young men from Albania is to stop offering them food and accommodation.
Oh and stop the stream of legal aid payments from the British tax payers paying dodgy immigration lawyers.The UK is known as a soft touch and everyone is laughing at us .
Remember the media pictures of the group of immigrant "children" , all men at least in their late 20s smirking at our "gullibility "
Smoothly aided by the lawyers we are paying for.

Yes but that doesn't mean Ukraine will be safe again, Russia can prosecute this war for ever more if it wants too & should Trump win next year, supplies of weapons to Ukraine will stop and Europe cannot fill that gap, so will support the USA on this.

Ukraine will then fall to the Russians & millions more will flee to the West, sanctions will be lifted... this what Putin is gambling on.

Also Ukrainians aren't fighting their own government unlike, for example, Syrians.

Which other wars have begun recently with the level of international support that Ukraine has had?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-is-winning-the-war-with-russia-but-it-wont-be-over-by-christmas-tcd9zv5c3

Sorry what fucking planet are you on? Do you really believe Somalians etc are choosing to pay thousands of pounds to traffickers because they don't want to spend a couple
Of hundred quid on a flight? Really? Really?

It’ll likely start to change as climate impacts Lebanon and other close locations. It’ll push people northward

The only way to break the people smuggling model/small boats (which btw are a small proportion of our overall immigration numbers, but that's another story), is to immediately send them back to France and block them from ever being able to claim asylum in the UK. If you do that, you break the smugglers business model. But France won't let us do that. So all this 'we must work with Europe, we're being too isolationist' is bollocks. France wants rid of them (not surprisingly, since they have so many themselves), and they're happy to wave goodbye to any that leave. They don't care if a few drown en route either.

@BygoneDays

Is it tripe . I don't see the hate preachers , choudary , and his ilk in gainful employment despite having 7 kids . It's not beyond the realms of possibility that others are fully funded for life .

@Jamtartforme Behind a paywall.... but the fact remains Ukraine's summer offensive has ground almost to a halt, the grain deal is dead, the Russians have and continue to trade around the world, meaning they can quickly re arm, in deed our own PMs family help Russia out with this.

There is no guarantee Ukrainians will ever be able to return but i do think that we should be doing far more to build up Africa's economies esp Libya and Tunisia, we can also do far more to help Turkey, currently looking after millions of refugees, yet our Govt is slashing foreign aid to fund refugees here, so short sighted.

No, but it doesn't fit the leftie agenda, which would have us believe that every man, woman or child who turns up is deserving of our pity, a genuine refugee, definitely not an economic migrant, definitely doesn't see the UK as a soft touch, that every penny the UK spends on that person will be returned 10-fold. The fact that Keir Starmer, when questioned, won't commit to reverse any of the measures the Tories are attempting to bring in to curb migration tells you everything you need to know.

That's why we don't have asylum processing centres overseas - because it would INCREASE the number applying/getting asylum and all political parties know it would be political suicide to do that.

Safe routes for asylum applicants is fine and good IF AND ONLY IF

A) we don't use the acceptance rate as a measure of our "moral goodness" - we have to be okay with even 99% of the applications being rejected, in a scenario where everyone in poor countries shoots their shot and we've exceeded the number we've calculated we can support

B) there is a functioning deportation process for those who arrive onshore anyway, including those without documentation indicating where they should be sent back to...

To those quoting the law on asylum seeker rights - when there are limited resources, talking about rights on paper becomes a very academic exercise.

If the UK processed claims in 24 hours and accepted the vast majority of applicants, how many people do you think would apply?

More garbage from the Daily Mail. Literally none of this is true.

Things may have been very different 22 years ago, but in most cases that wouldn't be possible now.

Foreign nationals have to satisfy the DWP that they are entitled to benefits. Most aren't, at least initially, although that can change over time. Most foreign nationals who come here on visas are prohibited from claiming benefits because their visa includes a "no recourse to public funds" condition. People claiming asylum are not entitled to benefits until/unless they are granted refugee status.

There are occasional exceptions, of course, but in 15 years of working in welfare rights, I've come across one such case (an Iranian woman whose marriage to a British citizen broke down and was awarded residence of the children of the marriage, who were British citizens, and who wasn't allowed to take them abroad without prior permission from the court).

Of course France won’t take them back. It’s as glib as safe routes will stop boats, we can catch the never ending supply of smugglers and we can pay to fix other countries so people won’t leave

Aus has figured out how to do it though, within international law