How bothered are you about Small Boats?

[Spinet]

I think the idea that people think Small Boats with illegal immigrants on them is a really pressing issue is made up by politicians to have something to campaign on. Am I right? Is this a pressing issue as far as you're concerned?

I'm not really talking about immigration/ asylum seekers in general, just the small boats everyone keeps mentioning. If you're worried about people dying in the channel I get that, but do you think people finding their way here illegally is a major issue for our country at the moment?

I think it's clear I don't but I will accept I'm wrong about this being a made up issue if the majority disagree with me.

If you want to vote YABU= this is one of my top ten concerns. YANBU = I don't think it's a top ten issue for the country.

I'll give you a clue, its not possible.

Here you go

https://skillsforenglish.com/test/selt-test-availability/

Perhaps as well as pp suggestion of ‘wiping bums’ they can also help with typing on standard devices. Lucky migrants! And some call us a nanny state… can’t think why.

Sale being the important word. Who can afford to buy them? The illegal immigrants or maybe the homeless people in the UK. You sound like you believe in communist ideals.

jgw1
It is a pretty simple and I thought undisputable point, that both I and the Prime Minister have been economic migrants

Did you arrive at your host country with any qualifications? A passport/proof of id? Did you apply for a visa? Secure a job in advance? Supply references? Did you have to pay for your own accommodation and healthcare? Presumably the PM ticked those boxes when he worked in the US.

I think you misunderstood my point.

I don’t support land or property grabs! And you are quite right, the millions arriving can’t afford them anyway, so I assume they will be labours free social housing for migrants.

I'm saying you are goading me by using ridiculous tabloid mottos like a parrot who can't actually say anything, just repeat what they hear. I hope that helps you understand what I meant. I had gone quiet because I was working, not because you were somehow victorious with your frankly execrable arguing style.

I have no idea how long you've been on MN but I've been on here in various guises long enough to see it morph from fairly left wing to fairly right wing. No very very anything, it's just got bigger.

But Labour will keep letting everyone in that they can because every immigrant is a new voter to then.

It’s not right wing. There are loads of Labour supporters

Jellybe are they all so poor and without family support here to be totally dependent on uk government to support them. I saw one man on tv who managed to get to Germany where his brother had been granted asylum but who still came here via a boat and was living with a lovely couple in their house waiting for his wife to come here. He said he didn’t apply in Germany because it would have taken longer to get his wife here. He seemed educated and probably had private funds. I think the issue of illegal entry is very complex and people should not be so binary in their views.

Have you tried putting in Afganistan or Syria and selecting a level of SELT and pressing search?

To save other posters the trouble, in an entirely predictable development there are no SELTS available in those countries. Its almost as though i knew what I was talking about.

Would you, Sladurche, endanger your own life and that of your children because you didn't want to learn French? Or because you wanted to be with wider family? If the wider family was in the UK legally, then why wouldn't you apply through the usual channels? Yes, it might take an age, but why would you choose the significant chance of drowning over waiting? No one is suggesting refugees aren't migrating for pressing reasons. What people are rightly pointing out is that once you're in a safe country - France - there is no pressing reason to get in a dinghy with dozens of other people and sail off into deep and treacherous waters.

If people were truly as compassionate and virtuous as many on here claim to be, why wouldn't you want to tackle the reasons people do risk their lives on those boats? Because if you ignore what is happening, and make ridiculous claims that people on those boats are literally fleeing terrorism and oppression in that moment, then you are effectively endorsing it as a viable option, when it is anything but that. It is an act of lunacy being encouraged by some truly evil people who profit from encouraging it.

People are entering the country without showing a passport. They could be anyone - it’s a massive problem.

That’s really kind of you to say but I don’t read tabloid newspapers, but I can only assume they are well educated, mostly Oxford educated journalists so it’s not a terrible comparison.

I have my own views, fuelled by cross party extensive reading and research, and I will say this - almost every labour policy that has been floated for the last few months has sunk without a trace - why do you think that it is?

Its cheaper than trying to put them on a barge...

This. Tories and Tory donors are benefiting from government contracts to house these poor people.

Also upthread somebody mentioned they "seem" to get better treatment than the general population. They seem to because that's what the papers report.

The Tories go not want to resolve problem because it gives them a distraction to point to every time there is a Tory scandal, failure or mismanagement.

Most of them won't be eligible to vote in a GE but crack on

@MsRosley could you perhaps explain to those of us who don't know, what channels are available to an interpreter or doctor in Afganistan or Syria to apply to move to the UK?

Really?

How is a whole house with bills paid cheaper than a bed on a barge? Economics is not your strong suit is it.

I have entered the UK and other countries many times without showing a passport, is that a massive problem?

Are you proposing for example removing the common travel area on the island of Ireland?

Are you proposing having border officers at every possible port of entry?

Even if it was available in Afghanistan, women can't access education under the Taliban.

The people in the small boats are coming from France though. They could apply from there if they were indeed doctors and dentists.

So that puts paid to the doctor angle. Maybe a small boat then..

Quite. They could apply legally from anywhere in Europe.