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 have lived and worked in 4 other countries. Each time, I had to apply, have a full medical and aids test. and had to prove my qualifications. There have been a couple of places I'd like to live, but have been unable to move there.

So, have I got a problem with people getting in a boat and coming here and getting everything for free.

Yes I do.

It’s the chain I worry about. The people traffickers who don’t care if the people live or die, as long as they’ve been paid.
Women and children who can be abused when they’re at the mercy of the traffickers and other random people they come across.
The people who disappear once they’re in Britain, often into slavery, drug cultivation, sex work. All so vulnerable and will not get the “great life” they were fed in stories.
It’s a shit situation and the traffickers do a good job feeding the fear and the promises in various Asian and African countries. DH and I worked and lived in Africa for a while, the stories we heard were shocking at the time but mild compared to what is happening today.

@DesdemonaTotteringBy
Anyone with an ounce of humanity would care for the people whose desperation forces them into a small boat at the end of a lengthy dangerous journey
I disagree entirely. How narrow-minded and offensive!

The humane thing to do is to take a nuanced and sustainable approach to immigration. People aren't travelling directly from these war ravaged countries to the UK but passing through many many safe countries. They leave the shores of France to undertake this perilous journey, not because it is a last ditched desperate attempt to reach safety but because it is economically and practically beneficial for them to live in the UK. The reality is as stalk as this and it is completely disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

So many posters are keen to point out how we treat asylum seekers so badly but the fact is they keep coming in ever growing numbers. They still would rather chance it in the UK than stay in anyone of the other countries they travel through to get here.

We should be more involved with their countries to improve things so that they don't want to come in the first place.

Failing that, they should be allowed/encouraged to work when they get here especially where they have skills.

I'm bothered by the safety of the desperate people risking their lives and life savings to cross the busiest shipping channel in the world in a dinghy. I'm very frightened for them

I'm all for helping people fleeing war and persecution. I'm very much against helping economic migrants. The vast majority of the young men coming across the channel in boats are economic migrants.
The fix is simple, treat everyone arriving exactly the same as the French do. Feed them, give them shelter, keep them safe, but ffs stop putting them in hotels, giving them gym memberships, mobile phones and money. Make it so that it just isn't worth their 3-5k on a boat across the channel and they'll stop coming.

the small boats specifically issue is worrying but not one of my personal top 10 issues. One of the bigger issues is that fact that it seems to take years to process their asylum cases (why?). During that time they cannot work which seems madness to me. Asylum applications need to be dealt with swiftly after which these people are free to stay and work IMO or returned to wherever they came from.

I think we should absolutely be engaging with the EU about how to handle the issue on a strategic joined-up level and accept a quota of genuine asylum seekers, at the same time specifically targetting those profiteering from the industry.

Meanwhile we need to be cognisant of the fact that climate change, which will affect poorer countries in eg africa far sooner and far more seriously, will bring more and more people in this direction. So I'm not sure how refusing to engage with the EU on the matter is helping anyone. It's only going to get worse, whether or not they arrive on boats.

the optics of 'stopping the boats' (if they ever actually do) plays nicely for the government but totally ignores the wider issues.

I'm more concerned about the immigrants from Saudi and Qatar buying up all the property in London creating a billionaires market and forcing normal people out and a property market that normal people will never ever afford. Thanks George Osborne.

Actually when I asked my aunt who lives near these boats are supposed to arrive, she wasn’t concerned as she hadn’t seen any!

A non issue for her! She’s near Folkestone and Dover.

Indeed we should probably be more worried that Qatar is trying to buy the Telegraph than we are about small boats.

I live in Folkestone and whilst the boat issue is not ideal owing to sheer volume I don’t have particularly strong feelings. The males (and it is predominantly males) do, however, indeed have free use of some of our local sports facilities (not sure about gyms) but certainly our local 3G pitches, so no particular judgment here as I would rather the large groups of men play football than hang around the streets, but it is true…

Its not a UK only issue, it's not a Tory right wing trope, it's not scaremongering. It is a European, indeed, global issue. Human trafficking of migrants supports global criminal networks. These in turn bankroll drugs, prostitution and arms sales.

If you want to see what's going on, and the criminality it supports, globally, a quick read of some Europol reports will disavow you of your point.

This. And the Russian oligarchs.

Immigration will rocket as climate catastrophes become ever worse due to our ignoring the problems it causes and the lack of steps taken for example to insulate houses properly.
Add to that the fact that government departments have laid off so many workers including in the Home Office that would mean people get their claims processed in a decent amount of time and then they can start their lives here properly. I'm sure there are people with skills we are crying out for stuck in the system.

Along with buy to let landlords, etc. One home should be enough for anyone. Leave the rest for others to buy.

I don't have a problem with buy to let landlords. We need a healthy, low cost rental market too. My kids are both students and live in privately rented accommodation. It's not high value and it's not pricing anyone out of the housing market.

I didn't think we were allowed to discuss why Boris Johnson appointed the son of a KGB spy to the HoLs?

It makes me sad that these people are seen as less than human just because they come across in a boat. If we're treating all equally why not offer a room as wd did with the Ukrainian??

That being so, why is Rishi Sunak trying to both "Stop the boats" and increase climate change?

Fair comment!
But why are these people not fighting for their home country that they want to live in? Running away isn't necessarily the answer but if they want a better country to live in then they need to stand up for what they believe in. I'm all for asylum when the need arises but many of these asylum seekers are young males - where are the women they should be protecting? I don't profess to know the ins and out of their country and their oppressors but I would love some answers to increase my understanding.

I agree -France is a safe country

Oooh. Someone's been glued to the Daily Mail! I mean, at my gym, you can't move for people straight off boats and into the weights room.....

Can you explain, with valid sources, why the concerns are "legitimate" and showing clearly that "uncontrolled immigration is a real and growing problem". What are those problems?
I can tell you the biggest problem in this country (and in may others, such as Japan) is that we aren't having enough children to pay for the care, pension and health of an increasingly aged population. Read up on "dependency ratios" - ie taxpayer-to-dependent. It's currently 1:3. This is completely unsustainable in the long term. The average age in this country is now 45, our birth rate has dropped, but our population is living much longer after retirement than they used to, with increasingly complex needs. We already have a care crisis, 500,000 vacancies. This is only going to get worse.
The other problem is cost of living- there is a wage stagnation while prices of everything rises phenomenally. The amount of "corporate welfare" - topping up wages with taxpayer money whilst corporations are literally raking it in getting record profits is also an issue.

Both UK and international law are clear that transiting other safe countries does not bar someone from claiming asylum.

Feel free though to campaign to leave the UN Refugee Convention.

https://levinslaw.co.uk/dinghies-in-the-channel-illegal-entrants-and-immigration-offences/

I assume because most people wouldn't want a young male stranger in their spare room. But maybe some of mumsnet can prove this wrong and volunteer their spare rooms. No doubt they would but their spare room is a home office.