To think the RNLI are 100% in the right

[SanFranBear]

I've just seen this story on the BBC news homepage where the RNLI are being accused of acting as a taxi service for migrants trying to enter the UK on small boats from Europe.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8dejyg4l37o

The organisation and volunteers quite rightly have responded to say they make no apologies for saving lives at sea and that their work has no political motivation.

Damn straight - one of the volunteers further down the article explains the profound impact he feels of encountering people struggling in our waters.

It makes me wonder what critics of the service expect them to do - just sail away, leaving the people to die? Pick them up and cross the channel to dump them back 'where they came from'?

What is wrong with them? Where is their compassion? Regardless of your thoughts on immigration, this is so cold and inhuman....

His policies on increasing boat crossings? Please tell us what they are

I'd be interested in the source of your statistics. I've found a figure of 49% for the year to March 2025, but that does not include those who are going to appeal.

This data runs to September 2024 but is a great deal more detailed in who is and is not granted asylum by nationality: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2024/how-many-people-are-granted-asylum-in-the-uk

It isn't just about more stringent checks, it's a lot more nuanced than that.

The problem you have there is that this will also affect the recruitment of highly qualified, desirable and shortage occupation migrants - because there are countries out there where these people are actually welcomed and treated well.

You don’t know what Starmer has done on this since in power? How at this stage.

It’s not anyone else having an impact is it? It’s Starmer who is in. If you doubt that crossings are up, they are in the public domain too.

Nothing at all to do with a summer of unusually favourable weather conditions then?

You are avoiding to answer the question 🤔

Which policies have increased the boat crossings?

We can easily have exemptions for shortage occupations.

As for the highly skilled, they're flocking to the UAE and other places which aren't degenerating into shambles.

We can make the system work for the good of Britain. Right now, it does anything but.

Really? I didn’t realise Labour were still relying on the weather thing. What happened to smash the gangs?

Terms of residency and citizenship in the UK are already draconian and unwelcoming.

The spouse of a French national living in the UK can get French citizenship for 55€ plus a few hundred quid for certified translations of documents without even needing to set foot in France, much less live there.

Meanwhile the spouse of a British national living in France would have to pay thousands just to get a visa to move to the UK post Brexit, which may be denied for any reason, particularly if the UK spouse isn't already working in the UK and earning a relatively high salary.

Evidently NOT draconian and unwelcoming for the right people. We have millions of people who've came here who are of no benefit to the UK.

I'm just pointing out to you that things are usually multifactorial, something you seem to have forgotten (and you're usually more nuanced than this).

Data to substantiate, please?

How do you work that one out?

And there's millions born here that are of "no benefit" to the UK. That's why, as always, we need immigrants to come and do our shit jobs that nobody born here wants to do. Harddly a new phenomenon. What do you intend to do about them?

No that weather excuse isn’t great at this point. I know Labour used it about a month or so ago. But I don’t think it’ll hold as a way to get past higher crossings.

There’s been so many, weather, slashing boats, taking rights, change in arrest, one in one out, all these announcements some ‘ground breaking’ or ‘game changing’ and numbers are up. So ‘nuance’ is more just any press release and any line which gets repeated for a bit. I’ll give it to you I thought weather was an oldie.

The UK lost that right on leaving the EU.

Ironically, the Brexit that so many xenophobes voted for because they thought it would reduce immigration has led to a completely different set of immigrants arriving. Instead of carers and nurses from Poland and Scandinavia coming here to work, we now have people from outside Europe who aren't allowed to work for 2 years or more while their asylum claims are processed.

It's a classic case of "be careful what you wish for".

Ah great. "We have our own problems so let's import more" "I have asthma so I may as well just get AIDS as well".

As for people asking for proof/stats: there are none so blind as those who will not see. I'm done negotiating with people who simply want to deny what any honest person can see in this country.

I'll be voting for whoever offers the most radical solution on this, like millions of others.

Break international law you mean? Not my country. I’d like my country back please. The compassionate, inclusive, law abiding one.

You are better off voting for realistic solutions rather than radical fantasies

It's been an unusually easy spring and summer for small boats. Who knows, perhaps next year we will have utterly shit weather and crossings will come down. And then of course we may have another war break out somewhere, which will drive the numbers up again. And we haven't yet seen the impact of the law change in Germany. Meanwhile, do we know what % of immigrants are small boat arrivals for the year to date?

So it is a majority then? You can’t have it both ways.

Ah yes, the response of the wilfully blinkered: I know what I know, so I won't back up anything I say with data.

I see you.

I haven’t posted the figure another poster did. Look at initial decisions and appeals for combined. 2022 Act changed it a bit.

The only 'solutions' people like you think are realistic are nonsense that changes nothing at all. Garbage like "we've made it illegal to overload a dinghy!". No doubt 5 years ago you'd have here banging on about the 'far right myth' of the grooming gangs. "Check the government stats!".

Other countries make huge changes all the time. People in the UK are just stuck in some sort of matrix where they think that everything here HAS to be the way it is.

We need to change laws until they work for us.

It's GOING to happen, one way or another. Radical change of some sort is coming to the UK. The only question is what form it will take.

Nope. There's plenty out there, but if you were remotely honest or in good faith, you'd have recognised what you can see anywhere in Britain with your own eyes.

I'm not defending a dissertation and frankly don't give a fuck whether I change your mind. I don't expect that anything could.

I've resigned myself to leaving people like you to carry on with your fingers in your ears and obfuscation, and we'll see what happens.

Good luck finding somewhere to build your camps