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....

If those people were all to leave do you think we would fare better?

ETA given that you’ll likely say yes what does the tax take look like, who is paying more?

When my Kurdish friend fled her home country, she fled with just what she was wearing. She didn't go back home to collect her passport and other documentation, for fear that she would be taken by the security forces, imprisoned again, and possibly tortured again, and that she might also jeopardise her family's safety.

.... and breaks them.

CofE child abuse

I haven’t a solution. I’m just presenting the problem. We’ve allowed inequality to grow - it started before covid but accelerated in that period. Unless we can solve it governments and the middle class will find life increasingly difficult, and the poorest will find it impossible.

You're saying that rich people are the problem and that if we didn't have them then everyone would get along? You're living in a fantasy world if you actually believe that.

I’m saying inequality is the problem. Like a stick with 2 ends, the increasing wealth of the 1% reduces the wealth of everyone else.
We’ve had long enough to show trickle down doesn’t work. Unless we sort out inequality we are all in trouble. Even you, unless you are (at least) a multi millionaire.

Eh?
Are you saying that men the world over have exactly the same attitudes towards women and girls?

This thread is almost entirely made up of straw man arguments.
No. I didn’t say that. I’m saying men from anywhere can be a risk. And also men from anywhere may not be a risk. There are lots of reasons cities in Eritrea might be unsafe for women while Eritrean immigrants might not be a problem (not least that they left Eritrea for a reason - could it be they don’t like the way their female relatives are treated?).

Three things with that;

1. Most British people whether in the process of drowning or not wouldn't be able to answer the Life in the UK questions. Are you suggesting that somebody clinging to a bit of flotsam or a rapidly deflating inflatable flamingo undergoes an assessment of their understanding of the offside rule and the principle of fronted adverbials - or are you actually suggesting that the person on the phone at the lifeboat station says 'Umm, maybe we could fit them in - what colour are their faces? Can you ask them? Oh...nope, we've got a separate call coming in for a pissed up bloke from Sedgeley who's dropped an oar whilst fishing, we'll have to go and pick him up from just outside the marina first 'cos he's white and nobody can tell that his grandma had a fling with a Polish Spitfire pilot in 1943, so can you tell them they'll have to wait a bit?'
2. There's no passport pocket in a lifejacket.
3. Have you any comprehension of the international nature of fishing, merchant/trade shipping, oil and gas extraction, scientific research, tourism and commercial transport? They've always, and I mean always, been absolutely founded upon crew from multiple countries employed on the basis of their skills, knowledge and experience.

Yes I know and it isn’t right

Not unless they have consent from French authorities. Do they?

So this is a legal problem rather than a moral one?

The people on the boats don’t need a passport pocket. They’ve already burnt all their documentation.

So the most pressing problem this country is facing is not hordes of young blokes illegally entering the country and then being deposited en masse in small market towns in hotels right next to secondary schools. The most pressing problem facing this country is actually (checks notes) billionaires. Have I got that right?

Is what a moral problem?

The RNLI is a charity that saves lives at sea.

Billionaires was cited yes

But you'd expect British fishermen, tourists, holidaymakers, hobby sailors and the like to prove their eligibility to be pulled out of the sea or be left to drown? Seems a little harsh.

No I dont think that the men come to here because they're upset about women's rights back home.

So it's completely inconceivable to you that someone may flee a country because of concern for the safety of their daughters. Why?

You don’t tend to see sixty holiday makers crushed together on a small rubber dinghy.

So they’re concerned about the safety of their daughters and their solution is to leave the daughters in danger and travel alone to this country?

If the legalities could be sorted out you would be okay with the RNLI or the navy picking up the illegal immigrants and depositing them back in France?

Last time I checked it wasn't just single men travelling in small boats.

Around 80% are men.

yes