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....

Just assume your only choices were they are in the sea and picked up or they drown with out help.

Which are you choosing?

You're right. It's a strict rule of being at sea that your vessel MUST where possible go to the assistance of anyone in danger or at the very least stand by to help. No exceptions. Husband spent a lot of his professional life at sea and the RNLI is entirely in the right as well.

There needs to be a really well organised and resourced, world wide (as much as possible) agreement to dismantle the organised criminals involved in people smuggling. Countries working together on this - and on other illegal activities such as drugs. Well IMO anyway.

Can you detail which law you personally believe is being broken?

If you stumble into newspaper threads about the RNLI there is a whole foaming mouthed class of in breds spouting this stuff.
About how they will never give them another penny.....like they ever did.

It's vile.

"When we took that little girl - who was probably four years old - off that boat, she looked at me straight in the eye and she said 'Thank you. I love you.'"
🥺

Yes, I set up a monthly standing order last time there was a news story like this.

I live near the coast and I support the RNLI. I walked past a fundraiser literally last week and got into conversation. He was telling me that only earlier that day he had been verbally abused by a woman for saving all lives at sea. He was really depressed by it. In my view, they are not unlike doctors in that they have a duty to save human life no matter who that human is or where they are. Maybe the protesters should consider if saving drowning babies and children is a political matter.

And? So? They can go where they want to. Their reasons for choosing the UK are well documented. Want to stop it? Then provide legal routes for seeking asylum from outside the UK (there are none at present) and tackle the shadow economy hard.

Well done RNLI. Statements against them doing this from Nigel Farage and his lot are evil.

This country entered multiple countries around the world illegally and in much greater numbers.
Generally the desperate immigrants are from desperate counties are in desperate situations, due to British interference directly or indirectly.

It is illegal if you don't claim asylum when you arrive. The act of crossing is illegal but our law effectively sees it as justifiable if you are escaping mortal danger as an asylum seeker.

The existence of community defibrillators that can be used by people without training and community response volunteers for the Red Cross and St John Ambulance do both of those things. And any decent human being in the location.

It's been the Law of the Sea for all boats to help anybody who requests it for centuries - because one day it might be them needing help from somebody in the location, the Sea being an exceedingly large place.

There's no failure in requesting boats to assist, because it's physically impossible to be everywhere at once and the international rule of assisting anybody in trouble at sea existed long before the RNLI.

Well several people wanted cats and dogs taken out of Afghanistan before humans

Yep, the usual posters seem very quiet today.

Along with flat screen tvs and latest iPhones, that they’re all supposedly given 🤦‍♀️.

It’s so fucking tiresome when they say this bullshit all the time!

And then you're back into the argument that nobody leaving France is in "mortal danger".

The whole system is a mess and Labour really need to get a handle on it or Farage will goosestep into No 10 next election. People are worried about the "boat people", because they are by and large young men. The system can't cope with them, it would be a different matter if asylum claims were heard in a week but they're not. Get across the Channel and you're guaranteed at least a year here before your claim is decided, that gives you loads of time to disappear into the grey economy anywhere in the UK.

There are no easy answers to this but shouting down people who raise concerns isn't helpful. We need to be having these discussions.

Yes it is. You are peddling lies

British law requires a visa or other special permission to enter the country. Punishable by four years in prison.
If on arrival they claim asylum then any criminal case is put on hold pending an outcome.
However that asylum claim “should” be invalidated as international law requires people to claim asylum in the first safe country they enter… which isn’t the uk.

@SanFranBear well, i think they are running a taxi service. they are picking up people who are in boats which are perfectly serviceable. nothing wrong with the boats, so the people are not in danger. i will not be donating to them again and know many, many others who also refuse to donate to them! all those people on the boats come of the rnli with new iphones. who is providing those?? the uk government should be patrolling the channel and turning the boats round back towards france. as for feeling sorry, where are the mothers, why are they mostly strong young males? If there are mothers, why have they endangered their childrens' lives? they are meant to stop in the first country they reach! think of me what you want!

Do you have a source to show that the RNLI routinely carries new iPhones with them, and hands them out to people getting into difficulty? I need an upgrade, maybe I should just go swimming…

The RNLI aren't the border police, they are a rescue service.

You would have to be seriously fucked up in the head to think RNLI volunteers should watch people drown when they realise they are migrants instead of saving them.

You forgot to mention flat earth and vaccines.

Yep and I'm guessing those people are tucked up in their cosy homes and don't have to do what the RNLI do.

And here we have a “get new iPhones” nonsense! I’m so glad I posted about this before this was put up, proved a perfect point.

When do you think they get the “flat screen tvs”.

they are meant to stop in the first country they reach!

Would you say that if you lived in the first safe country they reach, or would you say that all safe countries should be doing their fair share?