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....

And the French will laugh in your face.

It says UK Domestic Law.

Yes they are right, but by getting swept up in this political hot potato they are probably losing donations.

No, international law does not require asylum seekers to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. While some countries have policies encouraging this, there's no legal obligation under the 1951 Refugee Convention or other international agreements.

Do refugees have to stay in the first safe country they reach? – Full Fact

Apologies , it's @nomas I meant to thank. Although thanks to @SanFranBear too for starting a thread which has led to more donations for the RNLI, which will no doubt enrage the Nomases of this world. Saving lives is so monstrous after all.

Stop paying them money then.

Nope, it's @allthemiddlechildrenoftheworld . I need coffee.

What do they do with them once rescued? Is there a procedure??
mad in are they just delivered to the shore to wander off illegally and disappear or is their a process whereby they’re collected to be processed?
We had a local school trip return from France and when opening the coach to get the suitcases out their were illegal immigrants stowed away - police were called who allegedly just let the men go… who knows where!

I wonder what Farage’s view is on the deployment of RNLI boats to save all the home-grown fuckwits who constantly get themselves stranded on the causeway at Cramond Island in Edinburgh (and doubtless similar up and down the UK) and need rescuing?

Should the RNLI leave them all to drown because they don’t know what ‘tide’ means and can’t be arsed to read prominent signage?

No they didn't.

And do what? Maybe we should try ‘laughing in the face’ as a tactic then. It certainly sounds better than letting people drown anyway.

See also Holy Island. At least a couple of dimbulbs a month get stranded there despite tide tables on both sides of the causeway and the information freely and widely available elsewhere.

They aren’t though are they.

They are rescuing people in difficulty at sea, that is what they do.

It’s the government(s) being soft that is causing this not the RNLI.

How do you know that please?

They are handed over to Border Force who wait at the station when a lifeboat is launched. The RNLI launch when asked to do so by MCA, not because they choose to. It is a coordinated response led by UK authorities of which the RNLI is the part that actually goes to sea to rescue people from the water.

Apparently, one of the reasons they don’t take money from the government is so that they can remain independent and free to rescue migrants without interference from the government.

Genuine question to all the people donating to RNLI. Are you also donating to charities supporting illegal migrants within the UK?

Surely the saving shouldn't end on the beaches....

The comments on this thread have made me have a deeper think into the dangers of media.. all kinds but especially SM. We are inundated with biased reporting at both extremes of the political spectrum and even though we may try to focus on our own preferences we are nevertheless exposed to things we may not necessarily have been exposed to if it wasn’t so freely and easily available.
Media have a huge responsibility to report news objectively - but they don’t. There is always subjectivity and bias whether it’s sensationalist misleading headlines, or lacking fact/source checking etc.
As a result we are overwhelmed with information that we individually have to make sense of and then it leads to disbelief at other peoples opinions.
The migrant issue has been used as a political weapon to manipulate us - and this is dangerously, as we can see by the responses here. It’s obvious that lifeboats must save lives! That’s a black and white issue. But people are being manipulated to fit a narrative and that leads us to question these basic human principles.

The RNLI volunteers shouldn't have to give a thought to the status of people they rescue. They aren't politicians or civil servants, they are people who leave their everyday occupations in order to try to rescue people who are in danger at sea. Some of those people will have caused their own peril, by whatever means (inadequate equipment, knowledge, dodgy old boat, taking unnecessary risks), but the thing that matters is the danger.

They rescue a lot of people who have caused their own misfortunes (off the top of my head I can think of a vessel which sank because the skipper was drunk, a fisherman who was sailing alone and decided to repair the radio aerial, then fell in the sea with no lifejacket, and several people who thought that an inflatable dinghy would be suitable for the North Atlantic.

If the RNLI tried to interfere in politics and policy wrt immigration, it would be shot down in flames, and rightly so. Its remit is very narrow- to rescue those in danger at sea, and to improve safety at sea. All it wants is to do that. I expect many of its members would be grateful if other people with more power were to reduce the numbers of people it had to rescue, but that isn't a problem that the RNLI has any power to solve.

(On a slightly lighter note, I now have Eternal Father strong to save playing on repeat in my head, so I would welcome advice on getting rid of an earworm!).

It has been established for millennia that sailors help others in peril on the sea.

Even sailors winning yacht races have left the race to help those in trouble, and lost the race as a result.

It is so ingrained that to assess people by ethnicity or sex or anything other than, do they need help, is insulting.

If you can rescue someone, you do. It’s that basic.

The RNLI save all lives at sea regardless of how they got there. Whether that's migrant crossings in small boats or a UK local who's made a stupid decision and got themselves into trouble. They don't judge based on preparedness of the person being rescued or the decisions they made that got them there. They rescue those in need at sea.

The question about our policies on dealing with migrants is completely different and nothing to do with the RNLI.

Because the police don't just let people who have entered the country in this way go.

How nasty to the RNLI, you really are unkind.

Is this how you see people that volunteer to rescue people in danger?

They’re humans that can’t turn their backs on other humans drowning.

Top post on the thread.

Domestic UK law does not supersede international law. The UN convention on refugees still applies, and it is not illegal for someone to come here from France and request asylum. Having travelled through a safe third country may affect their claim, but it doesn't make the manner of their arrival illegal. It's really quite straightforward.