AIBU to not understand why people will vote Reform when Brexit is the reason for the migrant boats.

[LIGHTSNACKER]

We did not have a boat problem before Brexit due to the rules/agreements, so why do people want to vote for the man who had a big part in causing this and his company party?

What seems to have worked in other places is to make coming unattractive for those who don't have a valid reason.

As others have said, if you get rid of gang others will step in if there is still demand. And people can always find another way, however dangerous it might be, if the payoff on the other end is good enough - or seems to be good enough.

If it's clear people who don't have good, substantiated claims to asylum won't be admitted, and that people who overstay on things like student visas, or who are caught committing crimes are deported, or that there is a requirement to learn the language - whatever - many people will self select out.

Those that are left will be a more manageable number, and if it's done right, also more likely to be legitimate which means those people will be better off too.

🙄 like we haven't heard that one before. At least come up with something original rather than parrot something you've read in the letters section in the Guardian. Doesn't make you look too bright yourself....

Actually, studies have shown that lower intelligence is linked to increased likelihood of voting for parties such as Reform.

Ooh we keep being told about climate change and net zero in the UK yet needing more homes so constantly building and destroying wildlife and countryside so continual immigration really isn’t helping in any shape or form

EU asylum applications were down 13% last year.

UK was up 17%.

That's because the EU has been able to tigthten up its controls. When we were a member, we would have benefited from that, but now tighter EU controls mean more UK applications.

While EURODAC used to allow us to quickly identify and reject applications from asylum seekers who had failed applications elsewhere in the EU, failed applicants now have a much greater incentive to try again in the UK.

The EU also has proper readmission agreements with more countries, making successful deportations significantly easier than they are for the UK. A lot of our unsuccessful applicants are Pakistani or Bangladeshi. The EU has formal readmission treaties with those countries - we only have non-binding, unenforceable agreements, so our rate of successful deportations is far lower - another good reason for seekers to try here.

And yes , it remains difficult for EU countries to successfully deport, but its still far easier for them than for us, and now, it actually drives additional asylum seekers our way.

A Tory immigration minister wouldnt be admitting that they did a "whoopsie" and that Brexit made it harder to return asylum seekers if that wasnt the case...

Right on cue....

Just wondering, what do all the clever logical thinking people vote?

I really dont even understand the 'smash the gangs' rhetoric

If I want to get from A to B, I am going to pay a carrier to get me there.

Im lucky enough that I can pay National Express, British Rail or BA to get me to a destination. But someone coming from Iran to the UK, France to the UK to claim asylum has to do this by paying someone who has the means for that, with cars, trucks, boats, bikes whatever.

You dont need to be a gang, you're not even necessarily a people smuggler or trafficker. I want to be taken to the UK, so I am not being trafficked or smuggled, Im paying for a service to get me somewhere.

To use the term smuggler or people trafficker implies that the people being carried over to the UK dont want to be here and its against their will.

I did, and its unclear specifically what you meant by "it". The poster at the beginning of the visible chain speaks of leaving the ECHR which obviously isnt illegal, did you mean revoking the right to claim asylum entirely?

The Med crossings went down and there was yet another headline here about Starmer ‘learning’ from it. The reality for them was illegal pull backs and new maritime laws.

If you google graveyard at sea the Med you’ll get some articles explaining why.

Still apart from using those methods to lower entry to the EU which individual EU country is successfully using the DA to resolve their situation? Germany? Greece? France?

ETA we can have agreements with countries to return but if you’re talking about Brexit and the DA then I’m interested where exactly it’s working

Youngsters don’t normally vote in elections but they are online and see young people in the US speaking about how great Trump is (and Farage loves Trump) It would be easy for Farage to use the “foreigners are stealing your jobs/university places/NHS appointments/housing…” to convince right wing young people to vote.
Considering how this government have behaved, I can’t see woke young people voting Labour either.

I get what you mean, but I suppose you need a term for the organisations that make vast profits which are not legal. What would you prefer to use?

Im not convinced there are organisations that make vast profits. From what I know of asylum seekers who I work with, its normally a friend of a friend in the village, an uncle, a brother, getting lucky, lots of walking. Theres a real mixture of how people make their way here

It also differs from country to country, a lot of Vietnamese children certainly are virtually taken into slavery to be brought here and their parents charged a lot of money. Im not sure thats the same for people from the ME or Africa.

Considering more people voted for leave than remain that’s a pretty silly comment! You’re basically insulting more than half the population because they don’t agree with you

“foreigners are stealing your jobs/university places/NHS appointments/housing…”

which is true in my opinion, and anyone who can’t see it is blind. How many people do we want to cram into this country? It’s already bursting at the seams.

Withdraw from the ECHR and revoke the right to asylum - it was designed to deal with far smaller population flows and has sadly become entirely unsustainable.

Any irregular migrants who arrive are detained until they can be deported to their home country or a third country where the former is not possible.

You can't revoke the right to asylum, the right to asylum is not in the ECHR and you can't send people back to a country where they are going to be persecuted/don't have permission from the country to do so.

You are looking at this in a very simplistic way...

The Dublin Regulation - and our loss of access to it - is only one of the factors.

The Dublin Regulation allows EU countries to return unsuccessful applicants to other EU countries. The numbers of returns were always fairly small and it's not a particularly effective tool. That said, it is a not-particularly-effective tool we have lost access to. Perhaps more significantly (and it is difficult to quantify the effect), the fact that we can't return applicants to EU countries as easily is believed to be contributing to the influx.

But, in additional to losing access to the Dublic Regs, we also lost access to EURODAC - which now means that instead of quickly finding that an applicant had a failed application elsewhere in the EU, we have to assess them from scratch. That - and the growing backlog arising from it - means a significant increase in missed deadlines for deportations.

And the loss of access to treaties with third countries is also a result of Brexit. As an EU member, we had access to treaties with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other non-EU states, allowing for successful returns at a significantly higher rate than we are now able to secure - because we haven't been able to negotiate similar agreements to replace them (outside of the bloc, we simply dont have the same bargaining power).

All of those issues stem from Brexit and are significant contributors to the current crisis.

The EU has successfully tightened up its borders in recent years - as a member, we would have benefited from that. As a non-member, it drives more asylum seekers to us.

Again- thanks Brexit!

And yes - the EU's tightening of its borders has led to an increase in death in the Mediterranean and other areas (as more dangerous crossings are attempted) but we're talking about an increase of deaths in the 100s in 2024 - that does not explain how the EU was able to reduce asylum applications by almost 1 million.

The EU appears to be getting its asylum seeker crisis under control - and that's now bad news for us.

So yeah - zeroing in on just the Dublic Regulation is daft - its a small peice of a much wider picture of How Brexit Lost Control of Britain's Borders.

Increased deaths in the Med are probably a deterrent and there are illegal pull backs.

So I’m not really seeing how you can’t see those factors.

As for under control, no. Greece has stopped asylum claims due to being overwhelmed just recently.

If I were to choose countries meeting the ‘getting it under control’ line I’d go for Denmark, Poland and Australia as long standing ones. But not much to do with Brexit / EU

What makes you think Farage isn't part of the same ruling classes with the same self interests?

Use the Royal Navy to prevent boats from entering our territorial waters. I don’t mean blowing them up, I mean prevent them from landing… stranding them in the Channel
until they go back.

Immigrants make up around 15 % of the workforce in the NHS. 42% of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants.

Be harder to get an appointment without immigration. Less people to work in the NHS.

Do you think Brits want the low paid jobs given high cost of housing?

There won't suddenly be extra money to freely increase wages. Extra money comes from economic growth which comes from investment. So chicken and egg.

Compared with France, Spain and Germany the UK's figures are soo small. The benefit of already being an isolated island nation. Jenrick was rabbiting on this morning about this topic of the day, I remember this same old crap being talked about before Blair got into power. The Tories could have done something about it if they really wanted too. This is an issue, but it's not the big issue in the UK, don't swallow this BS, and don't even consider voting for Reform. Farage is a conman and will use rage bait, and pot stirring as much as he can to get power. He would be an absolute disaster for this country, and make even the likes of Truss and Sunak look professional.

Ok, fair enough. I don't disagree but that doesn’t mean we do nothing. There are lots of ways to reduce the pull factor for example, to reduce the incentive to come here in the first place. And you can tighten policies up significantly from where we are right now. It may not STOP THE BOATS entirely but if we can stop setting a new record for small boat arrivals every other day that'd be a good start.

EU asylum applications were down 13% last year

Still considerably more asylum applications than 2019/2020/2021;

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250320-1

the EU has been able to tighten up its controls

I see -

abuses by the Polish authorities including shooting people with rubber bullets, setting dogs on them and giving them water laced with pepper spray. There are accounts of people being detained without food or water, having their clothes confiscated and being forced to strip naked.

Polish authorities have also forcibly pushed people back...
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/trapped-pushed-back-and-tortured-polands-crackdown-refugees-europes-border