Labour's new policies for asylum seekers

[frommyheadtomyfeet]

Are rumoured to follow Denmark's, which include the seizure of valuables from people arriving here to pay their accommodation costs.

Is anyone else disgusted by this?! How will it work, they can take people's jewellery, phones etc., and leave them with nothing? What sort of message does that send?

We co created it

Tbf what is offered is better than elsewhere, it’s not a very unsafe tent city, it’s potentially work if the pp says there’s changes on that.

Something about assets won’t change that. How can they take anything?

Exactly. It’s a shame more people don’t see this.

A social service official actually lifted my great aunts hand to inspect her rings while she was lying in a bed wracked with dementia. If that is deemed acceptable for a 93 year old lady then its acceptable for everyone else as well 😬

Wait, so is Denmark nazi now? I thought it was always the go-to example for people on the left when asked for a successful socialist country.

@frommyheadtomyfeet most immigrants are not ‘fleeing war torn countries’. They’re economic migrants. Most of the time.

What correct routes? There are none. There are no safe routes currently. The media and government are conflating asylum seekers and illegal immigrants as one and the same, they are not. Illegal immigrants are working under the radar or visa over stayers, they don’t get benefits because the government doesn’t know they bloody exist.

I'm afraid your logic is quite flawed and, in this case, incorrect. Your Labour supporter spidey sense might need some recalibration.

I think it's a sensible principle, I suspect in practice it would be implemented about as often as it is in Denmark, and it would be imperfectly applied.

But with a policy goal of reducing the pull factors to the UK and in particular reducing the horrific trade in human lives that people smuggling to the UK represents, it's a useful tool to have and signal to send. Both to those who think the UK is a better option than other European countries, and to those at home who think the system is stacked against them.

I have sympathy for anyone fleeing war torn countries. Economic migrants less so, as we have legal channels for this. I struggle to understand why desperate people are not so desperate that they scramble across 'safe countries' to get to the UK. What is the draw to our country if we are not seen as a soft landing? That said, do think that taking trinkets is not the answer in this case.

You’re calling Labour ‘Nazis’?? Where are the gas chambers? Where’s the physical experimentation on children and others? Seriously please don’t fling about ludicrous accusations like that. It’s deeply offensive.

We are not overpopulated- we are under-resourced.
We don’t have enough houses because lots are unsuitable for habitation, used as holiday homes, been bought under right to buy so the housing market is reduced. Also people want a 3 bed semi with a private garden which takes up more space than flats which are commonplace in Europe.

People are living longer with worse health conditions which costs the NHS more money but we don’t have more people paying tax to fund it.

We have a declining birth rate so fewer young people to pay for the pensions and NHS/social care. If we don’t have people coming to work from elsewhere how do you suggest we continue to fund this?

Of course I want nature but in my area the land is being sold for retail units and warehouses- not parks being developed.
Of course I want locally grown food- but guess what, that means voting with your feet and going to the small greengrocers instead of convenient supermarket.

Like I said, let Labour do these policies and when they don’t miraculously solve all the other issues people will see that it’s not the migrants that are ruining the country.

I don’t for a minute think any border control is gonna wrestle someone’s gold cross off them. I guess though- poor people here sell their valuables so that’s something to debate.

I’m about as left as they come (I think though that doesn’t make me “soft” or a Labour fan) and I also worked for the Home Office in immigration control for 12 years (proud to do so).
It is not racist to have immigration control.
Immigration control is one of the only measures that protects the (now failing) welfare state - I wouldn’t want the collapse of the welfare state because it’s one of the good things we have.
The Refugee Convention didn’t come into existence to help people flee war torn countries - it came into existence to protect people from State persecution (and non-State actors acting as if they were the State).
The HR convention came later and protects agreed upon rights against State killing in most circumstances, torture, detention, protects against unfair trials and State interference in marriage, family and private life etc.
Subsequent international conventions protect Internally displaced persons (IDPs) from warm torn countries but offers none of the protections that the “Refugee Convention” offers in terms of settlement, family reunion or work status.
The UK will, I hope, always provide international protection.
It is however not the case that someone travelling via any European country from whichever country they claim to be fleeing from needs to claim in the UK and they don’t have an automatic “right” to do so.

Before Brexit, those who arrived from Europe were returned within days to the country they first arrived in and claimed asylum under the Dublin Convention.

The Rwanda effort was never going to make it past the courts - and was a pointless effort at being a deterrent.

To me, the UK has options with this idea of taking assets that might be more nuanced than “we will take everything valuable” (and The Guardian is extremely biased in reporting immigration matters - I recall its reporting on matters I knew about when I worked for the HO you and it loves exaggerating the facts but that’s another day’s work.

I cannot see anything cruel or racist about saying to someone coming via Europe to claim asylum here that they are “shopping” for a place to live and their assets can be taken to fund their time here - there can be added caveats (if you are granted asylum x if not y).

Apparently the government are also tightening settlement conditions for those granted asylum - making it 20 years before they can remain permanently and the expectation that if the country of origin becomes safe that they return there - that’s far more controversial to me than taking assets (which is more obviously a deterrent action).

As for the emotional part of separating from assets - if my daughter (severely disabled) needed treatment or a safe place because the UK became unsafe for her there is nothing of monetary value I wouldn’t give for that to happen (sentimentally I would want my first DD’s hair in a locket but they can take the locket). Maybe that’s not the fairest way for life to go but then fuck all is fair - and if I needed safety fame and her they could have anything I could give them.

Most of the illegal asylum seekers have been travelling for months, sometimes years, trying their luck, constantly rejected, until they tip up here. Most have no skills, many will end up in criminal activity. Our prisons are currently running at something like 20% foreign nationals.

For every fabulous immigrant or refugee family arriving, settling, working, and I know a few, there are many others who will never work, need constant support, healthcare, etc. for the rest of their lives. We are placing a burden on the next generation, our children, it cannot go on.

On voting sure.

If it’s not possible to take the assets then it won’t send a signal. People arriving aren’t stupid, they know exactly what the laws result in. There’s plenty of people ready to help and sell in the reality before they cross the Channel.

Please give us an objective source for this statement. Thank you

Warm torn? War torn (autocorrect is fun today)

I mean in theory you could just say ‘but there’s room for more houses’ until we are a large city state, couldn’t you?

But we are hideously overpopulated. Our air is polluted, our water is polluted, our wildlife is declining at a scary rate. We now have more people than acres. Our food security is non existent. You seem to think somewhere is only overpopulated once the entirety of it looks like Tokyo.

’Small greengrocers’ - what?! Do you seriously think ‘locally grown food’ means shopping at a greengrocer? You think they grow their olives and oranges in the UK? It’s not an issue of ‘locally grown food not selling’, it’s a case of ‘we do not have enough farmland to feed our population’, that’s a fact.

I don’t see the economy as king. It has become a large black hole which no matter how much we feed it, and at what price, it never resolves or improves. Sure we can keep importing tens of millions of immigrants, and building over yet more countryside to accommodate them, and aggravating tensions. But is this a worthwhile price for probably only a small improvement in the scheme of things which is a terrible idea in the long run?

@Overthemhillscan you back up that Dublin Agreement claim and say why we had peak asylum in 2002 pre Brexit?

And why Germany and ROI don’t use the same agreement to send everyone back within days?

I don't think those strapping young men on boats wear gold crosses.
And if you've chucked away your passport then you have something to hide and you shouldn't be here.

Who gives a shit about jewellery? Nothing new is it that people have to sell their possessions for livings costs.

There is an active thread on here right now about young people struggling to get minimum wage jobs. There are too many people here and everyone can see that.

According to the world and his dog France should just take every last one of them. No need to flee there 🤣

France has enough of their own. The UK can’t keep making it someone else’s problem. I agree it needs to be more controlled but that’s everyone’s simple solution ‘stay in France’ 🤣🤣 it’s not realistic.

Perhaps the UK would do well to set a yearly limit of how many we are willing to accept.