To ask if you think the prime minister has a democratic duty to house asylum seekers in middle class areas

[CurdinHenry]

By which I mean, would most voters support this as opposed to a change in policy to refuse in greater numbers? I honestly can't tell what "the majority" actually wants. I would prefer fewer having seen how things went in Germany thanks to the Merkel wave but I am willing to believe I'm a backwards old boomer and a majority would be more welcoming.

They (UK governments) tend to say they have no choice due to the echr but this isn't true. There are a lot of operational choices they could make (eg sometimes when people are denied entry at the border they are actually allowed into the country for a few days and instructed to report back to the airport when it's time for the removal flight).

I don't think it's a case of people accepting this, it's just that people have no idea how to stop it? We've seen plenty of marches and protests, but it's made no difference, they still come, and the Gov still let them. As you can't take the law into your own hands without going to prison, what exactly are we meant to do?

I will be voting Reform when the time comes.

Of course they don't as it's not a crime/nothing of note

It's quite surreal how far the Overton Window has moved. Reform are basically just the Tories of the 2010s period (or 1990s NuLabour) but have been successfully marketed as "far right". The realisation that language can be used in nefarious ways to alter discourse and permanently (but subtly over time) change the meaning of words and ideas that had long established and understood meanings and connotations is quite sinister. It's a cliche but it really does feel like some people read Orwell's 1984 and got some real world inspiration from it.

It doesn’t bave to be really complicated or extreme, and there are ways to solve the problem without starting a war with France or continually having large numbers of undocumented men arrive without agreement.

If UK laws are implemented to make refugee status temporary, bar family reunification unless stringent criteria are met and introduce ID cards linked to HMRC systems and clamp down with large fines on instances of people working without ID cards (and therefore tax) being registered, the incentive to arrive by small boat would be substantially reduced very quickly. All of this is within Government control: the first two could be done with immediate legislation, the latter could be implemented fairly quickly by a competent Government using an integrated government IT system like that used in Estonia - we could ask to licence it from them rather than recreating one ourselves. Sadly, Burnham has said he is cancelling the implementation of ID cards!

The above would provide substantial disincentives to pay large amounts of money and make a dangerous crossing to come to the UK rather than claim asylum in many other European countries.

It is also perfectly legal for us to set up processing centres for arrivals without prearrangement wherever in our territory that we choose. We have many uninhabited islands that could serve this purpose perfectly well, with modular buildings shipped over and regular supply of food etc, and make it clear all unplanned arrivals will be sent there until their claim can be processed/ deportation arranged if asylum is refused. The prospect of remaining on such an island for many years until their identity can be conclusively verified and background checked would discourage those arriving without documents (as most criminals trying to pass for asylum seekers will be) from coming here. This should address some of the public concerns around safety as well as vastly reduce the numbers of people who decide to come at all.

What I do not understand is why, rather than taking these obvious measures, UK Governments have continually pretended there is nothing they can do about it, and simultaneously we have far right extremists like Reform putting forward insane and laughable policies that are both physically impossible (war ships pulling up alongside dingies without overturning them, being able to tow dingies that are not designed to be able to be towed, containing people who don’t want to be towed so would just detach the rope!) and would constitute a declaration of war with France by having our military enter their waters without permission. 😆🤦🏼‍♀️

It’s madness that nobody will take obvious and workable steps to remove the incentives so that migrants no longer want to come without permission. Then we can be humane and accept a number that is manageable in an organised way, from countries of our choosing, with proper background checks and integration into our culture and economy by them working from day 1, having had their claims processed before arrival.

The crime is ours. We’re admonished instead.

The idea that Reform are anything like the Tories in the 2010s or Labour until Blair/ Brown is absurd.

Reform are a bunch of looneys and charlatans who are socially very far to the right and economically also very right wing (and utterly clueless). They have no coherent set of policies at all. They are isolationist and pretend they want to support average people yet everything they propose would be to the severe detriment of average people’s living standards. Notably, the only details policy they have produced since the 2024 election is one about cryptocurrency which — had they been in charge and able to implement it — would have cost taxpayers tens of billions of pounds already and made a lot of money for guess who? Crypto billionaires. What a strange coincidence, given what we now know about their major funders.

Conservatives in 2010s (prior to the Brexit lunacy) were socially liberal and ostensibly economically centre/ soft conservative. They were global in outlook so at least grasped the basics of economics even though they failed to implement any sensible long-term industrial strategy to generate growth.

Conservatives from 2016 onwards were populists but not as extreme as Reform. Utterly incompetent nonetheless, economically incompetent and actually very left wing, while being socially conservative (i.e. the opposite of the previous Conservatives, hence everything starting to go downhill with UK living standards at a much faster rate).

Blair/ Brown were more to the left economically and also socially liberal and global in outlook, understanding that the global economy is integrated and we are absolutely dependent on this (not least for our food and energy!). However, they also failed to have a viable long-term industrial strategy. This is the failure of our Governments for decades now, of which we are suffering the effects. Sadly Burnham clearly doesn’t grasp this, either, so things will continue to deteriorate. But anybody deluded enough to think Reform would improve things is really beyond help, frankly: they would accelerate the decline in a way that would make Liz Truss look sane and sensible.

Very true.

Where are they going to find work and accommodation?

I saw a little online video, most likely to spread information but it was thought provoking.
A young lady asked her Father, “Daddy why didn’t you try stopping them earlier” his reply’ I did not want to be accused of being a racist”.

This was actually a fallacy.

https://fullfact.org/online/prayer-room-council-tax/

😡

How ridiculous.

How was this fictional man meant to “stop them” himself? Sail into the channel and start firing missiles at boats?

Alternatively, we as a country could simply tell our politicians to implement sensible, workable, evidence-based policies to address the problem as I have set out above, rather than either having ineffectual politicians who pretend they want to address this but refuse to take obvious measures to do so, or listen to populist looneys suggesting completely unworkable policies that would involve us declaring war on France.

The type of emotive hyperbole you describe in that video is aimed at the easy to manipulate who are incapable of rational thought and considering actual solutions: people who are, therefore, susceptible to extreme ideologies and populist nonsense. You might want to check who produced this material.

I don't want the ⛵ s to come

Hilarious 😂 what have all those countries got in common?! And yet we're still labelled racist if you point this out.

Quality vs Quantity? Yes! We have poor quality in great quantity. We're going to have a Temu/Poundstretcher style population in the UK. Wait for all that income tax to come rolling in. Haven't we got enough of our own poor quality people to deal with? 🤔

Where are these low skilled immigrants going to get jobs and where are they going to be housed within a country with very low housing and very low jobs?

Nobody knows, that's the problem. The government are gaslighting the entire uk into believing that we need these people. They're not highly educated and skilled professionals. They're the African equivalent of our underclass who languish on benefits with their weed habits and bad backs. Some may get menial jobs (which our own people should be doing) a tiny percentage may be educated or trained, again, our own people are educated and can get trained.

Poland are refusing to take people. How?

I don't want anybody to come. I have a third year undergraduate upstairs who will need a job this time next year and there aren't any available and he's going to get depressed and lose hope. They could have at least told us that this was the plan. I wouldn't have bothered having kids!

I know. How are Poland able to do this and we aren't?

I feel for him

I'm not fine with that happening to me, but I'm also not seeing that happening here or even close. It's perfectly possible to live alongside people who have different cultures even when you're in the minority you know. Plus the British have one of the longest and most extensive histories of doing exactly what you are so against. In many cases contributing to the instability people are now fleeing from.

In short, the only thoughts such nonsense should provoke are:

1. Who is producing this type of propaganda nonsense that you are seeing and what are their motivations?

2. Why is this nonsense appearing on your media feeds? Perhaps your algorithms have been primed to be fed with ridiculous propaganda from such fantasists trying to manipulate public opinion and turn this solvable issue into a far bigger problem than it needs to be, while ignoring the many much more serious issues in the UK that actually need to be solved as a matter of urgency.

3. Why aren’t people asking their MPs to take the obvious measures that would actually improve things rather than voting for idiots who are proposing completely unworkable policies from unicorn land, or accepting that MPs do nothing of substance at all when there are demonstrably effective measures that we can take, legally, as other countries have done?

Some of this is going through the HoL, Mahmood’s policies, so we’ll see if it makes much difference.

How are people here contributing to the instability of where people are coming from? Are you taking about centuries ago?

Yes, why are Poland refusing to take immigrants and how are they getting off with it? And why can't we do the same?

@smallglassbottle Poland are refusing to take people. How?

because they have the political will to do it.
The EU is fining them for not taking their "quota", but to them paying the "fine" is cheaper than having to deal with all the disruptive immigrants who want feeding, clothing, housing, and bringing all their 3rd-world issues into Europe.

Likewise Slovakia, Czech republic, and Hungary.
Interestingly all those countries are strongly Catholic and have a race-memory of atrocities committed against them under the Ottoman Empire (Moslem) and don't want a repeat, as most migrants are Moslem.
Austria and Denmark have also tightened up their borders, as has Italy.