Portsmouth Protests

[NoisyBrickDog]

Why are they all shouting "Shame on You" towards the police - when it was the RNLI who brought them all to shore?

Surly they should be shouting this towards the lifeboat crews....?

Sorry not understanding the response. Think I’ve had enough of the repetitive posts so bowing out.

How do you propose not allowing them to "shop around"? given that:

• No volunteer maritime rescue service has powers of arrest to force a crew to leave a distressed vessel.
• No volunteer maritime rescue service can be expected to endanger themselves trying to force an unwilling crew to leave a distressed vessel.
• The law of the sea mandates that anyone who can offer rescue to a distressed vessel's crew must do so.
• A volunteer maritime rescue service literally exists for the sole purpose of offering such rescue.

Except it didn't "end there", because the French vessel maintained a parallel course, standing by in case the dinghy sank.

Apart from anything else, not picking them up would seem very disruptive to the busiest shipping channel in the world.

I understand that people want to take a hard line on immigration, but does that have to involve dead bodies floating past the cross channel ferry?

"Mummy why are those people over there waving?"

Again, how do you propose to disallow them from doing this?

France want them to make the journey. It’s as simple as that.

That’s the point, not everyone would be aware of that. People can still want the government to do something about the boats and not like, have any affiliation and feel anger towards yobbish behaviour and vigilante behaviour.

I can answer that question. The migrant dinghy reported that they were in trouble with one of their two engines out, when they were 13 miles off the French coast.

At a cost of £90k the French dispatched five rescue vessels and two helicopters to provide help. When they reached the migrant dinghy they offered to take people off the dinghy and back to safety in France. This offer was rejected by all the migrants on the dinghy.

Instead they continued their journey on one engine across the busiest shipping lane in the world until they got to the English side of the channel whereupon they were met by two RNLI vessels, they transferred in the middle of the English Channel to the RNLI vessels at greater risk to both themselves and to their rescuers and were then taken to the UK.

The French have a policy of not taking people off vessels that are in distress if they don't want to. By contrast Belgium has a policy that if the vessel is in distress or that they have reported that they are in distress then the passengers have to come off. Otherwise this creates a greater danger to both the passengers, the rescuers and any other maritime traffic. The point is that if you radio that you are in distress then you don't get to choose when you get rescued, where you get rescued, who rescues you and where you are taken to after the rescue

I think the nature of the demonstration would have been pretty clear once they arrived.

Simple- the migrants radioed that they were in distress , French rescue vessel comes out to offer assistance. If this assistance is declined then the French rescue service goes back to port. Whilst it's in French waters it's a matter for French rescue services. If the migrant dinghy then gets to UK waters and they radio for help then the RNLI goes out to offer assistance which again may either be accepted or declined.

But having two sets of rescue services co ordinating a transfer of migrants bang smack in the middle of the English Channel increases the risk to everyone.

Perhaps, but your average Jo is unlikely to go on those protests. The fact there was only a few hundred as opposed to tens of thousands could be inferred as it not being a problem in wider society, but that’s a wrong assumption. Not all people who are fed up with it (enough to vote a party that promises to stop it!) would go out and protest. Hence it’s not just thugs and vigilante types who have real concerns

Out of interest what are we going to do when there are lots of these super dinghies launching at one time from different places on the a French coast, so instead of 600 odd arriving in one evening, it’s 2400 arriving at one time. What’s the plan then?

Didn’t you know? It should be open borders of course so nothing to see here.

Great! So your average Jo is not the subject of this thread about an incident that occurred in Portsmouth this Weekend and is not threatening RNLI crew! We agree!

Or, and just stick with me here, the government could work with the French and other countries in Europe to institute policies that prevent the crossings being made in the first place!

Seems far more effective than suggesting that the RNLI should change its policies.

You need to remember that the RNLI act of the instructions from the coastguard 😣

Explain to me exactly how the Belgians enforce their policy.

Too many people are getting the Diver and Portsmouth protests confused. Dover was an organised balaclavad, protest. Portsmouth was not. People actually came out of their homes in an unorganised protest once they heard about the incident. I’ve watched plenty of footage. I saw one man in a balaclava, and it’s been explained that tradesman (and no doubt, others) are only likely to protest wearing them as they value their jobs.
Bottom line is, people have had enough 🙄

*Dover

But everyone knows the French secretly (overtly) don’t care. There has been undercover reporters on beaches in France watching them running for a dinghy and doing absolutely nothing. They could slash it there and then but the excuse is it’s too dangerous. From the videos I’ve seen it’s far more dangerous watching the climb on it and sail away. They clearly don’t see it as their problem. They could allow border force to drop them back off in France and that would soon deter but the truth is they don’t care evidently

People had enough

Yeah, let's go assault emergency services, that will solve things.

"But I don't want my customers to know I am doing it"

Two sets of rescue vessels did not coordinate a transfer. They coordinated a rescue.

1. The French cannot abandon their rescue offer and return to port under international maritime law. They are able to rescue the dinghy's occupants if it sinks, so they have to stand by in case it does.
2. With the dinghy approaching British waters, the French have a moral and legal obligation to notify the RNLI.
3. The RNLI turn up to the dinghy, as expected because this is literally what they exist to do.

The human traffickers take advantage of these intermeshing principles to get the asylum seekers into the UK.

This doesn't make the RNLI a taxi service, just as a shoplifter taking advantage of store staff being trained not to chase them doesn't make LIDL into a pay-as-you-feel food bank.

No part of this is within the RNLI's gift to change.

Tis why the government needs to get a grip on it enough before the public take things in to their own hands.