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....?

You haven't answered my question.

If we re-join the EU can the migrants be sent back to France or the French authorities have more responsibility to keep them there? (I've lost track over the years).

Whereupon I phone the RNLI and ask for a lift home otherwise I will jump in the water.

You would rather risk drowning in the middle of the channel…put your life at risk? Really?

@1dayatatime if you think the government is deliberately organising boatloads of migrants to land in the UK, why not say so? At least then we can have a proper discussion.

No it was low numbers, and high level criteria to do that.

Although it’s changed anyway as an EU pact.

I’m reading your posts to understand what you’re saying, but the key part I think is that the RNLI was in British waters when they picked up the migrants.

The French can help if they are in distress in French waters but can’t intercept and stop them outside shallow water.

I think.

And it’s better asylum seekers are picked up and taken to a processing centre and their whereabouts known than landing and disappearing off undetected.

Thank you.

So - unsurprisingly- negotiating returns with French authorities a long way outside of the RNLI’s remit.

Because they are thick as shit, clearly

There's a Q&A section here:

Why does the RNLI enter French Waters?

The RNLI’s volunteer crews are tasked and coordinated in the UK by HM Coastguard to assist anyone who is in trouble on or in the water. If someone is in trouble at sea, and we are tasked, we will launch to help them. Our lifeboats operate under international maritime law, which states we are permitted and indeed obligated to enter the waters of other territories for search and rescue purposes.

Why doesn't the RNLI return the people it rescues to France?

(NB Not really a direct answer to the question here - why not France??)

Our crews are tasked and coordinated in the UK by HM Coastguard to assist anyone who is in trouble on or in the water. In any rescue, our priority is to ensure that casualties are treated with skill, care and respect and brought to safety as quickly as possible. The decision on the most suitable place of safety is made in consultation with HM Coastguard and this can be the crew’s home lifeboat station, or a designated safe landing site determined by HM Coastguard. HM Coastguard’s preferred location for safely transferring people who have crossed the Channel is the Port of Dover...

https://rnli.org/about-us/our-work-in-the-channel

If only there was some kind of organisation that could negotiate this.

The rescue was much more complicated than @1dayatatime has described - more boats and also aircraft involved

The dinghy was dangerously overcrowded and sitting so low in the water that it was in danger of sinking - 30 migrants ended up in the sea at one point

The BBC had an article with maps and more detail

However, in this rather odd scenario, it is likely that the RNLI and/or other vessels would assist.

It's just not a very efficient way to save money.

There is, it’s the governments of any two countries.

The author of that article displays a lack of knowledge of the Dublin Regulation and the very low return rates under the mechanism. Across the whole of the EU in 2024, only 1 in 10 requests resulted in a transfer, despite 69% of requests relating to people who had already lodged an asylum application in another Dublin Regulation country.

No because I was answering other questions first.

Now to answer your question:
I am not suggesting that the RNLI was acting or is acting under some form of instruction from the British Government to bring migrants into the UK - that would be a batshit conspiracy theory.

What I am suggesting is that the RNLI vessels and the French vessel co ordinated with each other to pick up the migrants on the British side of the Channel, because they knew that if the French vessel offered to "rescue them " they would refuse.

Actually under maritime law it doesn't even matter whose waters the rescue takes place in. What matters is the nationality of the rescuing vessel.

So in theory an RNLI vessel could rescue a migrant dinghy 250 metres off Le Touquet beach and if they don't have permission from the French authorities (which is likely given the time this would take) be obliged to take them all the way back to the UK.

Which brings me back to the original point- when does a well respected marine rescue service become a marine taxi service?

They don’t have to stay in the first country they come to to apply for asylum. For applying for the UK, you have to actually be in the UK.

Why would a RNLI boat be 250 metres off a French beach? That makes zero sense.

Which brings me back to the original point- when does a well respected marine rescue service become a marine taxi service?

Not sure if you have watched 'saving lives at sea' ? You should, it's rather good and really makes you appreciate the lengths the volunteer crews go to, to save people who are in difficulty in the sea around the UK and Ireland. That is essentially their role, saving lives at sea, regardless of the politics of the situation or the nationality of the those in difficulty.

Saving lives at sea, once we have checked with snood wearing Kai, with his multiple domestic violence convictions, to see if he deems them worthy of being saved, just isn't as catchy

Interestingly both Southampton and Portsmouth harbour masters blocked the two RNLI vessels from docking. Southampton declined the request due to a lack of suitable facilities and because Southampton was not the closest port under maritime rules. Portsmouth also turned them away and threatened the RNLI with legal action over any unauthorised docking.

The lifeboats brought the migrants ashore at Eastney instead.

Also as true Patriots, why don't snood wearing Kai and his compatriots buy a big boat and rescue the people and take them back to France themselves ? There are a lot of the snood wearers, and with some life jackets orange is the new black ? they could be out there in the Channel 'protecting' the country from an immigrant invasion ? I bet GBNews would sponsor them

It was a theoretical example that the location of the rescue doesn't matter, what matters is the nationality of the vessel. If the vessel is British then the migrants are to be taken to Britain.

If the location was irrelevant why not say it was in English waters?