RNLI and Farage

Dinahmo

Some of the refugees could be doctors or nurses or teachers or a host of other professionals, all of which, if given a chance could contribute to British society.

Many of them will be indeed and should be welcomed. I am with Alegrias1 on this, good post, and like you, I will never apologise for calling out Farage. He disgusts me, just a little bot more than the people who support him.

Some of the refugees could be doctors or nurses or teachers or a host of other professionals, all of which, if given a chance could contribute to British society.

That was the programme Anneeba. Thanks for the link. Another worthwhile bit of learning instead of shouting the odds.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y7sq
The Spark, Karen Stenner. How people who find it difficult to accept any difference in others are manipulated (as by Farage and his ilk). Sorry, already mentioned this pages back, but it's such an interesting astute listen, only half an hour long.

AGAA4: There should be safer routes for people to come here and be assessed once they are here. I hate to see small children in these little boats.

SUCH a sensible remark! And IF (as has been implied) some of these refugees are so wealthy they pay tens of thousands of pounds to get here, the UK could even profit from it! (NOT that I believe the wealthy refugee theory of course. Devils advocate.)

too many "already"s...

AGAA4

As there are more and more risking their lives in dangerous crossings and getting here anyway it would make sense to regulate the system and those people could be helped to make a life and work in the UK. We seem to be short of many staff in haulage the NHS and hospitality.

Absolutely AGAA4.

We already have a regulated system already, the perception that migrants arrive here and disappear into the black economy is not the case, generally. Its more likely to be the case if we push it underground and make arriving by unsafe dinghy across the Channel, the only way desperate people can get here.

www.gov.uk/claim-asylum

As there are more and more risking their lives in dangerous crossings and getting here anyway it would make sense to regulate the system and those people could be helped to make a life and work in the UK. We seem to be short of many staff in haulage the NHS and hospitality.

There should be safer routes for people to come here and be assessed once they are here.

So there should be, but there aren't.

Providing safer routes would obviously put the traffickers out of business, so why don't the government do it if that is their objective? Clearly it's because this government doesn't want asylum seekers here at all. Which is, I think, reneging on international obligations?

I have been a lifelong supporter of the RNLI. My husband's family were seafarers and sadly he lost an uncle and cousin to the sea.
I believe the RNLI are having to take on more than they should.
There should be safer routes for people to come here and be assessed once they are here. I hate to see small children in these little boats

PS. God bless, also, the blood donors who supplied the 17 pints of blood needed before her internal bleeding was under control!

Bravo Allegrias. Excellent post.

While the RNLI are doing the Government’s job it could leave other people at risk. Something must be done about it.
Thankfully a lifeboat was just starting a practice exercise when my granddaughter’s friend was caught in a rip-tide, recently, in Filey, along with her father and brother. Sadly, the father was dead when they reached him. Thanks to the lifeboat, and the helpfulness of someone on the beach using his drone to pinpoint them in the water, the two teenagers were rescued. The girl was in a bad way, but is now recovering.
God bless the RNLI.

Excellent post, Alegrias. Thank you

The attached is a list of every institution the Tories have recently criticised.
Strangely they are the institutions we hold most dear.
Why do you think that is?

Such a good post alegrias

Well said Alegrias1.

What annoys me, for one 25Avalon, is the muddied thinking and the blaming. Long post follows.

More people are trying to reach the UK via the Channel or in the back of trucks because other, safer routes are being closed to them. This country has adopted a system that makes it difficult to apply for asylum in this country unless you are already here. Now we can debate till Kingdom Come why they want to come to the UK, rather than stay in France or anywhere else, but they do want to come.

Nobody is questioning that the traffickers are taking advantage of this situation. They are preying on these people. But they are responding to a market demand. Take away one set of traffickers and another will pop up; what we need to do is remove the need to people for try to get to our country by unsafe means.

There is also the question of what happens to them when they get here; either they have a right to be here or they don't. If they do, excellent. If they don't they should be deported. But we can deport people in a humane way, not the way we do it now. Making such a system work effectively is the government's responsibility, but its far easier for them to blame the shadowy traffickers and pretending that all we have to do is find them and punish them and then the situation will go away, without actually solving the problem that causes them to exist in the first place.

Then there's Farage. Nobody can deny that his one and only big message could be described as "Britain First". Maybe "Britain First and sod the rest of them". He has found half a story - the RNLI saving migrants from unseaworthy vessels - and made it into a huge deal, pretending that the RNLI are being taken advantage of and they are going to be overwhelmed with "undeserving" people wanting their services. When I see comments about how the RNLI wouldn't be able to save "our" people because they are saving someone else, someone less deserving, its distressing.

Farage is not exposing something that needs to be fixed, he is exploiting a situation of the governments making to put himself in the public eye and stir up anti-refugee feeling, purely for selfish purposes.

Some refugees have £20,000, yes. But they don't have a home to go back to, and given the choice would you rather have £20,000 or a life in your home country where you could feed your family and not worry about dying every night? I'll never make any excuses for verbally attacking Farage.

Never been prouder than when he came to Scotland and had to hide in a pub, because the locals told him quite forcefully what they thought of him. He's never been back (officially) because he's a thug, a bully and a coward.

What a load of paranoid people on this thread, full of bile and pessimism.

We all know lifeboatmen are unassuming heroes as are other emergency services. My uncle was an auxiliary fireman with a bell and his kit hung up by the door. When that bell went off so was he as the nearest to the station.

Let us remember the Penlee Disaster in 1981 when 8 lifeboatmen gave their lives. Let us remember 12th January 1899 when, unable to launch the lifeboat in heavy seas, the Lynton lifeboat men dragged the heavy boat 13 miles in terrible weather up a 434m hill and across Exmoor, taking 11 hours to reach Porlock Weir. There they launched the boat and saved the lives of 18 crew before rowing all the way back to
Lynton.

No one queries the heroism and dedication of lifeboatmen. When the call comes they will turn out. Something has to be done to stop all these migrants getting on the water in the first place with reports of some paying up to £20,000 to the traffickers. Not all poor refugees. If they had no money the traffickers wouldn’t be interested. Think of the Vietnamese migrants who died trapped in that refrigerated lorry. Traffickers are evil and it is against them vitriol should be extended.

Whitewavemark2

Johnson has given the French £50million to help control our borders????.

Those very same borders he wanted total contol of when he forced Brexshit on us all.

I'm devoutly hoping we in Scotland gain our independence soon, as this evil, racist, elitist Westminster government's policies are making me thoroughly ashamed to be called "British"

Thank God for all those good people who donated to the RNLI after Farage's abominable tirade.

Alegrias1

No worries MoorlandMooner

PippaZ They are falling for whatever false stories the government or whoever else are telling them. "Fear" is not an excuse for turning on people who are not like you. I think we can all recall from history how that ends. Sorry, no sympathy.

I did not suggest it was an excuse. It is a fact and one this government know exactly how to play. Perhaps the time has come that those who disagree with the methods of this government need to ensure they don't heap coal upon coal.

HolySox

I am not saying we shouldn't help people in need. The concern is send one boat to pick up refugees and more come. We send more boats, even more refugees come. We run out of boats to send (RNLI only has a handful of life boats on the South Coast) but now more refugees are willing to risk the crossing and we're pulling bodies out of the water every day.

Let us not forget they are not trying to escape some evil regime. They are coming from France.

You do know they are not French, don't you? Once they have left whatever has driven them out, they are allowed to chose which country they want to apply in. Refugees can legitimately claim asylum in the UK after passing through other "safe” countries. But you must know that by now. It has been said so often on here.

25Avalon

So we are one of the richest nations? Thought Brexit had wrecked us? You can’t have it bothe ways.

We have seen very few of the consequences of Brexit. Did you think it would all be apparent the next day? Bear with it; we will all get a clearer view of just what the bumbling crew who took us into it have done to us. I'm not sure that empty shelves are a good thing, are they? You really can't blame that on immigrants.

Lincslass

Sick of all the viciousness, not all immigrants are an asset to this country, see the article from The Guardian. Sure they wouldn’t tell fibs.

I think we have been getting a good example that not all citizens are an asset to their country. But that is a given. These are, after all, just a group of human beings. There are levels of what we could call good and less good in all groups of human beings. The only thing we can know is that immigrants are both brave and determined.

Yup. Bullying again. It'd only just stopped on the other thread (not naming it, not a thread about a thread).

NO idea why it's necessary to resort to that. Passionate disagreements about the topic, fine. Personal attacks, not fine.