I have discovered an advantage of Brexit

www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/brexit-raw-sewerage-water-treatment-b1915765.html?amp
This is the article from the independent- government allows risky sewage to be discharged due to Brexit….
I can’t believe anyone is defending this

Glad you mentioned that vegansrock

My son did some work for the Rivers Trust and I was horrified to learn how much raw sewerage was ending up in rivers

This was nothing to do with Brexit though

www.theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers

GrannyGravy13

vegansrock I assume that you are referring to the article in the Guardian?

The Government is concidering issuing a temporary waiver that will allow Water Companies to discharge after three treatments instead of the usual three, no raw sewage is/will be currently allowed to be discharged.

The BBC website has an article dated 12 April about water companies being fined for dumping raw sewage. I also read a couple of weeks ago about sewage being dumped along the south coast. There was even an interactive diagram showing where dumping was actually happening,

This gets more and more depressing all the time.

The government is considering postponing the checks on EU imports for a second time.

Unbelievable!

No level playing field for our businesses. They have to comply with all the EU border checks. Even more of a burden for our businesses.

This is just to fool the voter that Brexit is working, trying to keep the shelves full.

Yes but now the government has waived the rules so water companies can dump raw sewage without fear of being fined.

vegansrock

Yes but now the government has waived the rules so water companies can dump raw sewage without fear of being fined.

The fines were always pretty paltry in any case.

It’s called getting rid of regulations. Part of Tory agenda

vegansrock

Yes but now the government has waived the rules so water companies can dump raw sewage without fear of being fined.

It's the new last night of the proms:

Rule Britannia
Britannia waive the rules...

Is there a sharper focussed example of the level of competence and government we can find than this? When faced with a chemical shortage in the water industry, the Johnson/Tory/Brexit solution is...
...just tip the slurry onto our beaches and into our rivers. Forget pesky EU environmental standards .This is Brexshit. This is what 'sovereignty' looks like. Your own beaches covered in your own shit.
Empty shelves? An ideology-driven refusal to back down on visas. Full effluent tanks? Open the floodgates and smear our coast with shit.
Yet people still make excuses- it’s the pandemic, it’s the EU, it’s nothing to do with Brexit, which has no negatives whatsoever in some peoples eyes.

Another example of sovereignty is the ability to control our border, and not cooperate with Europe.

Patel does not appear to welcome this apparent major advantage with unadulterated pleasure.

Boats are now going to be turned around. What would the lifeboat men do in such an incident? What an utter shambles.

So we will now be in danger of drowning children and adults as well as causing a major international incident.

We are truly becoming a pariah state.

All this because no one in government can admit that brexit is damaging the country….

Petera

vegansrock

Yes but now the government has waived the rules so water companies can dump raw sewage without fear of being fined.

It's the new last night of the proms:

Rule Britannia
Britannia waive the rules...

Brilliant!

PritiPatel, knows as well as King Canute did, that you cannot turn the tide by ordering it to happen, But Canute was trying to show his court that was so, Priti Patel is trying to pretend she can do something she cannot.

Apart from the lack of any co-operation from the French, as commentators have said, the rule of the sea is that vulnerable people cannot be abandoned at sea. many of the ships they come in are overloaded and in danger of capsizing, they contain vulnerable people like old people and children and they do not have enough fuel to get back to the French coast. If border staff turned them back, the RNLI would be called out to rescue them, as being at peril on the sea.

I absolutely agree this is a problem and we need a solution. I have no idea what the solution should be. But I do know what is not a solution and trying to turn these boats back from whence they came, is not a solution.

One solution is to process people seeking asylum in Calais (or wherever they happen to be) instead of saying you have to be in the country to ask for asylum.

To be eligible you must have left your country and be unable to go back because you fear persecution.
You should apply when you arrive in the UK or as soon as you think it would be unsafe for you to return to your own country. Your application is more likely to be denied if you wait.

But we don't want to do the obvious, obviously.

Why would the French cooperate?

Why would the French cooperate?

Whitewavemark2This morning GN obviously thinks that if something is worth saying once it should be said twice, both I and GrannyGravy have had this problem on other threads.

Many of the immigrants at Calais, not all, I know that, have no solid ground for refugee status, so what happens to those who are turned down in Calais? They are not going to turn round and go back home again. They are still going to hang around the French coast looking for ways of getting to Britain - and the boats are the obvious solution.

The only real solution, short of a sudden improvement in the economies and governance of the countries they come from, is for the French to launch an effective surveillance and stop operation. With modern surveillence equipment from CCTV, to drones to helicopter patrols and police units ready to get to any beach within 5 minutes, if the chances of a boat getting away are reduced as they are stopped again and again, with the boats then confiscated, so that the chances of success are reduced the problem would reduce.

The reason that they took to the boats was because it was getting harder and harder to get across in lorries, although I know this still happens, it is considerably reduced.

But why would the French want a solution? Life for the residents of Calais and surrounding areas is made unpleasant and difficult by the constant presence of the refugees, living rough and desperate. The more refugees who make it across the channel, the fewer remain, except the more who get to the UK the more who are attracted to try the crossing.

As I said a problem with no solution but economic growth and good governance in the home countries.

Peter Brookes today

The only real solution, short of a sudden improvement in the economies and governance of the countries they come from, is for the French to launch an effective surveillance and stop operation

No, the only real solution is for us to treat people who get here by any means as human beings, process their claims efficiently and decide whether they have the right to be here. And if they don't, send them home using humane methods, not incarceration in camps and midnight calls from deportation services.

As usual, we think they're all out to get us. A few weeks ago there were reports of 40-odd people who drowned in a boat full of refugees trying to get direct from Africa to the Canary Islands. The world is full of refugees and we need to do our part and stop blaming the French.

But Alegrias we want to discourage them from getting here by any means. The small boats are dangerous and just make money for vile traffickers who don’t give a toss about human lives. If they make it here they can then be sent back.

Wouldn’t it be better for them to stay where they are but for their applications to be processed more quickly? That’s probably not the answer either. Surely there’s a better solution? The world needs to get together on this one.

I don't agree 25Avalon. I'm afraid the story about this being the fault of the traffickers is one that is perpetrated by the Tory government and press. They tried blaming the migrants themselves, then spotted that blaming a bunch of desperate people who were risking their lives wasn't a good look, so they decided it was the traffickers to blame.

It is possible now, I believe, to have your asylum claim processed in any country you find yourself. So the idea that they just need to be processed in France won't help at all. It would be better for all if they didn't come here in small boats but they are going to, come what may. Same way as people try to use the Atlantic to get to the Canaries or the Coral Sea to get to Australia. If you're desperate, you'll try anything.

Listening to a couple of British soldiers who had been involved with helping the afghan fleeing from the Taliban I found incredibly moving.

Their description of a mother being so tired that she dropped her baby as she fell asleep and the trauma that they have suffered was truly heart breaking.

They are the sort of people who are trying to cross the channel.

“Suffer little children”

Please do not listen to the hard line put out by Patel, listen to those who know these refugees and have been involved with their suffering and heartbreak.

The point made by MOnica about the best way to stop people making these desperate and dangerous journeys is to improve the economies of their home countries is a valid one, but interestingly, my own, non scientific research has shown that the very people who are up in arms about the migrants coming in on boats are also the same people who supported the cuts in Foreign Aid.

But it isn’t just foreign aid is it GillT57? It’s the persecution and threat of death in their own countries particularly in Afghanistan that is the problem. It needs world troops to make some of the countries migrants are escaping from peaceful enough and economically sound for them to want to stay there.

Interesting discussion to be had there.

Is giving monetary and other kinds of support to rebuild their countries the way to help people and make the world a safer and more stable place, or should we send in the troops?

The "troops" approach didn't exactly work in Afghanistan.