Stand off drowning migrants and report – or face prosecution, sailors warned

I suppose the UK government might organise ferries to take them safely to England to have their cases heard? That would stop the people traffickers

Well Mamie even Labour’s Lord Blunkett said that wasn’t a good idea and has advised Keir Starmer against this course of action. He said it would encourage even more migrants.

GrannyGravy13

Have never had a Facebook account.

I wish people would stop posting that they've never had a facebook account as if it insulates them from being associated with or encountering unpleasantness. It's not relevant. People who do have such an account can testify to the nastiness that can be found there. I could testify to the same nastiness on twitter, you wouldn't have to have a twitter account to believe me, would you?

Urmstongran

maddyone

I deleted my Facebook account. It’s a nasty place.

I’ve never had one maddyone.

On a separate note, French ministers say the UK lack of ID cards is contributing to this situation. Aspirational migrants are more able to find work in the black market over here one lady there said yesterday.

Regarding financial payments, we give £39 a week. France gives the equivalent of £40 in euros. Plus €7.40 per day for accommodation. However after 21 days France pays them almost €600 a month in lieu of work.

They ARE NOT MIGRANTS

I have a twitter login too.

Never seen any ranting...

They are already using drones Ug.

Urmstongran

^I suppose the UK government might organise ferries to take them safely to England to have their cases heard? That would stop the people traffickers^

Well Mamie even Labour’s Lord Blunkett said that wasn’t a good idea and has advised Keir Starmer against this course of action. He said it would encourage even more migrants.

How about a 'hulk' in mid channel for the reception and processing of asylum seekers? I think we have a few redundant ferries...

( )

Perhaps the UK could buy a few more drones then.

Dickens Thank you for your wonderful post.

I read it directly after reading the Daily Mail which is packed full of anti-France, anti-migrant articles. I feel that the hatred, dismissal of those worse off and the 'pull up the drawbridge' mentality has been fired and stoked by the media.

It seems to me that France have been made a scapegoat by our government for all their failings and any difficulties caused by Brexit. The French were their instant answer to the problems highlighted prior to Brexit but dismissed as Project Fear.

Sections of the media have taken the France as scapegoat theme and blown it out of all proportion and I think sections of the public have swallowed it whole.

I strongly believe we need to stop this needling with France before we find ourselves in real difficulty, alone and governed by people who do not have our best interests at heart and who are unable to maintain cordial relations with our closest neighbours.

Urmstongran

Mamie

There is another (longer) article here from John Lichfield, a journalist who has been covering the Calais migrant crisis for 24 years.
unherd.com/2021/11/the-calais-crisis-cant-be-solved/

His conclusion on who is to blame? We all are.

An interesting read Mamie.

“But there can be better management of the crisis. The French can, perhaps, try harder to block the beaches”

You bet.
Puncture the rubber dinghies perhaps before they are put in the water?
Use drones instead of gendarmes?

Believe extra drones , and other navigational aids to help catch these smugglers, have been offered by the UK, one ex Navy chief was saying. All help been turned down by the French.
Personally though think Johnson and Patel are making a pigs ear of this. Hopefully both, certainly Johson, will go. Sooner the better.

He said it would encourage even more migrants.

Speaking for myself ...

I WANT MORE MIGRANTS. I NEED SOMEBODY TO PAY MY PENSION WHEN I'M 80! AND SO DO YOU....

They ARE NOT MIGRANTS

Well the article Mamie posted a link to actually called them. “illegal migrants” (which I did not, note). I’ve started calling them ‘aspirational migrants’. The article pointed out that many of those coming herehave had their asylum status rejected by the EU.

In that case what is your preferred term WWmk2?

Alegrias1

I have a twitter login too.

Never seen any ranting...

It sometimes get posted into my twitter timeline as examples of how very nasty people can be. Or plenty can be found if you read comments on some politicians...I don't get it as a matter of course.

As for facebook, I don't have many 'friends'. Deliberate policy once I realised how it could result in a stream of unwanted platitudes and fluffy pictures. I'm just lucky that I can avoid the unpleasantness.

Mamie

Not sure what you mean Granny Gravy13? There are already coaches provided by the French to take them to refuge centres all over France. The thousands of migrants already settled in France have taken this route to apply for asylum. The problem is that the ones who are determined to reach the UK abscond and go back to Calais again and again. This has been a problem for years.

Apologise if I didn’t make myself clear.

I was thinking that the British Embassy could authorise / organise safe passage to U.K. for these desperate souls.

Actually this is what Blunkett said:

Told that such an approach would likely not result in a 'huge' spike in asylum claims, the Labour peer replied: ‘Well, the numbers might not be but Nigel Farage might end up being prime minister and that could even be worse than what we have got at the moment.

‘The politics is toxic when it comes to migration… we have got something like a third less asylum seekers than the French and vastly lower numbers than the Germans.

‘But that doesn’t stop people actually believing that there is a flood coming in and so what we have got to do is to work with our counterparts in Europe.’

No warning against opening up safe routes. A warning that there are voters in this country who have been deceived about immigration and will act irrationally.

Ug the article didn't say "many" had had aylum claims rejected. It said this:
"A minority, the Calais migrants, come to France because they want to reach the UK. A very small minority of this minority are people who have had asylum requests turned down in EU countries. When their camps are cleared by French police, they are offered a chance to go to a holding centre many kilometres away and apply for asylum in France. All but a handful refuse."

Whitewavemark2

vegansrock

If the tables were turned and there were migrants travelling through the U.K. on the way to somewhere else- would we be inclined to stop them?

? Patel would provide a ferry service free of charge.

Don't worry, she'd put Chris Grayling in charge of sourcing the ferries

Urmstongran

^They ARE NOT MIGRANTS^

Well the article Mamie posted a link to actually called them. “illegal migrants” (which I did not, note). I’ve started calling them ‘aspirational migrants’. The article pointed out that many of those coming herehave had their asylum status rejected by the EU.

In that case what is your preferred term WWmk2?

We must be very, very careful with the language we use as nothing is more powerful than language and it’s misuse. Farage is a past master at that as you well know.

Do not think that Johnson made a mistake in using the term “illegal migrants” it was quite deliberate and used to control the narrative for his own agenda, because he knows that people accept his use of language without criticism.
They are asylum seekers, an entirely different concept in law.

They are seeking asylum from the atrocities we are hearing about on a daily basis being committed in Afghanistan, Somalia and so on.

once they are granted asylum their status becomes

Refugees - a refugee is a person escaping war, persecution or natural disaster.

That pretty much sums them up I would have thought.

Here are the laws that give people protection should they be so unlucky enough to become a refugee..

The rights of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are protected by international law, regardless of how and why they arrive in a country. They have the same rights as everyone else, plus special or specific protections including:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14), which states that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries
The 1951 UN Refugee Convention (and its 1967 Protocol), which protects refugees from being returned to countries where they risk being persecuted
The 1990 Migrant Workers Convention, which protects migrants and their families
Regional Refugee law instruments (including 1969 OAU Convention, 1984 Cartagena Declaration, Common European Asylum System and Dublin Regulation)

The article does not use the term "illegal migrants" generically or to refer to people who are asylum seekers. The journalist has spent 24 years covering the story, talking to people in the camps and to senior ministers on both sides of the channel.
In that time there have been many waves of migration of many kinds (including us).

When I moved to France a couple of decades ago I was looking forward to doing well in a new career.

Does that make me an aspirational migrant?

France, Germany, Switzerland and the whole of EU are full of migrant Brits- who did exactly this. Before Brexit, they could come for 3 months to look for a job- and benefits could be transferred too.

The difference in your case of course Alegrias1 is that you didn’t turn up on a French beach having clambered out of a dinghy and expect to be housed, fed, payed an allowance, all courtesy of the French taxpayer.

I’m guessing you had secured yourself a job and accommodation before you arrived.
That’s the difference.

A friend of mine got into a lot of trouble financially nearly 30 years ago. Left the UK hurriedly on April 4th and ended up in the South of France where he has made a successful career ever since. Economic migrant fleeing British Authorities - or Expat - you decide.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet

JenniferEccles

The difference in your case of course Alegrias1 is that you didn’t turn up on a French beach having clambered out of a dinghy and expect to be housed, fed, payed an allowance, all courtesy of the French taxpayer.

I’m guessing you had secured yourself a job and accommodation before you arrived.
That’s the difference.

As asylum seekers/ refugees they are entitled under international law.

That is because people who wrote those laws with the world’s consent understood about moral rectitude.

Urmstongran

Puncture the rubber dinghies perhaps before they are put in the water?
Use drones instead of gendarmes?

... they do - they slash the dinghies completely... punctures can be repaired. In fact, there's photo's of such dinghies on the beach, and of the unfortunate migrants queuing up waiting to be bussed back to the asylum centres.

The media is a bit selective in what it chooses to print...

As for drones - I'm not sure, but I believe a French judge banned their use because of France's privacy laws - which apply to everyone. You can't film people without their permission, basically. Not even anti-government demonstrators...