The Refugee Ship

It’s absolutely grim. I’m surprised to discover that some of you live in substandard accommodation yourselves if you think this is luxurious. Just look at the pictures.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66270811

I remember someone who had been in a hotel for some time with his family complaining and saying they wanted a house. Frankly, join the queue!

Perhaps some posters think the barge is like a nineteenth century prison hulk. Frankly if you sent them on a world cruise they wouldn’t have better conditions. I’m truly appalled.

The Rwanda plan can’t come quickly enough. I read that the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court might be heard next month. I can but hope.

I wonder what some posters who have difficulty affording food, utility bills and rent, can’t get a medical or dental appointment and who can’t even dream of an excursion somewhere, think of this? I’m lucky to be able to afford all these things but am nevertheless beyond angry.

Yes but some posters/people think it's cruel putting them on barges 🤔

It also said 24 hour catering you couldn't make it up could you, the ones in the hotels will be protesting that they want the same facilities although perhaps they already get them, all paid for by British tax payers
😡

That’s truly appalling. Disgraceful. They will be telling all their friends about it and even more boats will arrive. Why should they have such luxuries that our own people can’t hope to afford? So-called detention centres should be just that - with exercise facilities and three meals a day, a tv room - in other words, what would be provided to prisoners, which is what they should be.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12323897/Life-migrant-barge-Tour-controversial-Bibby-Stockholm-docked-Dorset-port-reveals-life-like-fully-equipped-gym-TV-games-rooms.html

EXCLUSIVE - Welcome to life on the Bibby Stockholm: Migrants staying on barge will get hikes on the Dorset coast, allotments and cricket classes as video shows tour of 'floatel'

Migrants on Britain’s first barge housing asylum seekers will be provided with free hiking, cycling, cricket and festival excursions as well as on-board sports, a gym and a 24-hour food service to keep them occupied, it was revealed on Friday.

Asylum seekers on the 500-person capacity barge in Portland, Dorset, will be free to leave at any time on foot or through buses laid on every hour from 7am to 11pm to nearby Weymouth, with free taxis to bring them back if they miss the last one home.

Like a holiday camp many UK residents would love to have a free holiday but can't afford

Copied from The Telegraph

As well as a fully-equipped gym with running, cycling, rowing machines and weights, they will have two spacious TV rooms, five lounges, IT room with desk top computers and free wifi, classroom for twice a week English classes and a conference room which they can book for meetings, activities or hobbies.

Wow!

Looks like they are going to be very well looked after but no doubt there will be complaints.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12323897/Life-migrant-barge-Tour-controversial-Bibby-Stockholm-docked-Dorset-port-reveals-life-like-fully-equipped-gym-TV-games-rooms.html#newcomment

What do other countries do with the migrants and refugees?

Beetlejuice

^and the houses were lent by benefactors.^

So not commandeered against anyone's will?

Quite whose will anything is being commandeered against I am uncertain
Asylum seekers are making huge profits for the companies who own the places being used to accommodate them. Think about it. They employ less staff. They provide less service. They can serve lower quality food. They are permanently fully booked. It's money making all the way.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64991234

They don’t enter the country legally, i.e. with permission.

Kinder children entirely different scenario then to the illegals on the dinghies paying criminals gangs to get here. Illegal is my preferred name for them because that's how I think of them and before some posters comes on to say they are not illegal they are asylum seekers don't bother.

Glorianny

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes there have always been waves of immigration Glorianny, but not in the vast numbers we are experiencing now. And previous waves of immigrants haven’t been wholly supported by the state, other than unaccompanied children of course such as arrived on the kinder transport.

The kinder transport were not "supported by the state" they were sponsored by British Jews and Jewish charities. Each child needed £50 in sponsorship to come here. Those living in group homes, the staff were appointed and paid by Jewish organisations and the houses were lent by benefactors.

and Christadelphians

There’s also the very positive contribution to this country from those kinder children in their adult lives.

I’m happy to be associated with Yvette Cooper. I’d be wretched to be compared to Trump

and the houses were lent by benefactors.

So not commandeered against anyone's will?

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes there have always been waves of immigration Glorianny, but not in the vast numbers we are experiencing now. And previous waves of immigrants haven’t been wholly supported by the state, other than unaccompanied children of course such as arrived on the kinder transport.

The kinder transport were not "supported by the state" they were sponsored by British Jews and Jewish charities. Each child needed £50 in sponsorship to come here. Those living in group homes, the staff were appointed and paid by Jewish organisations and the houses were lent by benefactors.

Is that you Donald?

No it's an angry and frustrated tax payer who is tired of seeing our hotels cancelling long planned, and much anticipated, weddings, parties, conferences and holidays so that migrants can be accommodated. I expect that the hotel staff who immediately lose their jobs, with very little notice, are also justifiably aggrieved. You don't have to be Donald Trump to recognise the negative impact that thousands of undocumented young men can have on a community.

13:38Iam64

Ahem, these people are not ‘illegals’.
Is that you Donald?

Is that you Yvette 🤔

Nicenanny3

11:54Dickens

I wasn't suggesting RNLI could become Police Patrol Boats you said that, I was making the point that they have no trouble finding them and ferrying them ashore so if they can find them Patrol Boats could and turn them back and no I don't donate to RNLI and I believe their donations have fallen dramatically because of their actions (ie they have become the last part of the chain, starting with the criminal smuggling gangs and ending with them picking them up)

I wasn't suggesting RNLI could become Police Patrol Boats you said that, I was making the point that they have no trouble finding them and ferrying them ashore...

With their sophisticated equipment, know-how and enthusiasm for the job, it's hardly surprising that they have no trouble in finding them - and of course they're going to bring them ashore, having located them, what else would they do?

My point is that if they - regardless of how we (or even they) feel about those in the boats, do anything other than rescue them, they are then no longer a rescue charity. And that is the point, they have no option other than to do what they are doing, as they have charitable status.

I'm sure their donations have fallen considerably. And that might or might not effect the way they function, who knows - but that will not alter their status, nor will it change their MO.

Ahem, these people are not ‘illegals’.
Is that you Donald?

Well I suppose Rwanda is part of the plan if the Supreme court agrees it's a safe place. The Illegal Migration Bill has become law or will shortly. Surely if you were thinking of paying thousands of pounds to the criminal gangs to get here you would think twice if you saw on YouTube plane loads of illegals who arrived by dinghy being sent to Rwanda 🤞

November 2022

Nurses living in two hotels are being forced to move out to make way for asylum seekers, a hospital has claimed.
York Hospital hires rooms at two city centre hotels for overseas nurses and said it would struggle to find alternative accommodation.

The Home Office, however, said it had not given notice to nurses to leave.

A spokesperson added it could not comment on "operational arrangements" for individual sites used for asylum accommodation.
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals Trust pays for accommodation for overseas nurses while they take the exams necessary to allow them to work in the UK.

There are currently 82 foreign nurses in one York hotel, with 17 more set to arrive in December, a hospital board meeting was told.
However, hospital bosses claimed the Home Office had now booked-out the hotels to house asylum seekers.

Director of workforce at the hospital, said the trust had initially been given four weeks to vacate two hotels because the Home Office wanted to use them for "the next couple of years".
She told a hospital board of directors meeting that the trust had objected to the plans and it was then given until December to vacate the rooms.

"York has a dearth of accommodation," added Ms McMeekin. "[This] leaves us with no other accommodation - we've explored the military, we've explored universities."

The move would leave the hospital in a "very vulnerable" position, she said.
There were around 130 nursing vacancies across the trust in September. Hospital leaders said they hope this will be reduced to about 50 by December.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The claim that we have given notice to nurses to leave their accommodation is untrue.
"We are working with the local authority to source appropriate accommodation for asylum seekers and to mitigate the impact on the community, like the NHS trust.

"The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable - there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £5.6m a day."

Since then, it's gone up to 55,000 and still no grand plan as to how to end this chaos.

toscalily

If you are the proprietor of a hotel, B&B, holiday home, small business in a seaside town your customers, and therefore your income will be mainly during the summer you might be accepting of some immigration into your town but when you start getting cancellations as people decide it is not a safe/comfortable place to take a holiday, when you see your livelihood going down the drain you may start to feel less welcoming.

And, I can see that providing buses several times an hour isn't going to go down too well either when you may only get one a day if you are lucky in a rural area. The infrastructure is just not there to accommodate such large groups of men and I do not think it is scaremongering to be voicing these concerns.

That is already happening in Weymouth. No-one wants to be worrying about safety of teenage daughters or sons, who are wanting to spend the day on the beach

I won`t mention the superior healthcare destined for barge occupants

Of course it’s true that the problem lies with the smugglers/traffickers and I can’t help wondering how much effort is spent in tracking them down and prosecuting them.
Obviously it can’t be easy and as it’s such a hugely profitable ‘business’ these criminals will of course go to great lengths to keep it going.

It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of the entire European continent to defeat them though, surely?

The question is more - do they want to? Even without the immigration situation, I'm not convinced it's a pressing priority with government.

I'd agree with that Dickens. In a small market town, just a couple of miles away from me, the student halls accommodation has been commandeered for asylum seekers. The students were told to clear out all their belongings of personal stuff and bring it all back when the next semester starts. This has also been applied to those students from overseas, who hadn't intended to go home for the summer vacation and are now homeless. The asylum seekers arriving in such vast numbers is having hugely disruptive and distressing impact on ordinary people just trying to live their lives. Little wonder communities are rebelling and protesting at the disruption to their lives; sympathy is wearing thin.