Lee Anderson, Conservative deputy chair says asylum seekers should ‘fuck off back to France’ if they don’t want to be housed on the Bobby Stockholm barge

It is unusual for the women and elderly to get jobs, even to learn the language. One young man will not be able to keep the family and contribute to society.

And then they get jobs and contribute to society, pay our pensions with their taxes. And their children study and go on to be our essential people in 1000s of ways, contributing fully to society, working hard, paying taxes and our pensions...

what is wrong with that?

In a way, I understand GSM comment. Sending young men with the end goal of family reunification at a later stage. Yes, this has happened with every wave of immigration for many centuries. Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Romans - men came first, soldiers, hunters, explorers ... same all over the world. I have large numbers of relatives in OZ, USA, Canada ... men emigrated there in the 19C - and now, many generations later, their great great great (and more) grandchildren are barely aware of their roots.

Grannygravy13 Take my example given above. Exactly how would my by then 15 year old grandson qualify for assylum if applying for assylum at the embassy when in his country of origin? Real and immediate though the dangers, he faced were, they were no worse than other boys his age.

There is no guarantee that if he gets into this country illegally, he will be able to stay, but he will have a chance, and his family will reach a stage where they will seize any chance and lesser danger to get a much beloved son/grandson out of danger.

I don’t know what you don’t understand MOnica. Young men arrive, are granted asylum and send for family members.

GSM Why? I do not understand your point.

monica yes, it is all about humanity, caring and empathy.

gg13 good suggestion -they could very easily but won’t.

This problem is not going away - . First the government denied it, then they had no choice but to accept it happening, now they are demonising asylum seekers, what on earth are they going to do when the climate begins to push people from their homes?

So to add to monica’s war torn asylum seekers we are going to witness climate asylum seekers on a vast scale as the climate makes parts of the earth uninhabitable.

It is time that the UN got together and set out a plan that every country on earth can sign up to to deal with the problem. It has tweaked the international law over time, but we know from our own Government that they are willing to break international law - but something must be done.

So the young men are the tip of a large iceberg.

M0nica

The figures are 75% men, 25% women. asylumineurope.org/reports/country/united-kingdom/statistics/

It is not surprising that the majority of assylum seekers are men. Firstly consider the situation of women in families in many countries whose men/boys arrive in this country, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Eritrea (link: same source as above).

In areas of conflict, those in greatest danger are young boys or men, whether they are pursued as coming from a family opposing the regime or are likely to be drawn into it or are just in danger because they are male and make good cannon fodder.

In such a situation, I could see that, at the moment, with a 13 year old grandson, I would be desperate to get the whole family away from the current situation, but especially get him away and out of the much higher danger he is in so that he could have some chance to grow up and live away from war.

Once he was 15/16, if I could get him out of the country to safety elsewhere, I would. I would know the journey to Europe was dangerous, but probably reckon it less dangerous than keeping him at home and, as most of these countries, were, if not British colonies, in the British sphere of influence, and my DGS may well have learnt English at school, I would want him to go the the UK, where there may well be xtended family or others from my village community.

I know we cannot have an ever open door, but we also need to understand what drives this movement of assylum seekeers and treat them as indivdiduals and with compassion, few people would take the very dangerous journey they have taken just to claim benefits. They make the journey to get away from the far greater dangers at home. Now and again imagine yourself in the situation these families are in and understand why it is the men and boys who come.

Perhaps someone could make up a computer game to play out the assylum seeker's situation, so that we could relive more easily the terrible alternatives these people seek.

Excellent post Monica- I was thinking of posting to explain why it is young men who leave first- but you have done this really well. Thanks.

Even if people could apply for asylum at UK Embassies abroad it would not stop the boats crossing the Channel the ones refused would still turn to the criminal smuggling gangs.

sorry correct, Training not trying.

Yet they are not setting up centres abroad where people can apply for asylum before they get to our shores and they have no programme for increasing and trying numbers of workers to process migrants more quickly.

they prefer to demonise

MaizieD

Good post, MOnica

I think we all know that we can't have an ever open door, in the sense that we just let immigrants/asylum seekers in unquestioningly. Has any UK government ever done that?

I think we should have an open door, in the sense of a willingness to do what we can for them, for people fleeing from war and persecution. Which is an entirely different thing.

I agree with M0nica and MaizieD

The current situation cannot continue.

Why can’t people apply for asylum at U.K. Embassies abroad, it shouldn’t be that difficult to set up?

Good post, MOnica

I think we all know that we can't have an ever open door, in the sense that we just let immigrants/asylum seekers in unquestioningly. Has any UK government ever done that?

I think we should have an open door, in the sense of a willingness to do what we can for them, for people fleeing from war and persecution. Which is an entirely different thing.

This information was produced by the government in response to a FOI request by Migration Watch.
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/803749/response/1974619/attach/3/66921%20Mehmet.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

"Full Fact check organisation comments on Migration Watch figures to examine the truth:

fullfact.org/immigration/scott-benton-small-boats-economic-migrants/

a. must read if you are going to go by Migration Watch headlines.

The figures are 75% men, 25% women. asylumineurope.org/reports/country/united-kingdom/statistics/

It is not surprising that the majority of assylum seekers are men. Firstly consider the situation of women in families in many countries whose men/boys arrive in this country, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Eritrea (link: same source as above).

In areas of conflict, those in greatest danger are young boys or men, whether they are pursued as coming from a family opposing the regime or are likely to be drawn into it or are just in danger because they are male and make good cannon fodder.

In such a situation, I could see that, at the moment, with a 13 year old grandson, I would be desperate to get the whole family away from the current situation, but especially get him away and out of the much higher danger he is in so that he could have some chance to grow up and live away from war.

Once he was 15/16, if I could get him out of the country to safety elsewhere, I would. I would know the journey to Europe was dangerous, but probably reckon it less dangerous than keeping him at home and, as most of these countries, were, if not British colonies, in the British sphere of influence, and my DGS may well have learnt English at school, I would want him to go the the UK, where there may well be xtended family or others from my village community.

I know we cannot have an ever open door, but we also need to understand what drives this movement of assylum seekeers and treat them as indivdiduals and with compassion, few people would take the very dangerous journey they have taken just to claim benefits. They make the journey to get away from the far greater dangers at home. Now and again imagine yourself in the situation these families are in and understand why it is the men and boys who come.

Perhaps someone could make up a computer game to play out the assylum seeker's situation, so that we could relive more easily the terrible alternatives these people seek.

Also Lee Anderson says 90% are YOUNG men, where's the age breakdown?

The issue is I think that the figure Nicenanny3 has quoted isn’t asylum seekers, it’s asylum seekers arriving by small boats. That’s only a proportion of the total asylum seekers.

eg your stats don't show any children? All the stats I've looked at did, so are your stats showing male children as just Male?

Well, for a start, thats apparently boats only. there are other ways.
BBC

"Small boat arrivals accounted for about 45% of asylum applications made in 2022. In total, 45,755 migrants crossed the Channel that year, the highest number since figures began to be collected in 2018."

Having looked at Migration Watch website, it's not exactly impartial and tbh I'm a bit fussy about the stats I accept as accurate. Got anything from a neutral source?

9 March, 2022

1. Over 41,300 people have come to the UK illicitly in boats since the start of 2018. 16,500 of these came in the period January 2018 and to the end of June 2021.[1] Data from a Freedom of Information release show that nearly 90% of those crossing during this period were male.[2]

2. 87.4% of the 16,500 people were recorded as men, while 12.4% were recorded as female. The gender of 21 additional people was not recorded.
(Migration Watch Website)

I also can't find any statistics to support Lee Anderson's claim that 90% of migrants are young men. The stats I've looked at from accepted sources give a completely different picture.
Primrose53 perhaps you can post some evidence that his claim is accurate?

Actual Red Cross figures. the latest I could find were 2020, which of course was before Ukraine.

"Around 43 per cent of people seeking asylum in the UK in 2020 were women and children. Overall, eight per cent were children who had arrived in the UK alone without a parent or guardian."