Why do Asylum Seekers cross the channel on small boats

I was thinking of the Mail Online when I said the most read newspaper. Sorry for any confusion.

I think the Daily Mail is excellent in its political coverage and has such excellent columnists as Richard Littlejohn, Boris, Nadine Dorries, Sarah Vine and Tom Utley. They all write excellent articles which .i usually completely agree with. richard Littlejohn has been an industrial journalist for years and knows what he is talking about. They all write with a lot of common sense.

I thought the sun was the most read/ bought paper.
Certainly surprised about the guardian and the Sunday times being 1 and. 2.
Didn’t the independent close and was replaced by the I.?
However the DM is way down which is where it belongs.

According to you Gov the most popular newspapers are in orde
1. The Sunday Times
2 The Guardian
3 The sun
4 The Metro
5 The Independent
6 the Daily Mail

Which facts and figures are you referring to, Chestnut?

You quote numbers of 'non-working' asylum-seekers, but as they are not able to work by law, that statistic can only have been arrived at to suggest that they are a drain on society. If they are processed faster, and allowed to work ASAP then many would be active contributors to the economy - why not frame it that way? As I'm sure you know, it's not the 'facts' that matter - it is what those 'facts' represent, and the Mail is one of the sources that uses 'facts' in a very particular way (ie to show immigrants, benefits claimants, anything to do with the Labour Party and its supporters and other groups) in the worst possible light.

Beware statistics they can do easily be twisted depending on the method used.
I have no faith in the DM ‘facts and figures’.

I think we all know that the DM is full of scandal and exaggeration, but it is possible to look beyond that.

What they are very good at is covering stories that the BBC and others either don't mention or only mention briefly. The DM will cover the story in full with pictures, maps, graphs and statistics. That is why it is the most read newspaper.

I am fully aware that there could be a bias in the story but it's the facts and figures which are important. Can anyone here dispute the facts and figures in those articles? Or is this just a lot of hot air because you disagree with the way it's written?

The good news is that the Mail must be afraid that the government is going to improve things, so wants to turn people against them before they start. Why else would there be all the speculation?

By all means criticise what they do, but the constant sniping at what they could maybe, possibly think about considering is tiresome, and, I think unprecedented? I don’t remember this happening before, but I suppose we’ve had a right wing and a right wing press for so long, which maybe explains it.

I’ve just looked at the DM on line and hyperbole is in every political piece. Its attacks on Kamal Harris are in the same vein as those on Starmer. Personal and stoking anxiety and anger in its references to socialism - you’d think that word meant mass murder if you’d never heard it till reading its comments.

Agreed. It is a serious issue, and there is a balance to be struck between personal freedom and the rights of people not to inhale passively, and even the costs to the NHS, but it is not remotely comparable with the Holocaust.

I mentioned the comment as it is another example of the hyperbole that is so prevalent just now - anything to smear the government, however tasteless and unfounded it may be.

80000 annual deaths from smoking? Over time the numbers add up. There’s a considerable cost to the NHS. Obviously a very inappropriate comparison with the Holocaust but I would hope that smoking related deaths are discussed in an intelligent way at some point.

Speaking of which, what sort of tone-deaf numptie equates banning smoking outside of pubs with the Holocaust?

Thanks silverlining, it’s reassuring when other posters share realistic information. The DM is set upon painting doomsday scenarios. It’s coverage of Starmer here and Kamala Harris over the ocean is deliberately distorted and focussed on re-framing their politics as aimed at ruining our lives.
We should remember that papers opposition to this country offering refuge in the build up to ww2. It even opposed the kindertransport because there was no room at the in .

I am not terrified by those figures, our numbers are tiny in comparison with most other European countries. Germany took in one million Syrians in 2015 alone and then tens of thousands more from different countries in the following years and most of them work and have settled there.

Unfortunately Asylum seekers here are not allowed to work, a pity as there are so many vacancies and some of them are highly qualified in their particular fields and many more want to work. Instead they have had to wait for years for their application to be considered, because the last government did not do its job.

I understand that the numbers of asylum seekers is actually much lower than often quoted because thousands of foreign students, workers from different countries with contracts together with their families, thousands more from Hong Kong and Ukraine heavily outnumber the people arriving on plastic boats. All these are added together as ‘immigrants’ which gives a skewed number.

I have no time for the DM they are a poor excuse of a newspaper, frankly they scare monger and frighten people with ‘news’ that is only maybe or perhaps, or wholly invented and people read and believe the printed word as the truth.

Just to bring us up to date, over 21,000 migrants have arrived by boat this year already and well over 7,000 have made the journey since Labour won power.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13796711/migrant-boat-seconds-sinking-english-channel.html#comments

One of the comments is thought provoking and scary. Just wondered if anyone here has the answer:
Legitimate question - what happens when we literally have nowhere left to put the numbers of people coming over on boats? When we run out of hotel/hostel/B&B spaces, when we have no houses left where are we meant to house them?Also, what happens when we do run out of money to pay for them because we have all been taxed to the point we cannot survive ourselves and end up having to claim benefits?

Then another article says that record numbers of migrants living in Britain are not working, costing taxpayers an estimated £8 billion. Official figures show that 1,689,000 non-UK nationals are either unemployed or classed as economically inactive because they are not looking for a job.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13794959/Record-numbers-migrants-living-Britain-jobless.html

I know it's the Daily Mail but feel free to dispute those terrifying figures if you feel they are wrong.

I didn't notice Jenrick apologising for misleading the public when it was made clear he was wholly wrong to claim asylum seekers (or 'shoppers' as he called them) have to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter.

Exactly so foxie48 and the point many of us have made in response to worries that so many young men with evil intent arrive.
Chestnut, I agree with you about ludicrous long waits to process applications. I’m not sure how the new government can speed things up, or deal properly with the backlog but let’s hope their commitment succeeds. It is true though that posters regularly demand refugees should stay in the first safe country they arrive in

foxie48 yes so very true!

Sadly many asylum seekers are the very people whom their birth country needs to effect change. It's no accident that many go on to make huge success of their lives and their children too because you need intelligence, resourcefulness and determination to leave everything you know to start a fresh in a foreign country.

“Don’t you think most people seeking a safe country would rather be in their own countries, living peaceful lives, with homes, jobs, friends and families, where they are comfortable, have their own culture, traditions, somewhere where they are not considered illegal? Foreign? Up to no good?”

If you are educated in many developing/third world countries there are no jobs available to use that education, in addition if you disagree with the government or are wrong tribe or wrong religion, prospects do not exist.

Iam64

Thanks HopeGransnet for some fact checks. As you will see, the legal framework means little to posters who reject it.

It's not the posters who are rejecting the legal framework but the authorities. It says failed asylum seekers are illegal immigrants and face up to four years in prison which we know doesn't happen.

So you would be silver lining, what a life story and such a legacy of courage to leave with her loved ones

Thanks HopeGransnet for some fact checks. As you will see, the legal framework means little to posters who reject it.

Don’t you think most people seeking a safe country would rather be in their own countries, living peaceful lives, with homes, jobs, friends and families, where they are comfortable, have their own culture, traditions, somewhere where they are not considered illegal? Foreign? Up to no good?

My mother was a refugee. She had to pack only what she could carry , she lost everything, her home, her family, job, lif she had known travelling in fear through war zones with no regular food or water, no security, finally ending up in a foreign country whose language she did not speak. She was 20. She never saw her beloved mother again.
She worked till she was 74 was self taught and fluent in English, knew everything about the history of her adopted country, as well as much else, loved the Queen and was proudly British to the very end of her life. A wonderful woman. A friend to many, loved and much missed. I am very proud of my mum.

In practice those that don’t get assylum are deported to their home country.
If they originated from an “unsafe” country they would get assylum, those that commit other crimes may well face prison