Yes, I understand that logic. But it doesn't say anything about a claim made under those circumstances being invalid. It just says that a penalty or punishment can be imposed for the act of entering illegally.
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Brexit matters
- Thread starter Xenophon PCDGS
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Yes, if they arrived in the UK in the way you suggest, then I believe their responsibility would be to immediately claim asylum in the UK, not to spend months or years illegally using the UK as a base from which to try to reach other countries.
What I think is missing from that is that there really should be some kind of agreement between countries to distribute asylum seekers who have claimed asylum at the first reasonable opportunity. For example, I'd be quite happy to see, as part of the solution to channel boat crossings, an agreement whereby the UK takes some proportion of those who have already successfully claimed asylum in France (But with no guarantees that any particular individual will be transferred - so people can't use that as a guaranteed route to get to the UK).
And what percentage of the people currently arriving in small boats have spent "months or years" in France before successfully claiming asylum in the UK? I'd be willing to bet the numbers are tiny.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
It's not just about choosing the country they want to settle in. We're talking about people who have deliberately refused to claim asylum in France when they had the opportunity to do so - and I can think of several reasons why people should not be able to do that.
- I believe the aim of the asylum system is to restore to persecuted people the ability to live a normal life. It shouldn't be to give those people special additional rights that no-one else has - and realistically, no-one else has the right to freely roam the world and demand to be settled in whichever country they choose.
- Asylum seekers aren't involved in a free transaction - they are asking for help using a system that broadly compels countries to give that help. If you're asking for people to help you, then you can't really be that fussy about who should help you. As an analogy (somewhat contrived but should give you the idea): If you encountered a homeless person and they convinced you in short conversation that their plight was genuine, you might feel inclined to give that person some money or some food etc. But if you you'd just observed that person turning down perfectly good equivalent offers of help from other people because for some reason they'd decided that they want *your* money, then you'd possibly feel much less inclined to want to help them, even if you knew their original plight was genuine.
- Any asylum system has to be workable. And one of the huge problems that the asylum system now faces is that often you have little more than a person's word about what happened to them in their home country - and that often makes it extremely difficult to distinguish genuine asylum seekers from people who just want a better life and have been coached in what to say to convince you they've been persecuted. If you allow people to pick and choose which country they are going to, that vastly increases the incentives of the latter group to pretend to be asylum seekers, thereby making the whole system less workable. Someone who is genuinely fleeing persecution is more likely to be happy to be in a safe country, whatever that country is, so if the system doesn't let people pick and choose countries, then it's more likely that the people you're giving asylum to will actually be genuine.
Not really comparable though. If you apply for a visa to another country, you're not demanding that that country help you. It's more like a free transaction where that country has freely chosen the criteria for which it wants (or is happy to accept) people settling there, and the hoops you go through are how you demonstrate that you meet those criteria and are therefore someone that the country would like to have.
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So it's a good thing that asylum seekers don't have the right to demand to be settled in whichever country they choose either.
brad465
Veteran Member
Perhaps the problem is in hindsight the British Empire didn't colonise parts of Central Europe (apart from Gibraltar and a military base in Cyprus). If they did they'd speak English as a first language too, then asylum seekers wouldn't have to go beyond them to speak a language they recognise. 
On a more serious point, migration works two ways: there are push factors driving them out of their homeland, and pull factors leading them to another country. Without these, migrants/refugees would not try to migrate. Therefore is there anything we can actually do to make the countries of origin better so migrants don't feel a need to move in the first place (besides not invading them without an exit strategy)? Either that or we dramatically make the UK a worse place so that we're not worth coming to by comparison, but I don't see that being acceptable.
On a more serious point, migration works two ways: there are push factors driving them out of their homeland, and pull factors leading them to another country. Without these, migrants/refugees would not try to migrate. Therefore is there anything we can actually do to make the countries of origin better so migrants don't feel a need to move in the first place (besides not invading them without an exit strategy)? Either that or we dramatically make the UK a worse place so that we're not worth coming to by comparison, but I don't see that being acceptable.
nlogax
Established Member
Probably fair to say that's been happening for some years. Not realistic to send a 'don't come to Britain, it's a bit crap' message though.
Annetts key
Established Member
No, I’m not suggesting for one moment that anyone should be forced out of their own home.
What I am saying, is that in due course, when either you choose to move out (for whatever reason) or after both of you have died, then the property will become free for either another family to move into (and if there are more than two of them, the population density will increase). Or, as has happened a lot in my town, the building may be altered or even completely redeveloped, into apartments or flats. Further increasing the amount of housing without having to build on farm land.
Multiply this across the country and it increases the amount of homes by a surprising amount.
And yes, obviously, what is achievable will vary across the country, as not all houses can be redeveloped.
There are not many council houses left. Most have either been sold or are now owned by housing associations.
But even if we still did have a large number, it is no different to the situation in private housing. As a house becomes vacant, it would be offered to a new family. Or the council could redevelop it.
The difference being that councils generally speaking managed to build more houses in the past than current private building companies do currently.
And, if councils were able to offer ‘sheltered’ housing, many older people may choose to move out of their existing home for the advantages of being in a ‘sheltered’ accommodation.
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There is a very big difference between choosing and demanding.
You do know that as a U.K. citizen, your rights to demand various things don’t actually exist?
Personally, I don’t care if someone is seeking asylum or is just trying to find somewhere to make a better life for themselves. To me, the later is no different to someone wanting to move from one part of the U.K. to another part, maybe to get a larger house or a better job.
As long as they are willing to contribute to our system (pay taxes by working) and can support themselves and their partner and family, I don’t have a problem.
I do have a problem with how the current government treats people. If a government can treat people badly in one area, that means that they may not really care about other people who already live here that they are not interested in.
As I have said before, it’s not practical to stop illegal migration. So it would be far better for everyone to encourage people to use legal methods and to deal with them properly and quickly.
And the U.K. currently should hold its head up in shame at the low numbers of people that we allow in legally.
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REVUpminster
Established Member
The 1000 boat people that arrived last week , how many from the EU. Your figures are irrelevant.More than likely they would be working in jobs and paying taxes. EU migrants were net contributors to the UK treasury.
The Fiscal Impact of Immigration on the UK
European migrants living in the UK contribute £2,300 more to public purse each year than the average adult, suggesting a net contribution of £78,000 to the exchequer over their lifespan in the UK.www.oxfordeconomics.com
Seeing as this is the Brexit thread one would assume that, absent any qualification, 'immigrants' would refer to EU immigrants rather than asylum seekers.
It's the immigrants arriving by boat that I think most people are against, not EU citizens coming here to work, pay taxes and contribute to society by filling the many thousands of vacancies we now have.
And that was never part of Brexit anyway, except perhaps the bit where we now find it harder to process them than we did as EU members. Given every Brexit voter knew what they were voting for, I am sure they all know the difference and impact of the current situation.
And that was never part of Brexit anyway, except perhaps the bit where we now find it harder to process them than we did as EU members. Given every Brexit voter knew what they were voting for, I am sure they all know the difference and impact of the current situation.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Unfortunately, it's also not practical not to attempt to stop illegal immigration. If we don't put up barriers to make illegal immigration hard and therefore deter people from attempting it, then the numbers would become unimaginably huge. Consider that there are hundreds of millions of people in the World who would on economic grounds probably love to live in the UK if they could, and hundreds of millions more who are arguably persecuted and would probably have an excellent claim to asylum if they could reach the UK. There's no possible way we could accommodate so many people - and one of the reasons such a small proportion of those people actually do attempt to come to the UK is because of the barriers that the UK Government has put up that make it so difficult to come here if you don't meet strict visa criteria (and the same would be true for most Western/European countries).
You do realise that the 'low' numbers of (non-British) people that we allowed in legally in the year to June 2022 was close to 1 million, right? Source. If you believe that about a million is a shamefully low number of people, then I'd love to know what you think an acceptable number is?
ONS said:
I believe the comment was directed to the number of refugees that we take in as compared to other similar-sized developed countries.
Annetts key
Established Member
Absolutely.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
But that then begs the same question related to refugees:
Doing some digging, it looks like, between 2015 and 2022 we took in about half a million people for refugee or related humanitarian reasons. Source:
GovUK said:
(ACRS and ARAP are the special schemes for Afghan nationals)
Granted that's over 8 years - so works out at about 65K a year, although has been much higher than that over the last 2 years. If @Annetts key regards taking in 500K people over 8 years as shamefully low, what figure would you consider to be reasonable?
brad465
Veteran Member
Can I ask, given you've disclosed being a Tory party member before, are you doing/saying anything to the inner party circles to try and get them to do something about this whole crisis? I've lost count of the number of different "solutions" that the Government have announced in the last year that have got nowhere, and the wider problem has got worse in the last few years, all under the current Governing party's watch. Now you probably believe Labour would not be able to sensibly solve it either, and whatever Reform UK come up with is meaningless (unless the Tories copy it) as they are not getting anywhere near power, but based on the Government's handling of the matter so far I cannot currently see how they are capable of solving this.
Therefore if you have any proposals that you believe are workable and sensible, I'd suggest putting them forward to the inner party, or at least threaten to withdraw membership if they don't sort it out in x time frame.
It is at the very least ironic that immigration has actually increased since Brexit. Net Migration almost 4 million since 2010 and this is just the number of people the government actually know about.
One thing is for sure - if, as a voter, you want less immigration - the conservative party is not the party for you. 'Give us another 5 years and we'll sort it!'
For the first time in years I genuinely believe Labour will lead to less immigration than the Tories, because they know they'd be crucified by the Daily Mail etc for even keeping levels as they are now
One thing is for sure - if, as a voter, you want less immigration - the conservative party is not the party for you. 'Give us another 5 years and we'll sort it!'
For the first time in years I genuinely believe Labour will lead to less immigration than the Tories, because they know they'd be crucified by the Daily Mail etc for even keeping levels as they are now
How many did France take over a similar period? They would seem a relatively fair comparator (as much as it is possible to compare one nation to another) to ourselves.
Germany took in nearly 600,000 Syrian refugees alone between 2014 and 2018.
brad465
Veteran Member
What you've brought to mind here is that surely as refugees/asylum seekers are fleeing war/persecution, as soon as conditions improve in their homelands would they not go back? Then really what needs doing is some sought of international coordination to end hostilities in the affected country ASAP (that isn't a hatched air strike campaign with no means of an exit strategy), such that we don't have to take in endless refugees as eventually they will be safely able to return home. We seem to be trying this with all the Ukraine support we're giving, but elsewhere we seem to be either doing nothing or have actively made the situation worse (e.g. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan withdrawal, Yemen, Syria).
GusB
Established Member
It's such a shame that people actually pay attention to the drivel that Braverman spouts.
A certain percentage certainly would - depending on how long they've been in the country of refuge. If it's been long enough that they have built a new life then perhaps not.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I tried looking up the figures but couldn't find anything useful for that period. My suspicion is that the figures would show that France took in more asylum seekers than the UK, but set against a background of much lower overall immigration and net migration levels than the UK (which is important because, the higher the level of general immigration, the harder it is going to be to add to that by taking in more asylum seekers).
If you look at Syrian refugees, France took in approximately 19,000 as compared to the UK's 11,000.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
It's such a shame that people actually pay attention to the drivel that Braverman spouts.
1. The text I wrote that you quoted didn't come from anything Braverman has said, but from general consideration of the state of various countries in the World, plus a bit of ad hoc inside knowledge from previous personal contact with migrants from developing countries. It's not hard to do a bit of adding up of population levels in countries where there is significant persecution.
2. You seem to be saying that my point is not valid because Braverman has said something similar. Unfortunately, 'Person X says Y therefore Y is false' is not a sensible argument.
3. In my experience, Braverman often uses language that I would not use, but if you strip away the unfortunate language, the underlying points she's making are usually quite sensible and reasoned and not drivel at all. (Unlike the stuff many Labour/LibDem/SNP politicians come up with about immigration, which usually sounds all compassionate and lovely but doesn't stand up to any analysis of what would actually happen if their proposals got enacted).
GusB
Established Member
You've parroted the same "hundreds of meeelions" of people potentially trying to get to our shores that Braverman spouted. You say you wouldn't use that language, but you just did!
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
That by itself is not inappropriate language (other perhaps than than your silly mis-spelling of it): It's basic reality (admittedly with a bit of inference about people's intentions). Are you seriously going to deny that there are hundreds of millions of people who live in countries where persecution is rife? Or that there are hundreds of millions of people who live in countries that are massively poor compared to the UK, and where large numbers of people would love to move to countries like the UK so they could get a decent standard of living?
Premise A is true, but Premise B isn't testable*, so the conclusion that there are hundreds of millions of people who want to move to the UK is logically invalid.
*Note also the subtle switch of "hundreds of millions" for "large numbers".
Annetts key
Established Member
There’s no magic right number. This should not be a numbers game. If people have a good reason for travelling large distances around the world, we, as a democratic and free country should at the very least, listen to them make their case and carefully consider their application. There should be no stupid or demeaning rules or standards that they should have to jump through. In the meantime we should treat them with the same respect that we would treat any one else.
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The UN should be doing more, but it’s hamstrung due to the way it has been set up. Certainly the democratic countries around the world need to wake up and realise that it’s foolish to ignore the problems elsewhere in the world. I agree that more war is not the solution. But pressure does need to be put on the governments of countries where their population is fleeing so that the reason for the migration is removed or reduced.
Climate change is also likely to be increasingly driving migration as well. And the current government does not appear to be doing enough on that front either.
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Agreed.It's such a shame that people actually pay attention to the drivel that Braverman spouts.
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GusB
Established Member
What's inappropriate about it?
I'm not going to deny that persecution is rife in other parts of the world, but to suggest that all of those people are likely to end up on our shores is simply alarmist nonsense, and it's straight out of the Britain First/BNP playbook.
What's wrong with wanting to move to a place where economic conditions are better than where you currently live? It's what people have done for thousands of years. It still happens within the UK because some areas have fewer jobs than others; what difference does it make that some people happen to come from outwith the UK? We have chronic shortages in certain industries while we're effectively incarcerating people who may be able to fulfil those needs. It makes absolutely no sense that we're locking up people who could be an asset to us.