That Starmer fella...

Fairly sure sohi is an immigrant, but they can speak for themselves

I said it before on here but when we applied for asylum in Germany we actually wanted to
go to Canada but Polish people had priority at the time because of Martial Law in Poland.
It wasn't what we wanted but it wasn't the end of the world we were in a safe place.

Obviously wine is cheaper and the roads are nicer in France. But for some people having existing family here and being able to speak English trump the excellent reasons for remaining in France.

I'd be supprised if many Algerians do the trip.

Something I'm curious about is how risky those in boats think the crossing is. Have they already crossed the Med and assume this will be much easier? Also Idk if it is much easier(?)

Isn't there also a far larger grey economy in the UK? (Data says no actually 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Currently I just wish the Home office gets it's shit together, my wife could have her citizenship
for 3 years now if it wasn't for Brexit and the change in law that meant she had to switch to the
EU Settlement scheme, the first step took 18 month of waiting without our Passports, now we
are upgrading to fully settled it took them 6 month to reply that we can't use the online
process and have to use the paper forms, and lol if you have travel plans do it afterwards because
we want your travel documents again.
So I know how frustrating it is to do it by the book but we are not going to set ourselves on fire
over it.

I'm not sure this demonstrates a change. 20yrs ago the Blair government had pretty shitty treatment of asylum seekers.

The big change in my lifetime (excluding Brexit) is May's time at the Home Office.

i did not know you'd gone through the asylum pathway, i drew from the tone of your post being a common right wing dog whistle that i reacted a little too quickly too. apologies.

as others have highlighted there are many reasons someone might risk the trip accross the channel, even with the barriers you highlight. especially those who are travelling solo or are younger.

There was an article recently about a mother whose daughter died in their first attempt and she said they are going again.

But then I don't understand what is going on there because if you have family here they can apply for you to join them.

I mean it's not what I think I'd do.

The whole topic is so broad that it's hard not to start mixing up issues. But imo the No1 priority is getting the processing backlog sorted. It's super dull but it deals with so many issues, including taking the heat out.

I know it's a right wing thing to say that but if you don't ask the questions it's only going to be the right wing who have answers. I bet it's a mix of too little information and a lot of
rumours and myths about the UK that the people who take the boats are told.
I don't think most of them risk their lives to live in a mouldy home in poverty.

I thought this was made harder. But in any event how well informed are people? I remember listening to interviews in peak Rwanda, and none of the people being interviewed were aware or really believed.

the hostile environment

There are at least 2 classes of immigrants, one who would call themselves 'economic' migrant and vulnerable migrant like an asylum seeker.

In the early tory days (Cameron with May) the hostile environment extended to economic migrants which from what I see is something labour wants to move away from for obvious reasons but keep it hostile for the 'other' kind of migrant.

Both terrible, there should not be an openly hostile immigration policy from a country with shrinking economy and population AT ALL but I see their scaling back of hostility for the 'right kind' (🤢) of migrant as improvement.

What I can say just in terms of just competency that a Corbyn gov would have handled it much worse, they have/had no concept of 'balance'. Look at recent NIMBY-ism from rebecca long-bailey for example.

labour mp asking for tamworth hotel back "for locals" and its "damaging effect on the local economy", "preventing tourism":

https://x.com/SarahEdwardsTam/status/181­8240122103484735 now deleted

My jaw dropped when I saw this, insane thing to do or say

rebecca long-bailey

Hard to know whether it's just BS or if the failure to hit the requisite % of affordable housing is a genuine pushback.

The crossing between Tangier and Tarifa by ferry takes an hour and a half, that's not even the shortest route.

tamworth hotel being attacked by racists setting fire to it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c97882­r2729o

I missed this at the time amongst the many things going on.

It is so upsetting to see. I can't help wondering if BoJo's waste of money water canons may have actually served dual purpose in crowd dispersal & fire extinguishing here.

What a mess this country is in.

Maybe we are thinking about it the wrong way and it would need a witness protection style
program that gets the people out of those families that pressure them to do these journeys.
Especially children travelling on their own.

It was Gordon Brown's government who introduced the term Hostile Environment in 2010

if you have family here they can apply for you to join them.

Only your U18 children and partner can apply.

Regardless of what we do about asylum, cracking down on the gangs is the right thing to do. You can't have criminals taking £10k to send toddlers off in dinghies to drown in the Channel. They are committing manslaughter on a daily basis.

Citation needed. I'm 99% sure it was Theresa May who used it first, in 2012.

Citing this myself:

https://fullfact.org/immigration/michael-gove-hostile-environment-labour/

Supply and demand. Remove the demand with legal routes, there's no supply.

Regardless of what we do about asylum, cracking down on the gangs is the right thing to do.

You can't seperate these things. The gangs are a result of a failed asylum system that goes back multiple governments and decades. The dangerous small boat crossings are a partial result of the crackdown on people entering on HGVs via ferrys/the tunnel. You can't just solve the issue with more policing and boarder enforcement.

It was 2007 not 2010 actually. Labour Immigration Minister Liam Byrne "We are trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally"