Our government need to be tougher otherwise all and sundry will be coming In soon. Are we afraid of the French FFS!! That’s what happens when past governments have eroded the armed services to nothing. Can you imagine Putin being scared of anyone!!
Boris needs to get a grip!!
What do you suggest? Send in our warships to return migrants to France? If any British boats attempt to tow dinghies back to France or to return those picked up in the Channel, the French will just deny access to any port. If we want to stop the cross channel dinghies then we would probably have to bar anyone crossing in that manner from being given right to remain in the UK. That would require the Uk to renounce our membership of human rights conventions. This is going to run and run. Sooner or later mass immigration into the UK will have to cease in order to protect our services from being overwhelmed and to protect our way of life. Expect a big rise in the popularity of the far right in coming years. There will be trouble over this issue, whatever your view on immigration policy. The World is a nasty place and it isn’t likely to improve any time soon.
I agree that our government needs to be tougher. The problem is that we have no alternative to Boris as both Labour and Liberals would be even weaker and allow all and sundry in. What happened to controlled immigration?
Have to say Mickd this is what I have been advocating for sometime.
We need to accept that there will be increasing numbers of people want to move into other countries, some will be asylum seekers, others will not.
Let’s get on top of it rather and manage it rather than just trying to stop something that cannot be stopped.
Just like Covid we need to manage it and live with it, because the problem isn’t going to go away.
Starting with people traffickers - scum of the earth, create a team of mercenaries to go and meet them head on, take their assets and make life insanely difficult, they'd quickly move on to some other career crime.
No handouts to illegals, a joined up cross country agreement to take a certain number of refugees/asylum seekers - we have royally messed up the Middle East and millions are displaced.
Foreign Aid - this country throws billions at test & trace, climate change, the list goes on. If money were spent re-building where we have bombed cities into ruins it would give hope and create jobs.
The problem isn't going away - as Mick said, it has to be managed and managed efficiently.
The Macron has blood on his hands. The French are entirely responsible for this tragedy. It's not the first and won't be the last because they basically want the poor souls out of their country and be someone else's problem. We even paid for them to increase patrols yet it looks like they spent all that money on escargot.
Absolutely disgrace.
You make some very good points Mick and this is exactly what it needs. The only point I'd add to is that it shouldn't just be based on landmass but also population in relation to that landmass.
Unfortunately, sensible compromise and working together for the common good is something a big majority of todays politicians, be it in The EU or The UK are incapable of. Whether it's France with Macron posturing in the run up to the French election or our lot in Westminster, common sense and compromise are nowhere to be found unless it serves them.
The Tory's has shown zero backbone in dealing with this accident waiting to happen, Labour have no solutions aside from sniping in hindsight which is why they are totally unelectable so this issue has been reduced to nothing more than a Punch & Judy show between our two main parties and the French.
This is a sad representation of the calibre of people now in politics be it here or in The EU. A Europe wide solution must be found as the Europeans are suffering as well with gangs of young men roaming through their countries causing big problems for the locals. A friend of mine lives in Austria and has suffered theft and violence on several occasions at their farm through gangs of migrants roaming the countryside.
We shouldn't expect anything more from our politicians so seeing the French police watch them disembark and subsequently drown should not surprise any of us,