[Politics] Small boats, smashing the criminal gangs and the UK job market

[BadFish]

it's simple logic, stop pretending it's all about asylum and accept most are economic migrants, they are making a choice of destination for their potential future prospects. one doesn't pay a smuggler thousands and risk life of that crossing just to be "safe", they want to work, they have to work, to pay back that debt and earn more for their future. offer simple entry process, into the country and registered properly. solves the gangs problem as there's no reason for them. rest of the problems, burden on housing, healthcare, etc. are the same however they arrive, should sort themselves out through general economic activity.

The evidence shows that it is about asylum so to accept they are mostly economic migrants would be ignoring the data.

As a premise it just doesn't stand up.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

The Rwandan scheme was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court rules Rwanda asylum policy unlawful

The UK's highest court says the plan leaves people at risk of being sent back to unsafe countries.

www.bbc.co.uk

Correct.

But if it acted as a deterrent, and stopped people drowning in the channel, was it such a bad thing?

 

[Official Old Man]

Regarding overseas workers.
Owning seafront shops I know that there are many illegal workers in Brighton. Personally, I never employ illegal workers but in the 24 years of trading I've never had an inspection. I get workers who want cash in hand (every employee is paid via bacs), students on 20 hour visa want 50+ hours but never English workers looking for a job.
The chippie next door has illegal staff on £6 an hour, paid well in arrears and when they leave they get nothing. Try to report them, no-one is interested.
Right now I've got 4 foreigners working 40+ hours a week and 1 English who calls in sick more than he works. Yes, it's £11.44 an hour but that's more than I can afford anyway.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I doubt this thread will turn out too well but, yes, it is easier to get work in the UK without proper credentials than in other European countries. The UK has gone further down the deregulated 'flexible' labour market route.

In 2009, I spent some time in Harringay. Every morning seven or eight East European blokes, scruffy, smoking, dirty, would hang around a certain pavement. One morning I saw a van pull up and they all jumped quickly and surreptitiously into the back. Clearly casual workers off on a job. Whether they were part of the regular economy or not was unclear..........

 

[CheeseRolls]

How will our creaking infrastructure handle that? The NHS is stretched to breaking point with resident UK citizens alone

The last time I checked immigration numbers were around 620K, asylum arriving by boat was around 40k. If your concern is around creaking infrastructure, then focussing on the latter is like pissing in the wind.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

if they aren't coming here for work, they aren't concerned about that, right?

smashing the gangs will be about as successful as the war on drugs. and likewise, solution to the problem of criminals involvement is to remove them, by allow migrants in without restriction.

Which of course triggers the response "It isn't about whether they are here legally or illegally. We simply don't want them here at all! Those.....FOREIGNERS!".

And this of course is what it is all about. And this is why the Tories avoided any attempt to map the people wanting to come here to work with the massive vacancies across many sectors, and instead made it harder for those who used to come here legally to get here at all.

Hence the lack of key workers in the NHS and other sectors.

That's what happens when a party decides to weaponize an issue (that they don't themselves care about) in order to attempt to harvest votes.

Hopefully, now the grown ups are in charge we may reach some solutions. Of course Starmer will be viciously attacked, like he was today at PMQT by Sunk, for wrecking 'the strongest economy in Europe'.

 

[jcdenton08]

The last time I checked immigration numbers were around 620K, asylum arriving by boat was around 40k. If your concern is around creaking infrastructure, then focussing on the latter is like pissing in the wind.

I wasn’t. I was replying to a suggestion about unchecked immigration. The boats aren’t the biggest problem

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm not sure about elsewhere in Europe but in Spain the unregulated labour market is huge.

But I would imagine the pay is shit and there is a large and willing indigenous peasant population willing to engage with the black economy.

 

[Bakero]

But I would imagine the pay is shit and there is a large and willing indigenous peasant population willing to engage with the black economy.

Indigenous peasants? Fecking 'ell, Harry

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Very good article

I know that we weren't recording any arrivals or departures in the UK a few years back which was why, although we weren't in Schengen, Britain decided unilaterally to allow completely free movement by not recording anyone, (and nothing has been put in place since). As a result, we don't have any record of who is in the UK at any time. Interestingly, the biggest single reason for people living and working illegally in the UK is overstaying visas, not channel crossings.

All of this creates and supports an unregulated job market, which is then seen as a good reason to come to the UK if you can't get asylum (or an asylum case processed) or the aforementioned visas.

If we are really going to address this, I believe we will need ID cards and to record all comings and goings in the UK, something that has been raised many times by many people on NSC over the years. If people want to 'control our borders' it is, and always has been, the only solution

Would it be the case that the same people most opposed to immigration of any sort are those most opposed to ID cards?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Indigenous peasants? Fecking 'ell, Harry

Succinct. And.....you know it

 

[Bakero]

Succinct. And.....you know it

Succinct but not entirely accurate. Spain has plenty of blokes coming over from Africa to do the jobs no one wants to do for a pittance.

 

[highflyer]

This is a really good post. Not sure I agree with your final sentence though: many do want to hear it, it's more that no-one wants to say it because they know what will come their way in doing so.

Aye, that is probably true. Which begs the question of whether ducking the truth counts as sensible political pragmatism or political cowardice? Therein lies a whole new debate, but since this thread has stayed surprisingly reasonable so far, let's not go there!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I wasn’t. I was replying to a suggestion about unchecked immigration. The boats aren’t the biggest problem

Any attention drawn to The Boats deflects from all sensible discussion about filling job vacancies, creating affordable housing, and ensuring the NHS works by ensuring it is properly staffed (the main reason for waiting lists).

Every time illegal immigration is mentioned it is exactly the same as a ship captain worrying about rain coming in through the cabin roof when there is a f***ing great hole in the hull.

'The Boats' is a tragedy for those on them, but that's about it in a wider context.

 

[beorhthelm]

The evidence shows that it is about asylum so to accept they are mostly economic migrants would be ignoring the data.

As a premise it just doesn't stand up.

look at the thread title, the point Bozza raises, apparently being easier to get work is a draw for migrantion here.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Succinct but not entirely accurate. Spain has plenty of blokes coming over from Africa to do the jobs no one wants to do for a pittance.

Of course. There is always some poor sod willing to do more graft for less wedge.

I have actually completely lost my narrative now.

The thread was about the UK being attractive for those who want to work illegally. I guess I was thinking that the black money is probably better than in Spain, and life may be somewhat easier here if you are living in a twilight world. But....actually.....

Actually I still can't get agitated about The Boats other than in terms of the tragedy for those involved. I should avoid falling into the trap of pursuing red herring narratives. I just can't help myself.

Maybe ID cards would be useful, but we'd need to upscale random checks, and the indigenous peasants of the UK (of which I am arguably one) would likely object. I wouldn't, but I know plenty who would.

 

[BadFish]

look at the thread title, the point Bozza raises, apparently being easier to get work is a draw for migrantion here.

I'll continue to look at the refugee visas granted as a percentage to see what percentage of asylum seekers are refugees.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Correct.

But if it acted as a deterrent, and stopped people drowning in the channel, was it such a bad thing?

It was never tested because nobody was sent to Rwanda.

It is legitimate to argue that since we don't know it isn't a deterrent we can't prove that it wouldn't be a deterrent. I agree.

But that is not a good reason for bringing it in as a policy.

We have confounds. The eye-watering cost. And the illogicality:

This is supposed to be a deterrent to people who want to come here illegally
The Tories define those wanting to come here illegally as people with no legal entitlement to be here
Such people could not rock up, get an NI number and a council house and a job, because by definition that would be illegal
If they could do that, they would come here legally.
If they are legally entitled to be here then why would Rwanda put them off attempting to get here?
If they are illegal and know they are illegal and know they will have to slip into the black economy or be deported, how would Rwanda be a deterrent?

The ONLY way Rwanda would work as a deterrent is if the law were changed such that people who are arriving here legally now would suddenly become illegal immigrants by definition.

Ah, but the tories fixed this by defining anyone seeking asylum by arriving on these shores as an illegal immigrant, regardless of whether they would be granted asylum if they sought it owing to legitimate reasons.

This is where the Rwanda plan falls apart. If anyone arriving illegally is now barred from seeking asylum, even if they can prove their legitimacy, that would be a breach of human rights legislation. This is of course why Sunk and chums wanted to bin our human rights laws.

To make this more absurd, if anyone arriving here illegally were denied any opportunity to stay here, there is no need to send the buggers to Rwanda. We can simply send them back to France. Oh, but hang on, France won't take them.

Have we every tried in any way to persuade France to take back people in the channel or rocking up on our shores? If not, how much would it cost to do so? More or less than 'Rwanda'?

And why Rwanda? We have granted asylum to people fleeing Rwanda. One can only assume that Rwanda is the equivalent of the four gardens down that my dad used to fling any slugs he found on the lettuce - too far for them to get back, and who gives a f*** what happens to them over there, sort of thing. Nice.

So, expensive, convoluted, necessitating a change in laws including abandoning the notion of human rights, no obvious reason why it may work.....

But as you might say, it could work - we just don't know.

With that in mind, I have decided to test if grinding up half an aspirin and sprinkling the dust on my cactus will make the plant grow better. I have no reason to believe it will work, but that is not sufficient reason to not at lest give it a try.

 

[MattBackHome]

Stopped using takeaway food delivery services after one of their employees tried to kill me last year

Undercooked chicken?

 

[Eric the meek]

It was never tested because nobody was sent to Rwanda.

It is legitimate to argue that since we don't know it isn't a deterrent we can't prove that it wouldn't be a deterrent. I agree.

But that is not a good reason for bringing it in as a policy.

We have confounds. The eye-watering cost. And the illogicality:

This is supposed to be a deterrent to people who want to come here illegally
The Tories define those wanting to come here illegally as people with no legal entitlement to be here
Such people could not rock up, get an NI number and a council house and a job, because by definition that would be illegal
If they could do that, they would come here legally.
If they are legally entitled to be here then why would Rwanda put them off attempting to get here?
If they are illegal and know they are illegal and know they will have to slip into the black economy or be deported, how would Rwanda be a deterrent?

The ONLY way Rwanda would work as a deterrent is if the law were changed such that people who are arriving here legally now would suddenly become illegal immigrants by definition.

Ah, but the tories fixed this by defining anyone seeking asylum by arriving on these shores as an illegal immigrant, regardless of whether they would be granted asylum if they sought it owing to legitimate reasons.

This is where the Rwanda plan falls apart. If anyone arriving illegally is now barred from seeking asylum, even if they can prove their legitimacy, that would be a breach of human rights legislation. This is of course why Sunk and chums wanted to bin our human rights laws.

To make this more absurd, if anyone arriving here illegally were denied any opportunity to stay here, there is no need to send the buggers to Rwanda. We can simply send them back to France. Oh, but hang on, France won't take them.

Have we every tried in any way to persuade France to take back people in the channel or rocking up on our shores? If not, how much would it cost to do so? More or less than 'Rwanda'?

And why Rwanda? We have granted asylum to people fleeing Rwanda. One can only assume that Rwanda is the equivalent of the four gardens down that my dad used to fling any slugs he found on the lettuce - too far for them to get back, and who gives a f*** what happens to them over there, sort of thing. Nice.

So, expensive, convoluted, necessitating a change in laws including abandoning the notion of human rights, no obvious reason why it may work.....

But as you might say, it could work - we just don't know.

With that in mind, I have decided to test if grinding up half an aspirin and sprinkling the dust on my cactus will make the plant grow better. I have no reason to believe it will work, but that is not sufficient reason to not at lest give it a try.

Thank you for having the patience to explain that.

It is a sobering thought that the whole Rwanda scheme, was not based on - any - actual - evidence - that it would work as a deterrent.

Rather it was conceived, discussed, agreed as party policy, planned, staffed, negotiated, and executed (up to the point of a plane on the runway), all based on precisely no empirical evidence whatsoever.

There is a rumour that Suella Braverman is going to be a contestant on this year's I'm a Celebrity. I think we all know our duty.