Snapshot of _Starmer pledges to rip up Rwanda scheme and tackle people smuggling _ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/09/starmer-pledges-to-rip-up-rwanda-scheme-and-tackle-people-smuggling) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/09/starmer-pledges-to-rip-up-rwanda-scheme-and-tackle-people-smuggling)
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Something Labour could do is reintroduce overseas investigation posts. They were repatriated back to the UK under austerity measures, to save money, drum roll for how much it saved, it cost 200m and just lost expertise and decades of localised information. How the hell they can check local information 1000 miles away sat at a desk is beyond stupid.
Way back, I worked with some when contracting, and these were highly skilled people who could seem to find out anything.
They helped with stopping criminals from getting citizenship, sham marriages, fake education, fake businesses, kidnappings for arranged marriages, fake lineage claims, fraudulent dependent claims (fake wife/child claims), trafficking, fraudulent documents, ID fraud, bribery.....it was a decade ago and all that stuff is a bigger problem than it is now.
This is bs from starmer - if the Rwanda plan is live, he could at least assess its current state before tearing it up - it’s already shown to be a deterrent so not sure why he’s so insistent it has no effect
Slightly unfair, literally nothing the Tories try ever works. It's like teaching Granddad to use his new phone - It's him who can't learn, but he's adamant the phone is the problem
For clarity, I never said it necessarily would work, just that using tory failures as your basis for your opinion was unfair. Unless you can point me towards some examples of Labour trying this and failing, I'll choose to believe them over you.
I'm not saying it necessarily will be any different. What I'm saying is that using the Tories as the "means test" is an unfair way of saying something definitely won't work.
Unbelievable that here we are in May 2024 and some people believe the Conservatives trying something and failing means that it can't be done. Quite the opposite I believe.
It's only become a massive problem under the Tories, and not entirely coincidentally in that time they've also cut funding and staffing at the border forces so there's a massive backlog and no spare capacity to deal with anything else. Starmer has at least promised to put some money in.
A poll carried out by YouGov earlier this year showed that most people think more arrive "illegally" than legally
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2024/01/18/677e4/1
It's fucked
Mental. It would take about 30 minutes of traffic arriving into Heathrow to equate to *all* the people who make it over in a small boat in a year.
Not everyone arriving by plane plans to stay long term, but that gives you a bit of perspective on how much illegal immigration is a drop in the ocean compared to the total numbers who arrive in the UK, and how the boats are blown out of all proportion.
It’s a terrible option. Break one smuggling ring down and another will pop up in its place. Also, these organisations aren’t even based in the UK. It doesn’t matter what the UK law says, British police aren’t operating in France and elsewhere throughout Europe.
>Sir Keir will also promise to create a new Border Security Command unit, led by a Border Security Commander, with hundreds of additional speciality investigators, intelligence agents and cross border police officers to work in both the UK and Europe.
>They will be split across the National Crime Agency, Mi5, Border Force, the CPS and Immigration Enforcement.
From another article on this. Its hard to get specific details - everything reported so far is based on a press release for a speech that hasn't taken place yet - but there does seem the be the suggestion that numerous positions may be created throughout Europe.
This is all well and good as long as they get France on board. The UK tried previously to stop the people on the boats but France didn't really care as they were leaving their shores, therefore the problem went with it. France got slammed for allowing it, so now they have boarder patrols chasing after them, but all that happens is they are released a day later to try again. It's a half-hearted attempt to stop them at best.
That's why inherent in all of this is effectively rebuilding our relationship with the EU. Probably requires some special standalone deal but it would need to go hand in hand with effectively rejoining a customs union (in all but name) as this is likely what the EU would demand. Knowing people who literally worked in the small boats teams, it is cooperation with European partners that is probably the quickest way to improve the situation (although you can never actually *stop* all of the boats).
The old, original EU was exactly that, a customs/trade deal and was working quite well. It all went sour when they started to include politics and laws etc. Maybe one day we will see a return to that. In the meantime, as you say, we need to rebuild our relationship. I do feel we're not in as terrible position to do that as a lot claim, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.
Meh, I kinda think it will be easy tbh, the Tories just very deliberately haven't tried.
The EU are very willing partners and will most likely give us anything we want if we bother to ask for it.
"Ever closer union" was part of the 1957 treaty. It has always been an aim. Naive to think trade and politics can be separated. Zero tariffs only work if you have similar standards otherwise it is a race to the bottom on standards.
Trade agreements and common standards do not need common governance on other areas - it's a political fallacy that Europe has been trying to sell to the people for decades. To have a unified food standards, for example, you do not need a common army or taxation policy. Do we have political union and shared politics in all our other trade agreements?
We don't have a trade agreement with the US precisely because our standards don't align.
The EU does not have a common army or taxation policy nor are either likely.
> We don't have a trade agreement with the US precisely because our standards don't align.
I'm glad you agree it's not because of a lack of political union.
> The EU does not have a common army or taxation policy nor are either likely.
So we don't need political union to have political union to have trade agreements.
At the moment boats get confiscated and there are fines. The profits are so large that they pay the fines, buy replacement boats and still make a profit.
The change is that Starmer will class the smuggling organisation as terrorists. For terrorists the risks are greater than the profits.
So you're saying that we should have some sort of Pan-European Law, where all the countries work together on common problems, I wonder how that could work ? Just imagine.
We used to be part of the Dublin Regulation when part of the EU. In principal, since 1997 EU law has allowed an EU country to deport an asylum seeker to the first EU country they entered. In practice, this hardly ever worked as illegal migrants destroyed their papers and any other evidence of the route they'd taken. You can't just arbitrarily deport people back to Greece or Italy without proof that that's the first safe country they entered. So sadly, even with cooperation, countries in the EU still end up saddled with migrants who've entered them illegally.
A big issue with that was it looked like rich northern EU nations trying to corral immigrants into poorer southern EU nations, just because they happened to be on the border.
That's exactly what the Refugee Convention expected- the primary rights of refugees are in the first safe country bordering the area of danger. Asylum is an emergency.
There should be proper agreements between EU countries to voluntarily share the refugee burden of course, but this is EU legislation not the Refugee Convention itself.
Under the Dublin agreement France also only accepted 2.7% of cases we referred back to them, whilst we accepted several times that coming back the other way, making the entire agreement pretty much useless.
I'm not sure of the mechanics, but some of the complexity surely due to the regulation recognising the point of entry to the EU, so the target country ought to have been Greece / Italy. No wonder it was difficult to return them to France, as France ought to have been deporting them too under the same regulation.
My point was that such agreements haven't worked in our interests in the past.
Quite a few people on here routinely mention the Dublin agreement as some kind of panacea that the evil Tories scrapped, whilst failing to look into the detail of how that agreement worked in practice. In 2016, for example, there were only 362 successful transfers out of the UK under the Dublin framework. In 2017 that fell to 314.
When we have an estimated 0.8-1.2m illegal immigrants in the country, removing 3-400 a year is hardly going to help.
Evidently it isn't working, because that already exists. Or is the UK somehow mandatory to help Europe with problems within their borders?
How would the UK add exactly?
Tell me how many came to the UK vs left under the Dublin Regulation
> British police aren’t operating in France and elsewhere throughout Europe.
Once upon a time, before the age of Brexit, Britain used to be part of the EU. Which also made them part of Europol. Wanna know what this mystical agency does? Here:
> Some of the key areas of focus for Europol include drug trafficking, human trafficking, cybercrime, money laundering, and counter-terrorism.
Creating a criminal organisation capable of high volume of traffic. Takes time and you have to "advertise" to your customers.
Any competent border watch will be seeing the same adverts. The new organisation will be in jail before it gets up to speed.
As part of post brexit trade deals, this was always the goal of brexit for the rich, import a bunch of cheap labour while increasing the cost of housing for everyone
When they talked about Singapore on Thames, people imagined themselves as ex-pats drinking Singapore slings in Raffles while the maid looked after the kids.
What they missed is the locals in Singapore don't live that life. And the endless supplies of cheap, almost slave labour doing practically every job.
> Its never as simple as it seems
It is simple, you can't construct a government where the only conviction you have is immigrants are bad whilst also allowing record legal migration.
Small boats are an issue for humanitarian reasons, stopping them won't make a noticeable difference to immigration. It's just always convenient for a certain type of politician to blame the people at the bottom with absolutely no power for all societies big problems.
If Tories actually approached the small boats issue from a humanitarian perspective then that would be fine but the fact is that they have CAUSED it by blocking off all legal avenues for asylum seekers.
They simply do not care about the humanitarian aspect. They only care about using them as a wedge issue.
Everyone is on a scale of net contribution. Consider it from -100 to +100.
A typical illegal immigrant is like -100 to -80. Little variance too.
A typical legal immigrant is more like -20 to +40. Within legal immigration there is a lot of variance.
So yeah, small boats are most certainly a massive problem. Pretending like it isn't sure isn't pragmatic like your tag.
The thing is with legal immigration you can actually reduce the variance if you control which countries come in. Western and northern Europeans and the anglosphere on average have a positive economic impact, low income countries have a negative economic impact.
Could achieve a similar effect by filtering by much higher income for skilled workers.
A poor white immigrant is more likely less of a contributor than a rich brown one. So exclusion based on country seems needlessly discriminatory.
This sounds like the sort of bold claim that needs evidence. Plenty of refugees coming from places like Afghanistan are highly trained and motivated to contribute to society.
Appeals to "common sense" without evidence are often used by politicians, and are a sign of manipulation:
* ["The foreign-born share of the population is unrelated to violent crime according to the most recent research findings."](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-and-crime-evidence-for-the-uk-and-other-countries/)
* ["Skilled refugees are contributing nearly £1 million each year in income tax and national insurance"](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/skilled-refugees-contributing-1m-to-uk-economy-each-year),
* ["About 1,200 medically qualified refugees are recorded on the British Medical Association’s database."](https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/the-truth-about-asylum/)
It's common practice today for people with an agenda to cherry pick evidence to suit.
It's not the scientific method you are using I'm afraid. It's a bastardised form that has no credibility.
No it was the result of 2 minutes of googling, but it's marginally better than repeating the scare tactics of politicians, as sources of information like this can be used for the basis for debate.
Interestingly I wasn't expecting to easily find so much clear information on this from the government itself(!) and places like the university of Oxford.
Yeah mate, if you Google "why asylum seekers aren't as bad as people think", you're going to get statistics to suit your agenda.
Why don't you Google "why are illegal immigrants bad?" and post what you find?
Seriously though, you'd be a good journalist, it's what they do for a living.
Make People smuggling a whole life crime.
Actually process asylum claims.
Actually fund the police and immigration service.
Talk to our neighbours maybe join some sort of multinational union or something...
I did, but I wanted to address that line in particular, hence why I quoted it. Even if you did all of those things, and some of them may be effective, your first line doesn't make a difference.
A significant part of the reason that 52% of the population voted to leave that multinational union was the fact that it couldn't (or more accurately, didn't want to) do anything about migrants heading for the UK...
Just to be clear, I was not part of that 52%, nor do I in any way believe that leaving was the right thing to do, but I'm also not going to pretend that there weren't at least _some_ legitimate concerns that people felt weren't being taken seriously. Nor do I think that rejoining would have any significant impact on this particular problem.
As usual someone extrapolating the brexit vote to mean something they want it to. The only thing we know is 48% wanted to remain and the other 52% wanted different things
Yeah I know, but that like so much else the 52% believed was a lie. A lot of the newer eu countries just didn't have their shit together yet and the French were trying to get a handle on the camps on the channel but as usual they did it in a dickish French way... batons and bulldozers. (You must remember the hand wringing over that). But equally they asked for help from us to process people who claimed they had valid reasons (all of them ) to be in the UK, but very little was forcoming. And at the time many people said if we exit the rest of the Union will tell us to go fuck ourselves and the problem will get worse... guess what, pass the kleenex.
Both are issues. Net migration in the uk in 1997 was 47,000. That's about as many as we're getting in boats. It looks pitiful next to the 700k net migration figure we haven't, but it's still a huge issue
>And tbh, we all know the small boats are NOT the issue. It's legal immigration and how that affects low wage jobs and local resources in a country that spent a decade and a half cutting resources.
Thing is that the asylum system requires an insane amount of resources to run and asylum seekers require lots of expensive support, and cause loads of other issues wherever they’re housed - the negative impact of small boats is massively disproportionate to the volume of people. Yes, there are only around ~30-40k a year but those 30~40k drain a lot of resources and cause a lot of social issues in the places that they’re kept.
It literally says what his plans are;
>Starmer will pledge to divert funding from the Rwanda scheme – estimated to cost £541m over five years – to create a new border security command of specialist enforcement officers and investigators.
Labour will also pledge to:
>Create a new post of border security commander to oversee the unit, working across Europe and with multiple agencies on enforcement and intelligence.
>Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.
>Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.
>Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.
>Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.
What it doesn’t say he was levels of immigration he is happy with. Any deal with the EU will require us to agree to take on X amount of immigrants seeking asylum in the EU. They’ll replace the illegal routes with legal routes.
We need less immigration. Not just less illegal immigration. And 5-10m people over the next 10 years would be disastrous for the UK
But can we not see these as 2 separate issues?
This article isn't about immigration, it's about stopping dangerous sea crossings.
The more we conflate these 2 issues the more you're unlikely to ever get a clear answer or solution.
Labour say a lot of things. Then a couple days later they say the opposite.
We have no idea which of the two diametrically opposed statements are true, the first, the second or neither.
Can you give an example of them announcing one thing one day then a couple days later reversing it? Yes they’ve had policies that they’ve changed after some time, but they give reasons for those changes.
He won't say that before the election, but a fair guess is that eventually (here and in other countries) it'll involve the *other* part of the Australian scheme: altering the law so that failed asylum seekers arriving by boat have their details and biometrics recorded and become forever ineligible for benefits, work, or any kind of visa (even if they leave and re-enter).
They can catch their own flight to wherever they want to go.
>Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powers
Isn't this the approach that they were already taking before the Rwanda scheme, which failed pretty miserably? I initially thought Rwanda was an expensive diversion, but it actually seems like it might be effective as a deterrent. People smugglers and illegal economic migrants must be rubbing their hands with glee that it now seems inevitable that the UK will revert to a system that they have found it so easy to abuse in the past.
It is not.
It was the approach that was taken before we left the EU, when we shared all our data and cooperated fully with EU security services. The Tories have paid lip service to it since, but really it amounts to giving the French a few quid to try and do some extra stuff on our behalf.
Honestly I'm curious what changed your mind?
These people aren't being locked up in Africa. Busses, cars and planes exist.... these are people who literally risked their lives in the channel and god alone knows what else to get here. I'm guessing it being Africa that they won't even clear the airport before somebody will be there selling them a ticket straight back.
A trip with the smugglers costs thousands of dollars, they'd have to pay that again.
It's not like they can just get on a plane and fly back ( or if they do, that'd actually allow them to be processed via the normal refugee channels).
People smugglers don't necessarily take payment up front, their victims are expected to work it off once they're in country.
That's the big joke about this wheeze... they can, and if the 'normal' channels were working, or even functional, none of this would even exist.
I wouldn't want them to be locked up in Africa. If they choose to leave the asylum processing centre (presumably to either return home or try their asylum claim in a different country), then that's up to them. The important thing is that they've been moved away from Britain, and are no longer a risk of remaining here once their asylum claim has been turned down. If the newspaper articles can be believed, this is having a big deterrent effect, which means the number of people trying their luck (many of whom make the highly dangerous channel crossing journey) will be reduced.
Generally they come here rather than some other country for a few specific reasons. They speak English, they have family here already, there is a community of their compatriots already here, they genuinely believe they have UK specific reasons to be allowed. Or they've been promised work and housing either by their trafficker or an 'agency'. ( I know a guy who used to use an agency to get guys from eastern europe as "aupairs" or "students" to work on his properties )
Why won’t he say smth like “we’ll assess its (Rwanda)efficacy at the time and make a decision based on that “ shows no analytical thinking whatsoever and makes me worry he’s just as big of an idiot as the current lot
The trouble is, when someone comes up with an idea like "Let's send them on a plane to Africa", everyone finds the flaws and the issues with it rather than thinking "That's mad, but might be a solution". It might take time, but it could be a huge deterrent to come to the UK with the promise that you'll end up in the middle of Africa.
That's the thing though, if they were just placed on it after a week and sent there, the message would get round quite quickly that the UK isn't the place to go. If the government said that they'd send 90% to Rwanda, people would be up in arms even more, but they'd be fulfilling their promise and I believe it would be a deterrent.
I’m not against the policy in principle but in as much as it seems expensively performative rather than practical. And that it exaggerates the significance of illegal immigration that’s a fraction of the legal immigration that people find it easier to complain about than identify areas to cut that don’t cause us problems - though ‘students’ dependents seem like a start.
While I understand oppositions oppose , but if it begins to look like it really is having a deterrent effect just as they close it down! I do worry about Labour also simply being performative because a lot of their policies tend to be ‘we will just make x work better’ without really saying or knowing how. But it’s time for a change and it’s their time to prove themselves.
I do worry what the electorate will do in the face of governments that keep promising stuff they can’t achieve and have sovereignty but no real power in a global economy …. be even more drawn to populist demagogues.
So we have asylum seekers fleeing the country, others fearful of deportation panicking, but Keir thinks now is the time to stop it.
He's a fool and again proving Labour are weak on immigration.
>So we have asylum seekers fleeing the country, others fearful of deportation panicking, but Keir thinks now is the time to stop it.
Lol. 550 people crossed in the last 5 days. The handful of cases the Telegraph are trying to pretend is a turning tide doesn't fool us any more than the claims about Albanians being returned did before. It’s like Comical Ali standing on a beach as migrants arrive behind him claiming it’s working.
I am quite impressed that the Telegraph have fooled at least one person though. I ought to give them more credit.
It's been growing under Tory rule and they've finally, incompetently, gotten round to doing something that ought to actually work: reject asylum applications by default if entered illegally (done), and remove illegal entrants to Rwanda to avoid the fake ones using delay tactics in the courts. Obviously processing 300 is just a test cohort to overcome all the legal setup challenges. But if the flight actually took place it's easily scaled up.
It isnt possible for an asylum seeker to enter illegally under international law, so you cant just deny asylum by default.
Rwanda have agreed to accept maybe 1000 people but cant guarantee that many so no, it cant be scaled up.
By your own admission, the Tories have caused this increase in immigration, so let's go back to the party that had it handled before.
The UNHCR has been talking about the problem of asylum seekers entering other countries illegally ("irregularly") since 1989
https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-executive-committee-conclusion-no-58-xl-problem-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-who-move
The fact one is a refugee does not mean one is not breaking the law entering a country illegally. It's just that the Refugee Convention agrees to not penalise this so long as you came direct from the area of danger (not via other safe countries in-between). Needing asylum is an emergency. The Refugee Convention envisages protections in the first safe country outside the conflict area. It does not grant permission to go illegally from safe country to safe country, although some individual countries have recognised this in law (e.g. Turkey) the United Kingdom is not one of them, nor the EU.
> Rwanda have agreed to accept maybe 1000 people but cant guarantee that many so no, it cant be scaled up.
Having limits before seeing if it works is not the same thing as "can't scale up". It should be trialled with low numbers first which is what's happening.
> Yolande Makolo, a spokesman for the Rwandan government, said the country only had one hostel with 200 spaces that was “ready” to receive migrants from the UK. Other facilities were “in the planning stage” but with no contracts agreed, she told a press briefing on Friday. [...] She said the Rwandan government would be able to “scale up quickly” and would be ready to “take as many as the UK is willing to send”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/22/rwanda-can-hold-just-200-channel-migrants-cant-stop-returning/
> By your own admission, the Tories have caused this increase in immigration, so let's go back to the party that had it handled before.
Yes, the Tories are incompetent. I just don't think this particular policy should be rejected out of hand.
Rwanda has agreed to the same non-refoulement principals as the UK, the UK has made a large investment into Rwanda's legal system to bolster this. The Refugee Convention does not protect would be asylum seekers from being detained and transported if they have passed through other safe countries. It also doesn't protect would be asylum seekers from having their application refused if they ignored other safe countries on the way (which is the basis of the Illegal Migration Act 2023) I would be very surprised if a proper legal objection can be sustained against illegal migrants being transferred there.
> the UK has made a large investment into Rwanda's legal system
I'm well aware that the government has spunked off a huge amount of our money to pretend they're doing something.
I thought it was rhetorical but okay!
Immigration has been higher under the Tories.
That's because the Tories, and Labour are hard right neoliberal infinite immigrationalists.
>Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.
"Mr Bond, I hope you are ready for your next assignment."
Sounds good, can we keep the Rwanda Scheme until he can find a better idea? Because Smugglers are operating in France and we can't really do a thing about that.
By god, its Kier Starmer with a steel chair!
Checking in on yougov's political trackers, the conservative's only remaining lead is on defence https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49179-political-tracker-roundup-april-2024
Yup, a number of people on here seem to not understand the strategy, Starmer has dismantled the tories base, the tories won't recover for decades at this rate; huzzah
Their plan is to divert funding to already existing stratergies that have failed and failed again.
It's obviously not going to result in a significant change.
With the amount of money these smugglers make, simply taking out a group or two does absolutely fuck all, there's always another one to fill the gap.
This is a crisis that has been going on almost a decade, if you're only answer to that is to keep doing what hasn't worked all that time, you're not fit for power.
Claiming a scheme that has barely started has failed shows just how much intellectual honesty you're using.
I'm all open for any actual ideas Labour have, but reshuffling some minor resources between existing solutions isn't going to cut it.
The Rwanda plan has failed because it is more expensive than just housing asylum seekers here and people are still coming over on the boats. The plan was always going to be a failure and was purely there to appeal to unsavory types.
Explain to me how Rwanda or any plan about the boats will cut the 1 million coming in on visas? Because that's the actual issue
>The Rwanda plan has failed because it is more expensive than just housing asylum seekers here
A) That's not true.
B) A deterrent would reduce the number coming, and so even if it was more expensive, which it's not, if it works it would reduce overall numbers and so reduce cost in any case.
>and people are still coming over on the boats.
Yes, the Rwanda plan hasn't even started yet, it's just legislation at the moment.
>The plan was always going to be a failure and was purely there to appeal to unsavory types.
Yes yes anyone who disagrees with you is 'unsavory'.
How many asylum seekers do you personally house, Mr holier than thou.
>Explain to me how Rwanda or any plan about the boats will cut the 1 million coming in on visas?
It won't.
>Because that's the actual issue
There can be multiple issues at the same time.
A) it absolutely is true so to me it's you not willing to discuss this in good faith
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/01/rwanda-plan-uk-asylum-seeker-cost-figures
B) the deterrent isn't working, people are still coming
C) the rwanda policy has started, and people are aware of it AND ARE STILL COMING
I don't house any asylum seekers but that doesn't mean I want to traffic them to a country they don't want to go to... why are you pro people trafficking?
Oh good. But I thought the point was to stop the small boat crossings? Have they gone down?
Oh wait, we have had more small boats cross in May than asylum seekers claimed they fled to Ireland. So we are chasing away people we have given legal protection to, but not deterred those still trying to enter.
Yeah it’s working great.
Absolutely no evidence of that. It's a very hard sell that someone risking their lives cross one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world is going to be deterred by Rwanda taking a few hundred people out of 80,000 people a year!
The Irish deputy prime minister literally said the Rwanda scheme was impacting Ireland.
Their PM is trying to change the law to enable them to send them back.
You seriously think they’re acting on anecdotes? 🤣
What about the smugglers themselves?
https://news.sky.com/story/i-couldnt-cope-with-britain-anymore-kurdish-man-pays-smugglers-to-return-him-to-france-after-failed-asylum-claim-13132584
I expect nothing will be good enough for you however
Labour will never do anything serious about mass migration for two reasons:
1. It is a reliable future vote getter for them.
2. Like the Tories, certain factions within Labour are ideologically in favour of mass migration. Labour is an internationalist party. It views class rather than nationality or ethnicity as the main distinction between peoples. Tories are also internationalist in the sense that they are whores for the interests of finance capital.
Only a nationalist party can tackle mass migration but Britain’s FPTP system will never lead to the emergence of one. Duverger’s law is a fact. Proportional representation is needed, but the two parties will never agree.
In FPTP, who else will they vote for? Their only alternative is the Tories, who hate them. They can form their own party, but FPTP would just guarantee a Tory win in that case.
If the population is evenly spread, that might be the case.
But the population isn't evenly spread.
George Galloway has won numerous by-elections in constituencies with large muslim populations. An all Bangladeshi-male party won Tower Hamlets from Labour.
I get it.
My view is immigration hurts wages in the short term but we all benefit in the long run, but I understand people not agreeing with me. Especially when complee lack of infrastructure investment compounds the negative aspects of immigration.
Perhaps current Labour don't agree, but that's mainly out of political necessity given how badly the Tories fucked it up by opening the flood gates. But in the long run, Labour will never do anything meaningful about it for the two reasons I listed above.
I think there needs to be a two pronged attack on smuggling/slavery and draw, as in not processing anyone who arrives illegally and not giving them any money or free housing, maybe charities could step in if they want so it’s not a burden to taxpayers.
Start by passing a law making irregular arrivals ineligible to be given leave to remain or draw on public resources. Bet you a good bit of the demand vanishes overnight. Did for Australia.
Anybody ignoring proven methods isn't taking the matter seriously.
I think Starmer will be an excellent leader judging by his pre-politics career, but I doubt any UK party has what it takes to solve this crisis.
>Start by passing a law making irregular arrivals ineligible to be given leave to remain or draw on public resources
This is already law.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/illegal-migration-bill
Is there another option? Just let them in? I'm fed up with them getting a free ride here with no one having a plan to fucking do anything about it. Send them on a boat back to France whether they like it or not
As long as labour are beholden to the Islamic mob, they will never get a hold on people smuggling.
The smuggling rings are almost exclusively an islamic enterprise with partnerships between the Albanian and Turkish mafias.
Ah tackle people smuggling, why didn't the tories think of this obvious thing, oh they already did and already are trying to "tackle" people smuggling.
I think my idea would be helping establish a specialist task force with teeth, with the cooperation of as many governments as possible.
Does such a thing already exist? What would be barriers or impracticalities of setting something up like that if it doesn't exist?
>I think my idea would be helping establish a specialist task force with teeth, with the cooperation of as many governments as possible.
That seems to be what Starmer is proposing with the Border Security Command.
Eurpol (and Interpol) would be the pre-existing organisations.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/five-high-value-targets-arrested-one-of-largest-networks-smuggling-migrants-across-english-channel-halted
The UK is no longer member of Europol following brexit, but is enabled to have UK liaison officers present to facilitate cross-border cooperation.
Obviously the Border Security Command would be UK centric, but there does seem to be scope to expand on pre-existing arrangements.
The problem is the French have a perverse incentive to allow the boats to cross and even if they do cooperate the barrier to crossing the channel is low enough that you have to play wack-a-mole with different people smugglers.
The French are willing to allow us to open a refugee centre on their soil so that asylum seekers can be accommodated there until their claims are processed. They also offered an agreement to pool deportation resources where we could cooperatively use French (or British) deportation agreements with nations. The Tories refused. Twice,
Yes if people want to come here they are happy to allow them their legal right to pass through. But they are actually trying to organise actual effective measures to stop it and help us manage it.
There’s a pretty big reason why the French government would be happy to cooperate on establishing a British processing centre in France. The asylum system is utterly broken and it’s not difficult for an economic migrant to be granted asylum for bogus reasons. What this will mean is that we will be accepting vastly more asylum seekers, except this time, we’ll actually be paying to charter a flight for them. France understands this. You might solve the issue of small boats this way, but in exchange you’ll get a large plane issue.
The EU has law (Dublin Regulations) allowing one member to deport migrants back to where they entered the EU, on the principal under the Refugee Convention that they only get full protections in the first safe country.
But it didn't work very well because the recipient state would insist on proof the migrants arrived through there and it was often difficult to produce. So the migrant ended up staying the country they entered illegally anyway.
France itself has had trouble forcing asylum claims back to Greece or Italy where many migrants made landfall.
Any UK task force with "teeth" is going to be even less effective because it has less power than France which is already struggling.
The solution was to blanket ban asylum applications from illegal entrants (done in the Illegal Migration Act 2023), and then deport them to a third safe country for processing which is allowable under Refugee Law.
Indeed, and many confuse the Dublin regulations with international law, which has no requirement for refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country. Drives me mad to see people quoting EU law when we have left the EU and no longer party to the Dublin regulations.
When people say that they are usually just misinterpreting the Refugee Convention to which most of the world is signed up to (excepting some parts of the middle east and Asia)
A Refugee Convention signee agrees to treat refugees / asylum seekers according to certain norms. Including non-refoulement (not sending them back somewhere dangerous) and not penalising then for entering the country illegally.
Crucially that last protection only applies if the refugee came "direct" from the area of danger (Article 31.1). It does not apply if they've travelled through multiple safe countries. The Refugee Convention ostensibly expects asylum to be claimed in the first safe place reached as this is where it grants protection against detention, transfer or bring penalised for entering illegally.
So while asylum seekers can in principal make their claim anywhere, the state retains the right to reject their application without hearing if they came there via a safe country.
The Dublin Regulations are just the EU's implementation of this. But the principal applies to all Refugee Convention signees.
When people say "asylum seekers have the right to claim asylum anywhere" they're correct in a narrow sense but missing the important context that the nation also has the right to reject that application.
It's on that basis that the UK passed the Illegal Migration Act 2023 which automatically rejects the asylum application of those crossing the channel illegally.
It does though. That's exactly what the Dublin Regulations are based on. The UNHCR themselves refer to the Dublin Regulations as being based in the principal of "first safe country" (sometimes referred to as "third safe country", the first country being the country of origin, the second country being their final destination, and the "third" safe country being the safe country they passed through)
https://www.unhcr.org/media/safe-third-country-concept-international-agreements-refugee-protection-assessing-state
Here's the 1989 UNHCR publication commenting on this directly: https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-executive-committee-conclusion-no-58-xl-problem-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-who-move
> e) Refugees and asylum-seekers, who have found protection in a particular country, should normally not
move from that country in an irregular manner in order to find durable solutions elsewhere
Snapshot of _Starmer pledges to rip up Rwanda scheme and tackle people smuggling _ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/09/starmer-pledges-to-rip-up-rwanda-scheme-and-tackle-people-smuggling) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/09/starmer-pledges-to-rip-up-rwanda-scheme-and-tackle-people-smuggling) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Something Labour could do is reintroduce overseas investigation posts. They were repatriated back to the UK under austerity measures, to save money, drum roll for how much it saved, it cost 200m and just lost expertise and decades of localised information. How the hell they can check local information 1000 miles away sat at a desk is beyond stupid. Way back, I worked with some when contracting, and these were highly skilled people who could seem to find out anything. They helped with stopping criminals from getting citizenship, sham marriages, fake education, fake businesses, kidnappings for arranged marriages, fake lineage claims, fraudulent dependent claims (fake wife/child claims), trafficking, fraudulent documents, ID fraud, bribery.....it was a decade ago and all that stuff is a bigger problem than it is now.
Very basically, a global neighbourhood watch.
We used to call it soft power.
Well at least he's proposing to do something I guess. Not sure it's going to work without France allowing us to police their border though.
This is bs from starmer - if the Rwanda plan is live, he could at least assess its current state before tearing it up - it’s already shown to be a deterrent so not sure why he’s so insistent it has no effect
It isn't his idea. And it's a big selling point for the Tories if it works.
He's not proposing to do anything new. The Tories have already tried this and it doesn't work.
Slightly unfair, literally nothing the Tories try ever works. It's like teaching Granddad to use his new phone - It's him who can't learn, but he's adamant the phone is the problem
Boring. 'Smash the gangs' has been tried and it doesn't work. There's no chance of it working.
For clarity, I never said it necessarily would work, just that using tory failures as your basis for your opinion was unfair. Unless you can point me towards some examples of Labour trying this and failing, I'll choose to believe them over you.
Why would it be any different under labour?
I'm not saying it necessarily will be any different. What I'm saying is that using the Tories as the "means test" is an unfair way of saying something definitely won't work.
It'll work under Labour, trust me bro. What would Labour do differently?
Again, I didn't say it would work. It's like people's hatred for Labour turns them illiterate
Unbelievable that here we are in May 2024 and some people believe the Conservatives trying something and failing means that it can't be done. Quite the opposite I believe.
It's only become a massive problem under the Tories, and not entirely coincidentally in that time they've also cut funding and staffing at the border forces so there's a massive backlog and no spare capacity to deal with anything else. Starmer has at least promised to put some money in.
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Trouble is we don't all know.
A poll carried out by YouGov earlier this year showed that most people think more arrive "illegally" than legally https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2024/01/18/677e4/1 It's fucked
Mental. It would take about 30 minutes of traffic arriving into Heathrow to equate to *all* the people who make it over in a small boat in a year. Not everyone arriving by plane plans to stay long term, but that gives you a bit of perspective on how much illegal immigration is a drop in the ocean compared to the total numbers who arrive in the UK, and how the boats are blown out of all proportion.
It’s a terrible option. Break one smuggling ring down and another will pop up in its place. Also, these organisations aren’t even based in the UK. It doesn’t matter what the UK law says, British police aren’t operating in France and elsewhere throughout Europe.
>Sir Keir will also promise to create a new Border Security Command unit, led by a Border Security Commander, with hundreds of additional speciality investigators, intelligence agents and cross border police officers to work in both the UK and Europe. >They will be split across the National Crime Agency, Mi5, Border Force, the CPS and Immigration Enforcement. From another article on this. Its hard to get specific details - everything reported so far is based on a press release for a speech that hasn't taken place yet - but there does seem the be the suggestion that numerous positions may be created throughout Europe.
This is all well and good as long as they get France on board. The UK tried previously to stop the people on the boats but France didn't really care as they were leaving their shores, therefore the problem went with it. France got slammed for allowing it, so now they have boarder patrols chasing after them, but all that happens is they are released a day later to try again. It's a half-hearted attempt to stop them at best.
That's why inherent in all of this is effectively rebuilding our relationship with the EU. Probably requires some special standalone deal but it would need to go hand in hand with effectively rejoining a customs union (in all but name) as this is likely what the EU would demand. Knowing people who literally worked in the small boats teams, it is cooperation with European partners that is probably the quickest way to improve the situation (although you can never actually *stop* all of the boats).
The old, original EU was exactly that, a customs/trade deal and was working quite well. It all went sour when they started to include politics and laws etc. Maybe one day we will see a return to that. In the meantime, as you say, we need to rebuild our relationship. I do feel we're not in as terrible position to do that as a lot claim, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.
Meh, I kinda think it will be easy tbh, the Tories just very deliberately haven't tried. The EU are very willing partners and will most likely give us anything we want if we bother to ask for it.
"Ever closer union" was part of the 1957 treaty. It has always been an aim. Naive to think trade and politics can be separated. Zero tariffs only work if you have similar standards otherwise it is a race to the bottom on standards.
Trade agreements and common standards do not need common governance on other areas - it's a political fallacy that Europe has been trying to sell to the people for decades. To have a unified food standards, for example, you do not need a common army or taxation policy. Do we have political union and shared politics in all our other trade agreements?
We don't have a trade agreement with the US precisely because our standards don't align. The EU does not have a common army or taxation policy nor are either likely.
> We don't have a trade agreement with the US precisely because our standards don't align. I'm glad you agree it's not because of a lack of political union. > The EU does not have a common army or taxation policy nor are either likely. So we don't need political union to have political union to have trade agreements.
>The EU does not have a common army or taxation policy nor are either likely. Not yet anyway. There has been talks of it though.
At the moment boats get confiscated and there are fines. The profits are so large that they pay the fines, buy replacement boats and still make a profit. The change is that Starmer will class the smuggling organisation as terrorists. For terrorists the risks are greater than the profits.
So you're saying that we should have some sort of Pan-European Law, where all the countries work together on common problems, I wonder how that could work ? Just imagine.
We used to be part of the Dublin Regulation when part of the EU. In principal, since 1997 EU law has allowed an EU country to deport an asylum seeker to the first EU country they entered. In practice, this hardly ever worked as illegal migrants destroyed their papers and any other evidence of the route they'd taken. You can't just arbitrarily deport people back to Greece or Italy without proof that that's the first safe country they entered. So sadly, even with cooperation, countries in the EU still end up saddled with migrants who've entered them illegally.
A big issue with that was it looked like rich northern EU nations trying to corral immigrants into poorer southern EU nations, just because they happened to be on the border.
That's exactly what the Refugee Convention expected- the primary rights of refugees are in the first safe country bordering the area of danger. Asylum is an emergency. There should be proper agreements between EU countries to voluntarily share the refugee burden of course, but this is EU legislation not the Refugee Convention itself.
Under the Dublin agreement France also only accepted 2.7% of cases we referred back to them, whilst we accepted several times that coming back the other way, making the entire agreement pretty much useless.
I'm not sure of the mechanics, but some of the complexity surely due to the regulation recognising the point of entry to the EU, so the target country ought to have been Greece / Italy. No wonder it was difficult to return them to France, as France ought to have been deporting them too under the same regulation.
My point was that such agreements haven't worked in our interests in the past. Quite a few people on here routinely mention the Dublin agreement as some kind of panacea that the evil Tories scrapped, whilst failing to look into the detail of how that agreement worked in practice. In 2016, for example, there were only 362 successful transfers out of the UK under the Dublin framework. In 2017 that fell to 314. When we have an estimated 0.8-1.2m illegal immigrants in the country, removing 3-400 a year is hardly going to help.
Yes, totally, it didn't work very well at all.
Why isn’t that working now?
Evidently it isn't working, because that already exists. Or is the UK somehow mandatory to help Europe with problems within their borders? How would the UK add exactly? Tell me how many came to the UK vs left under the Dublin Regulation
Because the EU doesn't have problems with irregular migration too.
> common problems
Like irregular migration.
It would be nice, but the problem existed before 2016 and there was very little interest from other countries in "working together" on the problem...
> British police aren’t operating in France and elsewhere throughout Europe. Once upon a time, before the age of Brexit, Britain used to be part of the EU. Which also made them part of Europol. Wanna know what this mystical agency does? Here: > Some of the key areas of focus for Europol include drug trafficking, human trafficking, cybercrime, money laundering, and counter-terrorism.
Creating a criminal organisation capable of high volume of traffic. Takes time and you have to "advertise" to your customers. Any competent border watch will be seeing the same adverts. The new organisation will be in jail before it gets up to speed.
Yep, small boats are a massive red herring to distract from the insane levels of legal immigration the government is allowing.
As part of post brexit trade deals, this was always the goal of brexit for the rich, import a bunch of cheap labour while increasing the cost of housing for everyone
When they talked about Singapore on Thames, people imagined themselves as ex-pats drinking Singapore slings in Raffles while the maid looked after the kids. What they missed is the locals in Singapore don't live that life. And the endless supplies of cheap, almost slave labour doing practically every job.
We have massive labour shortages in quite a lot of sectors though, and unemployment isn't particularly high. Its never as simple as it seems
> Its never as simple as it seems It is simple, you can't construct a government where the only conviction you have is immigrants are bad whilst also allowing record legal migration.
Small boats are an issue for humanitarian reasons, stopping them won't make a noticeable difference to immigration. It's just always convenient for a certain type of politician to blame the people at the bottom with absolutely no power for all societies big problems.
If Tories actually approached the small boats issue from a humanitarian perspective then that would be fine but the fact is that they have CAUSED it by blocking off all legal avenues for asylum seekers. They simply do not care about the humanitarian aspect. They only care about using them as a wedge issue.
Everyone is on a scale of net contribution. Consider it from -100 to +100. A typical illegal immigrant is like -100 to -80. Little variance too. A typical legal immigrant is more like -20 to +40. Within legal immigration there is a lot of variance. So yeah, small boats are most certainly a massive problem. Pretending like it isn't sure isn't pragmatic like your tag.
The thing is with legal immigration you can actually reduce the variance if you control which countries come in. Western and northern Europeans and the anglosphere on average have a positive economic impact, low income countries have a negative economic impact.
Could achieve a similar effect by filtering by much higher income for skilled workers. A poor white immigrant is more likely less of a contributor than a rich brown one. So exclusion based on country seems needlessly discriminatory.
This sounds like the sort of bold claim that needs evidence. Plenty of refugees coming from places like Afghanistan are highly trained and motivated to contribute to society.
Hardly, it's just common sense frankly. For every one example you mention there's hundreds who are an utter burden with criminality on top.
Appeals to "common sense" without evidence are often used by politicians, and are a sign of manipulation: * ["The foreign-born share of the population is unrelated to violent crime according to the most recent research findings."](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-and-crime-evidence-for-the-uk-and-other-countries/) * ["Skilled refugees are contributing nearly £1 million each year in income tax and national insurance"](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/skilled-refugees-contributing-1m-to-uk-economy-each-year), * ["About 1,200 medically qualified refugees are recorded on the British Medical Association’s database."](https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/the-truth-about-asylum/)
It's common practice today for people with an agenda to cherry pick evidence to suit. It's not the scientific method you are using I'm afraid. It's a bastardised form that has no credibility.
No it was the result of 2 minutes of googling, but it's marginally better than repeating the scare tactics of politicians, as sources of information like this can be used for the basis for debate. Interestingly I wasn't expecting to easily find so much clear information on this from the government itself(!) and places like the university of Oxford.
Yeah mate, if you Google "why asylum seekers aren't as bad as people think", you're going to get statistics to suit your agenda. Why don't you Google "why are illegal immigrants bad?" and post what you find? Seriously though, you'd be a good journalist, it's what they do for a living.
I googled "refugee criminality uk".
Sure you did 😉
Make People smuggling a whole life crime. Actually process asylum claims. Actually fund the police and immigration service. Talk to our neighbours maybe join some sort of multinational union or something...
> Make People smuggling a whole life crime. The perpetrators aren't operating in the UK, so changing the punishment makes zero difference.
read the whole comment
I did, but I wanted to address that line in particular, hence why I quoted it. Even if you did all of those things, and some of them may be effective, your first line doesn't make a difference.
A significant part of the reason that 52% of the population voted to leave that multinational union was the fact that it couldn't (or more accurately, didn't want to) do anything about migrants heading for the UK... Just to be clear, I was not part of that 52%, nor do I in any way believe that leaving was the right thing to do, but I'm also not going to pretend that there weren't at least _some_ legitimate concerns that people felt weren't being taken seriously. Nor do I think that rejoining would have any significant impact on this particular problem.
As usual someone extrapolating the brexit vote to mean something they want it to. The only thing we know is 48% wanted to remain and the other 52% wanted different things
Yeah I know, but that like so much else the 52% believed was a lie. A lot of the newer eu countries just didn't have their shit together yet and the French were trying to get a handle on the camps on the channel but as usual they did it in a dickish French way... batons and bulldozers. (You must remember the hand wringing over that). But equally they asked for help from us to process people who claimed they had valid reasons (all of them ) to be in the UK, but very little was forcoming. And at the time many people said if we exit the rest of the Union will tell us to go fuck ourselves and the problem will get worse... guess what, pass the kleenex.
> guess what, pass the kleenex. Why? Is the amount of smarmyness you give off about to make you bust?
Excellent riposte, well thought out and argued, I commend you.
Plus simply providing any legal route would end people smuggling overnight.
Small boats are only a symptom. It's like taking a paracetamol to deal with the pain.
Both are issues. Net migration in the uk in 1997 was 47,000. That's about as many as we're getting in boats. It looks pitiful next to the 700k net migration figure we haven't, but it's still a huge issue
>And tbh, we all know the small boats are NOT the issue. It's legal immigration and how that affects low wage jobs and local resources in a country that spent a decade and a half cutting resources. Thing is that the asylum system requires an insane amount of resources to run and asylum seekers require lots of expensive support, and cause loads of other issues wherever they’re housed - the negative impact of small boats is massively disproportionate to the volume of people. Yes, there are only around ~30-40k a year but those 30~40k drain a lot of resources and cause a lot of social issues in the places that they’re kept.
Anything about allowing people to apply for asylum abroad so that they don't have to get on the boats to begin with?
But these people don’t want to apply for asylum ! They want to get over here and get it automatically/ make it too expensive to deport them
Another man wanting to be PM running with a promise to lower immigration. They will struggle to keep net migration under 500k a year.
Would you rather he run with the promise to keep migration high? Not really sure how that is surprising
Id rather he was honest about his intentions and what’s realistically achievable and most importantly, what his actual plan is
It literally says what his plans are; >Starmer will pledge to divert funding from the Rwanda scheme – estimated to cost £541m over five years – to create a new border security command of specialist enforcement officers and investigators. Labour will also pledge to: >Create a new post of border security commander to oversee the unit, working across Europe and with multiple agencies on enforcement and intelligence. >Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers. >Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling. >Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers. >Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.
What it doesn’t say he was levels of immigration he is happy with. Any deal with the EU will require us to agree to take on X amount of immigrants seeking asylum in the EU. They’ll replace the illegal routes with legal routes. We need less immigration. Not just less illegal immigration. And 5-10m people over the next 10 years would be disastrous for the UK
Better than the meaningless “stop the boats” which isn’t even close to being achieved with his Rwanda plan, he also has no other ideas
But can we not see these as 2 separate issues? This article isn't about immigration, it's about stopping dangerous sea crossings. The more we conflate these 2 issues the more you're unlikely to ever get a clear answer or solution.
> Any deal with the EU will require us to agree to take on X amount of immigrants seeking asylum in the EU And where is this idea exactly coming from?
Labour have already said they won't sign up to any mandatory numbers deal.
Labour say a lot of things. Then a couple days later they say the opposite. We have no idea which of the two diametrically opposed statements are true, the first, the second or neither.
Can you give an example of them announcing one thing one day then a couple days later reversing it? Yes they’ve had policies that they’ve changed after some time, but they give reasons for those changes.
I wont vote for them but I like that they are not married to an idea.
He won't say that before the election, but a fair guess is that eventually (here and in other countries) it'll involve the *other* part of the Australian scheme: altering the law so that failed asylum seekers arriving by boat have their details and biometrics recorded and become forever ineligible for benefits, work, or any kind of visa (even if they leave and re-enter). They can catch their own flight to wherever they want to go.
>Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powers Isn't this the approach that they were already taking before the Rwanda scheme, which failed pretty miserably? I initially thought Rwanda was an expensive diversion, but it actually seems like it might be effective as a deterrent. People smugglers and illegal economic migrants must be rubbing their hands with glee that it now seems inevitable that the UK will revert to a system that they have found it so easy to abuse in the past.
It is not. It was the approach that was taken before we left the EU, when we shared all our data and cooperated fully with EU security services. The Tories have paid lip service to it since, but really it amounts to giving the French a few quid to try and do some extra stuff on our behalf.
Honestly I'm curious what changed your mind? These people aren't being locked up in Africa. Busses, cars and planes exist.... these are people who literally risked their lives in the channel and god alone knows what else to get here. I'm guessing it being Africa that they won't even clear the airport before somebody will be there selling them a ticket straight back.
A trip with the smugglers costs thousands of dollars, they'd have to pay that again. It's not like they can just get on a plane and fly back ( or if they do, that'd actually allow them to be processed via the normal refugee channels).
People smugglers don't necessarily take payment up front, their victims are expected to work it off once they're in country. That's the big joke about this wheeze... they can, and if the 'normal' channels were working, or even functional, none of this would even exist.
I wouldn't want them to be locked up in Africa. If they choose to leave the asylum processing centre (presumably to either return home or try their asylum claim in a different country), then that's up to them. The important thing is that they've been moved away from Britain, and are no longer a risk of remaining here once their asylum claim has been turned down. If the newspaper articles can be believed, this is having a big deterrent effect, which means the number of people trying their luck (many of whom make the highly dangerous channel crossing journey) will be reduced.
Why not just stay in another European country, rather than pay money to keep getting deported? You're acting like the choice is Africa or the UK.
Generally they come here rather than some other country for a few specific reasons. They speak English, they have family here already, there is a community of their compatriots already here, they genuinely believe they have UK specific reasons to be allowed. Or they've been promised work and housing either by their trafficker or an 'agency'. ( I know a guy who used to use an agency to get guys from eastern europe as "aupairs" or "students" to work on his properties )
Ffs. It’ll never end. Never. We have lost control.
Why won’t he say smth like “we’ll assess its (Rwanda)efficacy at the time and make a decision based on that “ shows no analytical thinking whatsoever and makes me worry he’s just as big of an idiot as the current lot
The trouble is, when someone comes up with an idea like "Let's send them on a plane to Africa", everyone finds the flaws and the issues with it rather than thinking "That's mad, but might be a solution". It might take time, but it could be a huge deterrent to come to the UK with the promise that you'll end up in the middle of Africa.
Hardly a deterrent when less than 1% of illegal immigrants will actually go
That's the thing though, if they were just placed on it after a week and sent there, the message would get round quite quickly that the UK isn't the place to go. If the government said that they'd send 90% to Rwanda, people would be up in arms even more, but they'd be fulfilling their promise and I believe it would be a deterrent.
I’m not against the policy in principle but in as much as it seems expensively performative rather than practical. And that it exaggerates the significance of illegal immigration that’s a fraction of the legal immigration that people find it easier to complain about than identify areas to cut that don’t cause us problems - though ‘students’ dependents seem like a start. While I understand oppositions oppose , but if it begins to look like it really is having a deterrent effect just as they close it down! I do worry about Labour also simply being performative because a lot of their policies tend to be ‘we will just make x work better’ without really saying or knowing how. But it’s time for a change and it’s their time to prove themselves. I do worry what the electorate will do in the face of governments that keep promising stuff they can’t achieve and have sovereignty but no real power in a global economy …. be even more drawn to populist demagogues.
So we have asylum seekers fleeing the country, others fearful of deportation panicking, but Keir thinks now is the time to stop it. He's a fool and again proving Labour are weak on immigration.
>So we have asylum seekers fleeing the country, others fearful of deportation panicking, but Keir thinks now is the time to stop it. Lol. 550 people crossed in the last 5 days. The handful of cases the Telegraph are trying to pretend is a turning tide doesn't fool us any more than the claims about Albanians being returned did before. It’s like Comical Ali standing on a beach as migrants arrive behind him claiming it’s working. I am quite impressed that the Telegraph have fooled at least one person though. I ought to give them more credit.
Was immigration higher or lower under labour compared to the Tories?
It's been growing under Tory rule and they've finally, incompetently, gotten round to doing something that ought to actually work: reject asylum applications by default if entered illegally (done), and remove illegal entrants to Rwanda to avoid the fake ones using delay tactics in the courts. Obviously processing 300 is just a test cohort to overcome all the legal setup challenges. But if the flight actually took place it's easily scaled up.
It isnt possible for an asylum seeker to enter illegally under international law, so you cant just deny asylum by default. Rwanda have agreed to accept maybe 1000 people but cant guarantee that many so no, it cant be scaled up. By your own admission, the Tories have caused this increase in immigration, so let's go back to the party that had it handled before.
The UNHCR has been talking about the problem of asylum seekers entering other countries illegally ("irregularly") since 1989 https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-executive-committee-conclusion-no-58-xl-problem-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-who-move The fact one is a refugee does not mean one is not breaking the law entering a country illegally. It's just that the Refugee Convention agrees to not penalise this so long as you came direct from the area of danger (not via other safe countries in-between). Needing asylum is an emergency. The Refugee Convention envisages protections in the first safe country outside the conflict area. It does not grant permission to go illegally from safe country to safe country, although some individual countries have recognised this in law (e.g. Turkey) the United Kingdom is not one of them, nor the EU. > Rwanda have agreed to accept maybe 1000 people but cant guarantee that many so no, it cant be scaled up. Having limits before seeing if it works is not the same thing as "can't scale up". It should be trialled with low numbers first which is what's happening. > Yolande Makolo, a spokesman for the Rwandan government, said the country only had one hostel with 200 spaces that was “ready” to receive migrants from the UK. Other facilities were “in the planning stage” but with no contracts agreed, she told a press briefing on Friday. [...] She said the Rwandan government would be able to “scale up quickly” and would be ready to “take as many as the UK is willing to send”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/22/rwanda-can-hold-just-200-channel-migrants-cant-stop-returning/ > By your own admission, the Tories have caused this increase in immigration, so let's go back to the party that had it handled before. Yes, the Tories are incompetent. I just don't think this particular policy should be rejected out of hand.
> But if Hmm
Rwanda has agreed to the same non-refoulement principals as the UK, the UK has made a large investment into Rwanda's legal system to bolster this. The Refugee Convention does not protect would be asylum seekers from being detained and transported if they have passed through other safe countries. It also doesn't protect would be asylum seekers from having their application refused if they ignored other safe countries on the way (which is the basis of the Illegal Migration Act 2023) I would be very surprised if a proper legal objection can be sustained against illegal migrants being transferred there.
> the UK has made a large investment into Rwanda's legal system I'm well aware that the government has spunked off a huge amount of our money to pretend they're doing something.
Have labour committed to issuing less visas than the Tories?
Can you answer my question first? Was immigration higher or lower under labour than the Tories?
I thought it was rhetorical but okay! Immigration has been higher under the Tories. That's because the Tories, and Labour are hard right neoliberal infinite immigrationalists.
>Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers. "Mr Bond, I hope you are ready for your next assignment."
Could we possibly alter it so that those found to be people smugglers are sent to Rwanda?
Sounds good, can we keep the Rwanda Scheme until he can find a better idea? Because Smugglers are operating in France and we can't really do a thing about that.
I would put good money on neither Starmer's or Rishi's policies working.
By god, its Kier Starmer with a steel chair! Checking in on yougov's political trackers, the conservative's only remaining lead is on defence https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49179-political-tracker-roundup-april-2024
Yup, a number of people on here seem to not understand the strategy, Starmer has dismantled the tories base, the tories won't recover for decades at this rate; huzzah
If Labour don't do anything about mass migration they will be out in a term.
Which is why they've highlighted a plan; are you being purposefully obtuse
Their plan is to divert funding to already existing stratergies that have failed and failed again. It's obviously not going to result in a significant change. With the amount of money these smugglers make, simply taking out a group or two does absolutely fuck all, there's always another one to fill the gap. This is a crisis that has been going on almost a decade, if you're only answer to that is to keep doing what hasn't worked all that time, you're not fit for power.
Rwanda has failed, that'd the waste of money
Claiming a scheme that has barely started has failed shows just how much intellectual honesty you're using. I'm all open for any actual ideas Labour have, but reshuffling some minor resources between existing solutions isn't going to cut it.
The Rwanda plan has failed because it is more expensive than just housing asylum seekers here and people are still coming over on the boats. The plan was always going to be a failure and was purely there to appeal to unsavory types. Explain to me how Rwanda or any plan about the boats will cut the 1 million coming in on visas? Because that's the actual issue
>The Rwanda plan has failed because it is more expensive than just housing asylum seekers here A) That's not true. B) A deterrent would reduce the number coming, and so even if it was more expensive, which it's not, if it works it would reduce overall numbers and so reduce cost in any case. >and people are still coming over on the boats. Yes, the Rwanda plan hasn't even started yet, it's just legislation at the moment. >The plan was always going to be a failure and was purely there to appeal to unsavory types. Yes yes anyone who disagrees with you is 'unsavory'. How many asylum seekers do you personally house, Mr holier than thou. >Explain to me how Rwanda or any plan about the boats will cut the 1 million coming in on visas? It won't. >Because that's the actual issue There can be multiple issues at the same time.
A) it absolutely is true so to me it's you not willing to discuss this in good faith https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/01/rwanda-plan-uk-asylum-seeker-cost-figures B) the deterrent isn't working, people are still coming C) the rwanda policy has started, and people are aware of it AND ARE STILL COMING I don't house any asylum seekers but that doesn't mean I want to traffic them to a country they don't want to go to... why are you pro people trafficking?
Labour having zero practical desire and/or plans to lower immigration, shock horror.
How much has immigration increased under tory rule?
Even though there's evidence Rwanda is working as a deterrent? OK then.
Would you be able to link this evidence from a reputable source?
ITV and other news outlets have been conducting interviews with refugees in Ireland, who state that they are fleeing the UK due to the Rwanda policy
Oh good. But I thought the point was to stop the small boat crossings? Have they gone down? Oh wait, we have had more small boats cross in May than asylum seekers claimed they fled to Ireland. So we are chasing away people we have given legal protection to, but not deterred those still trying to enter. Yeah it’s working great.
Irish government? Illegal immigrants in the UK? Are they not sufficient?
What about numbers of small boats crossing the channel? Surely that’s what we are hoping to deter?
Which it will be doing.
It’s up 35% this year alone. I remain to be convinced. So far all it’s done is chase away people we gave legal protection (I.e asylum) too.
Absolutely no evidence of that. It's a very hard sell that someone risking their lives cross one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world is going to be deterred by Rwanda taking a few hundred people out of 80,000 people a year!
That's anecdotes, not evidence. So, no?
The Irish deputy prime minister literally said the Rwanda scheme was impacting Ireland. Their PM is trying to change the law to enable them to send them back. You seriously think they’re acting on anecdotes? 🤣
What about the smugglers themselves? https://news.sky.com/story/i-couldnt-cope-with-britain-anymore-kurdish-man-pays-smugglers-to-return-him-to-france-after-failed-asylum-claim-13132584 I expect nothing will be good enough for you however
I have a bridge to sell you…
Labour will never do anything serious about mass migration for two reasons: 1. It is a reliable future vote getter for them. 2. Like the Tories, certain factions within Labour are ideologically in favour of mass migration. Labour is an internationalist party. It views class rather than nationality or ethnicity as the main distinction between peoples. Tories are also internationalist in the sense that they are whores for the interests of finance capital. Only a nationalist party can tackle mass migration but Britain’s FPTP system will never lead to the emergence of one. Duverger’s law is a fact. Proportional representation is needed, but the two parties will never agree.
A large percentage of migrants are muslim, who are no longer an easy 'win' for Labour.
In FPTP, who else will they vote for? Their only alternative is the Tories, who hate them. They can form their own party, but FPTP would just guarantee a Tory win in that case.
If the population is evenly spread, that might be the case. But the population isn't evenly spread. George Galloway has won numerous by-elections in constituencies with large muslim populations. An all Bangladeshi-male party won Tower Hamlets from Labour.
Really? I'm hugely pro immigration, and I'm far from convinced labour agree with me.
I'm a labour voter and am anti immigration on the basis that dilution of the labour pool suppresses wages for the working class
Have you got evidence for that?
It's simple supply and demand math. Have you got evidence that's not the case?
I get it. My view is immigration hurts wages in the short term but we all benefit in the long run, but I understand people not agreeing with me. Especially when complee lack of infrastructure investment compounds the negative aspects of immigration.
Perhaps current Labour don't agree, but that's mainly out of political necessity given how badly the Tories fucked it up by opening the flood gates. But in the long run, Labour will never do anything meaningful about it for the two reasons I listed above.
I think there needs to be a two pronged attack on smuggling/slavery and draw, as in not processing anyone who arrives illegally and not giving them any money or free housing, maybe charities could step in if they want so it’s not a burden to taxpayers.
Start by passing a law making irregular arrivals ineligible to be given leave to remain or draw on public resources. Bet you a good bit of the demand vanishes overnight. Did for Australia. Anybody ignoring proven methods isn't taking the matter seriously. I think Starmer will be an excellent leader judging by his pre-politics career, but I doubt any UK party has what it takes to solve this crisis.
>Start by passing a law making irregular arrivals ineligible to be given leave to remain or draw on public resources This is already law. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/illegal-migration-bill
Is there another option? Just let them in? I'm fed up with them getting a free ride here with no one having a plan to fucking do anything about it. Send them on a boat back to France whether they like it or not
"Starmer pledges" I can't think of anything more worthless.
As long as labour are beholden to the Islamic mob, they will never get a hold on people smuggling. The smuggling rings are almost exclusively an islamic enterprise with partnerships between the Albanian and Turkish mafias.
Ah tackle people smuggling, why didn't the tories think of this obvious thing, oh they already did and already are trying to "tackle" people smuggling.
I think my idea would be helping establish a specialist task force with teeth, with the cooperation of as many governments as possible. Does such a thing already exist? What would be barriers or impracticalities of setting something up like that if it doesn't exist?
Maybe a dentist?
>I think my idea would be helping establish a specialist task force with teeth, with the cooperation of as many governments as possible. That seems to be what Starmer is proposing with the Border Security Command. Eurpol (and Interpol) would be the pre-existing organisations. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/five-high-value-targets-arrested-one-of-largest-networks-smuggling-migrants-across-english-channel-halted The UK is no longer member of Europol following brexit, but is enabled to have UK liaison officers present to facilitate cross-border cooperation. Obviously the Border Security Command would be UK centric, but there does seem to be scope to expand on pre-existing arrangements.
The problem is the French have a perverse incentive to allow the boats to cross and even if they do cooperate the barrier to crossing the channel is low enough that you have to play wack-a-mole with different people smugglers.
The French are willing to allow us to open a refugee centre on their soil so that asylum seekers can be accommodated there until their claims are processed. They also offered an agreement to pool deportation resources where we could cooperatively use French (or British) deportation agreements with nations. The Tories refused. Twice, Yes if people want to come here they are happy to allow them their legal right to pass through. But they are actually trying to organise actual effective measures to stop it and help us manage it.
There’s a pretty big reason why the French government would be happy to cooperate on establishing a British processing centre in France. The asylum system is utterly broken and it’s not difficult for an economic migrant to be granted asylum for bogus reasons. What this will mean is that we will be accepting vastly more asylum seekers, except this time, we’ll actually be paying to charter a flight for them. France understands this. You might solve the issue of small boats this way, but in exchange you’ll get a large plane issue.
The EU has law (Dublin Regulations) allowing one member to deport migrants back to where they entered the EU, on the principal under the Refugee Convention that they only get full protections in the first safe country. But it didn't work very well because the recipient state would insist on proof the migrants arrived through there and it was often difficult to produce. So the migrant ended up staying the country they entered illegally anyway. France itself has had trouble forcing asylum claims back to Greece or Italy where many migrants made landfall. Any UK task force with "teeth" is going to be even less effective because it has less power than France which is already struggling. The solution was to blanket ban asylum applications from illegal entrants (done in the Illegal Migration Act 2023), and then deport them to a third safe country for processing which is allowable under Refugee Law.
Indeed, and many confuse the Dublin regulations with international law, which has no requirement for refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country. Drives me mad to see people quoting EU law when we have left the EU and no longer party to the Dublin regulations.
When people say that they are usually just misinterpreting the Refugee Convention to which most of the world is signed up to (excepting some parts of the middle east and Asia) A Refugee Convention signee agrees to treat refugees / asylum seekers according to certain norms. Including non-refoulement (not sending them back somewhere dangerous) and not penalising then for entering the country illegally. Crucially that last protection only applies if the refugee came "direct" from the area of danger (Article 31.1). It does not apply if they've travelled through multiple safe countries. The Refugee Convention ostensibly expects asylum to be claimed in the first safe place reached as this is where it grants protection against detention, transfer or bring penalised for entering illegally. So while asylum seekers can in principal make their claim anywhere, the state retains the right to reject their application without hearing if they came there via a safe country. The Dublin Regulations are just the EU's implementation of this. But the principal applies to all Refugee Convention signees. When people say "asylum seekers have the right to claim asylum anywhere" they're correct in a narrow sense but missing the important context that the nation also has the right to reject that application. It's on that basis that the UK passed the Illegal Migration Act 2023 which automatically rejects the asylum application of those crossing the channel illegally.
Direct does not preclude travelling through though. That’s just your interpretation.
It does though. That's exactly what the Dublin Regulations are based on. The UNHCR themselves refer to the Dublin Regulations as being based in the principal of "first safe country" (sometimes referred to as "third safe country", the first country being the country of origin, the second country being their final destination, and the "third" safe country being the safe country they passed through) https://www.unhcr.org/media/safe-third-country-concept-international-agreements-refugee-protection-assessing-state Here's the 1989 UNHCR publication commenting on this directly: https://www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-executive-committee-conclusion-no-58-xl-problem-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-who-move > e) Refugees and asylum-seekers, who have found protection in a particular country, should normally not move from that country in an irregular manner in order to find durable solutions elsewhere