Dr Strangelove (how I learned to stop worrying and love Boris)

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Surely asking people to apply in their own country would kill a few birds with one stone.

For a start it would keep people where they are and gather details. If they're refused, and come here, it's clearly illegal.

It would also allow us to process them when they're not sitting in hotels we're paying for.
I think you're probably right. The only possible problem with that would be that in some cases, asylum seekers might need to leave their own countries in a rush and it wouldn't be safe for them to wait at home while their application is processed.
 
For me Brexit was delivered on the back of tensions over immigration and that's a huge regret. We weren't grown up enough to have a serious debate about it, as soon as concerns were raised about immigration those voicing concerns were branded racists.

I include myself in being in the wrong there too, as I say a big regret.
I think that is a problem with discussing difficult subjects. There is a very vocal group in society who claim to be kind and tolerant but if you say or do anything that they can interpret as deviating from their very narrow and rigid set of values, their kindness and tolerance evaporates.

We need to be able to have sensible, reasonable conversations about these subjects without the loud extremists (on either side) shouting the sensible people down.
 
Here are another two numbers for all you budding Johnny Balls.

370.
257.

Which do you think is bigger?
 
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My tuppence worth

People conflate immigration with refugees and obviously have legitimate concerns about the impact that allowing uncontrolled immigration has on law and order, services etc. in the UK.

In my opinion immigration is a great thing and one of the building blocks of our society, we need people to provide the skills and services that we currently can’t provide for ourselves. If we accept that, then the only way to control immigration is to identify those skills shortfalls and allow people to come here to fill them. That’s exactly what the Australian system does and should be a template for our system.

Refugees are different, as a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights and International law, we are required to allow people to apply for asylum. Since we left the EU and have yet to replace the systems that helped us to manage those seeking asylum we have effectively made the task more difficult. The Sandhurst agreement allowed our Border Force to operate in France, alongside their French counterparts restricting the majority of displaced people to the camps in Calais, and the Dublin regulation, which basically allowed us to take our agreed quota of asylum seekers and send the excess back to other EU countries.

Currently refugees can only apply for asylum if they are on UK soil, but with the exception of Ukraine we have very little safe passage for people who are fleeing war and persecution to get to the UK and apply, hence the small boats.

Economic migrants are different and will always be illegal unless they have a current UK visa so if we had safe passage for genuine asylum seekers we could use our resources to process and identify economic, illegal migrants, prosecute them and return them to their country of origin.

There you go, dead simple.....not
 
My tuppence worth

People conflate immigration with refugees and obviously have legitimate concerns about the impact that allowing uncontrolled immigration has on law and order, services etc. in the UK.

In my opinion immigration is a great thing and one of the building blocks of our society, we need people to provide the skills and services that we currently can’t provide for ourselves. If we accept that, then the only way to control immigration is to identify those skills shortfalls and allow people to come here to fill them. That’s exactly what the Australian system does and should be a template for our system.

Refugees are different, as a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights and International law, we are required to allow people to apply for asylum. Since we left the EU and have yet to replace the systems that helped us to manage those seeking asylum we have effectively made the task more difficult. The Sandhurst agreement allowed our Border Force to operate in France, alongside their French counterparts restricting the majority of displaced people to the camps in Calais, and the Dublin regulation, which basically allowed us to take our agreed quota of asylum seekers and send the excess back to other EU countries.

Currently refugees can only apply for asylum if they are on UK soil, but with the exception of Ukraine we have very little safe passage for people who are fleeing war and persecution to get to the UK and apply, hence the small boats.

Economic migrants are different and will always be illegal unless they have a current UK visa so if we had safe passage for genuine asylum seekers we could use our resources to process and identify economic, illegal migrants, prosecute them and return them to their country of origin.

There you go, dead simple.....not

That's about as clear as it gets imo.

Braverman screaming about invaders and thousands of Albanian gangsters simply doesn't clarify a damn thing ...

... get yer application in mate.
 
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I can't disagree with a word of this tbh, you're spot on at first glance. In my opinion they've backed themselves into a corner with one of the big Brexit promises.

"We'll take control of our borders!"


If they had any courage they'd tell people they can't stop the boats and that immigration needs to be handled better ...

... but they daren't come out and say it.

I believe we should offer to take genuine asylum seekers, with skills or qualifications, and ask them to apply from their own country. That would slow things down greatly imo especially if successful applicants could simply jump on a flight.
(Complimentary drinks and a snack if you're suitable for the NHS :) )

Patel, Braverman, Sunak, etc, keep claiming they pay smugglers around £10,000 so why not offer the same deal. That would cripple the gangs and bring in a Labour force we can use. It would also pose a question to those who support migrant's rights.

"Why would genuine asylum seekers choose traffickers, weeks in a lorry then dicing with death in the Channel?"

The ten grand, per person, would also help a canny bit with the admin charges <laugh>

"Migrants attempting to reach the UK are paying smuggling gangs as much as £13,500 to arrange their journey, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed.12 Apr 2016"
I don’t quite understand this, would the traffickers not just fill the boats up with more illegal immigrants. They don’t give a toss who’s in the boats. So what we do with them is no different to now or am I missing something?
 
Mhairi Black to stand down at next election.

Nothing to do with dodgy SNP finances or anything, I'm sure. It's the 'toxic environment' of Westminster, that she rather joyously participated in when it wasn't where her money came from being looked into.
 
I don’t quite understand this, would the traffickers not just fill the boats up with more illegal immigrants. They don’t give a toss who’s in the boats. So what we do with them is no different to now or am I missing something?

Let's say you're an economic migrant/asylum seeker and you have a choice between A, traffickers or B, UK government.

A. Having to deal with gangs of Albanian nutcases.
No guarantee of reaching UK or not being robbed.
Horrendous land journey.
Possibility of being dumped at Calais and forgotten.
Horrendous illegal Channel crossing.
Months in a transit camp.
Chance of being processed in Rwanda.

B. No chance of being defrauded.
Flight to the UK and met by officials.
The comfort of knowing you'll be welcomed, legal and approved.
Opportunity to open bank account, etc.

If it was me I'd think it was a no brainier, be prepared to wait for my application to be processed and I'd guess thousands of others would.

We'd only be taking people we'd accept anyway and who could afford to come. The gangs would be left with illegals only which would greatly clarify the situation imo.

It would certainly disrupt the gangs who h is what Braverman always pretends she's trying to do ...

... the UK would look compassionate and pro-active instead of just endlessly producing ridiculous slogans.
 
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Let's say you're an economic migrant/asylum seeker and you have a choice between A, traffickers or B, UK government.

A. Having to deal with gangs of Albanian nutcases.
No guarantee of reaching UK or not being robbed.
Horrendous land journey.
Possibility of being dumped at Calais and forgotten.
Horrendous illegal Channel crossing.
Months in a transit camp.
Chance of being processed in Rwanda.

B. No chance of being defrauded.
Flight to the UK and met by officials.
The comfort of knowing you'll be welcomed, legal and approved.
Opportunity to open bank account, etc.

If it was me I'd think it was a no brainier, be prepared to wait for my application to be processed and I'd guess thousands of others would.

We'd only be taking people we'd accept anyway and who could afford to come. The gangs would be left with illegals only which would greatly clarify the situation imo.

It would certainly disrupt the gangs who h is what Braverman always pretends she's trying to do ...

... the UK would look compassionate and pro-active instead of just endlessly producing ridiculous slogans.
I agree but I don’t think it would have any effect on the illegal numbers coming in on the boats to be honest.
 
I agree but I don’t think it would have any effect on the illegal numbers coming in on the boats to be honest.

Do you know the percentage of legal v illegal?

Doing this would give us greater control.

It would mean we're not putting people in hotels while they're processed which would save £millions.

Those in boats would all be illegal making things much clearer.

Just 215 of the 45,728 Channel migrants who arrived by small boat last year were deported from UK, figures show.

Not that much spare trade for the traffickers tbh
 
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He's like the invisible man ffs.

Absolutely indefensible ...

... although some will try no doubt.

He really is the invisible PM, surely he must realise the optics for this are pretty bad.

Doesn’t turn up at PM questions, doesn’t read serious reports…it’s like he believes these things are below him.
 
I think you're probably right. The only possible problem with that would be that in some cases, asylum seekers might need to leave their own countries in a rush and it wouldn't be safe for them to wait at home while their application is processed.

I appreciate that but I'm not sure how rapid or safe the traffickers are either. If someone is a genuine refugee from war, Ukraine, etc, they shouldn't have to resort to traffickers.

It's all a mess isn't it.
 
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Sunak is making positive noises about the use of AI in education. This is a significant opportunity to improve how we teach our kids and it is good he recognises it. I am initiating a programme of work that will provide both teacher and student support, from AI, that is about moving time away from admin and into teaching delivery, and to students generating their own enhanced feedback on their work. It has massive potential, and in a sector where we need massive investment this is a chance to think better than we have done historically.