There's no answer to the question I posed Watford. That's why Labour's policy on Illegal immigration is completely fake. Starmer might just as well have said he was going to smash the drug gangs operating across Europe. It's a plan worthy of King Canute. Yvette Cooper will fail in this as Home Secretary and Labour will get mocked for it.
You don’t actually want to discuss it. You want to ask endless questions until the other person gives up. They’ve committed to negotiating with the EU rather than creating yet another enemy. We’ve wasted years doing nothing so I’m not pretending it’ll cost nothing or be done instantly but if the biggest gripe people have in five years is the number of Iraqi asylum seekers then they’ve probably done something right.
You've ruled out Rwanda, so I'm asking questions about the alternative until I get convincing answers. You haven't got any. The EU won't take an Iraqi cat back from us until we give one thing in return - freedom of movement for all EU citizens to come to the UK to work. That's not going to happen, Starmer's already ruled it out (needing the red wall votes). Labour will face huge criticism, as the Tories did, if dinghy arrivals go up, and no one is sent back. You dismiss the damaging consequences far too lightly. Farage and Co will make Starmer and Cooper look like imbeciles in and out of Parliament. Good luck with that
Farage will get close to **** all airtime with his five seats even if he bothers to turn up occasionally. It’s obviously going to take cooperation with the EU and its countries who will be more open to talks with Labour than the ****cunts they’ve replaced. Really though, on various topics, people with an axe to grind are never going to be happy with Starmer’s government. Appeasing them is pointless.
You are misguided and naive, mate. Farage will get huge amounts of airtime on the massive issue of immigration if, as is inevitable, Labour fails. He's the most effective politician we've had since Blair at the height of his powers. And the EU are far more businesslike and ruthless than to do Starmer any favours just because he's nice to them. What's more, increasingly he'll be dealing with right wing governments in Europe. Anyway, dream on. I'll leave you to sing a rousing chorus of "Things can only get better..."
Sounds good. I look forward to the next topic in five years of endlessly crying about Labour making the country a bit less of a cesspit of hate.
They won't be ftom Iraq Syria Iran etc They will be illegals from France Send them back on the first ferry or train What the **** is so hard about this
People need to realise that neither Labour nor the Tories really want to do anything about immigration, legal or otherwise. Some have said (on here) that this wasn’t an important issue in the election and yet Reform received the third largest popular vote. Not all can simply have been anti-Tory. Concern will only increase as it is in the rest of Europe.
Agree. That's the Reform position. Starmer will be too concerned about upsetting the EU. Big vote in France tomorrow. If Le Pen can marginalise Liberal Macron, deportations will begin for illegal immigrants in France, and that may improve things for UK. I doubt a returns agreement will be forthcoming however, at least without objectionable conditions in return
Great post, Ubes. And Reform was barely prepared for the GE. With time now, and a foothold in Parliament, who knows what they can achieve?
Broadly agree on this. We essentially have three choices: (1) cut immigration and get poorer (2) do nothing and continue with immigration as it is (3) cut immigration and massively increase the birth rate in the UK. That's why the Tories did zilch to actually cut immigration despite being in power, having left the EU and having strong rhetoric on it. I think Starmer's best hope is to be able to do something convincing on illegal immigration which might quell debate on the issue of broader immigration enough. The biggest thing that could help with that is the rise of National Rally in France. We can't really do anything about illegal immigration without strong cooperation with France and one would assume NR would want to prioritise this too.
I’ve heard it said on the wireless on a number of occasions that an immigration coming to the UK has to be earning around £45kpa before they’re a net contributor, and this figure doubles if they bring just one dependent. I don’t know where this figure came from and it needs fact checking, I know, but feels about right, although there are also myriad variables such as where they choose to live. So, I don’t know if I completely agree with the “cut immigration and get poorer” option. Of course, we should always help genuine asylum seekers, but we cannot do that ad infinitum without also having the balance of the right quota of contributors as well. One of the biggest problems that I can see is that our default seems to be that most immigrants claiming asylum are genuine. Something I think is badly needed is a joined-up process right across Europe. If, for example, immigrants arrive in (say) Greece, we should be able to log their ID (prints, DNA, retina or whatever) and the story they give, who they’re travelling with, where they ultimately want to get to etc. It ought to be fairly straightforward to re-process them at various European borders and cross-check stories etc. for consistency.
