Just as I said, but now straight from the OFCOM Regulator's mouth: "The BBC impartiality row with Gary Lineker goes "straight to the heart" of the broadcaster's wider reputation, Ofcom's chief executive has said. Dame Melanie Dawes told MPs it was right the BBC was reviewing its social media guidelines, adding: "There is ambiguity in there, I think that was probably designed to give a degree of flexibility… but it didn't achieve what they wanted." She said there needed to be "very strict rules" for news presenters, but said it was a "slightly different question" when it comes to other contributors, including freelancers and actors. "I think they need to be weighing freedom of expression alongside the wider reputation they have for impartiality," she said. "It is for the BBC board to safeguard the reputation of the BBC, including for impartiality, and to weigh all that in the balance."
These are all examples for the genuine people applying for asylum which I don't think anyone can argue against. The issue being raised is ILLEGAL asylum seekers coming over in swaiths unsafely on boats, the key is the the ILLEGAL bit. Personally, I don't pretend to know a huge amount about any of it but the Australian immigration policy has always sounded like it made sense to me.
Under International Law ' illegal ' refers to the asylum seeker - not the method of arrival. To determine that, you have to properly investigate their background and where they have come from. Any cheat saying that they come from Afghanistan, for example, where they would be entitled to political asylum when they come from, say, Albania is easily caught out by getting a language speaker of the acceptable Country to do the interview. How many Albanians speak Afghan? Your Government is trying to say that ' illegal ' refers to method of entry which is quite clearly wrong especially as we do not have any system where, Afghans for example, have a way of applying for Political Asylum in the UK until they get here. The people who were trying to get into Australia were coming from Countries where they were in no danger and had an opportunity to apply for entry to Australia in the Country they were coming from - entirely different.
Anyone that pays the human trafficker in France gets given the same treatment when they get into Btitish waters . They can be from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chad , Sudan , Somalia, Romania, Iran , Turkey ,Morocco it doesn't matter to the human trafficker gangs so long as they pay. They get scooped up put into hotels then file their applications here knowing they won't get deported as there are people here that argue that no human can be illegal. A Pakistani or Sub Saharan African can just pretend to be Christian or gay & argue that they will be persecuted back home in their own culture. There are plenty of human rights lawyers willing to get rich from legal aid defending them & protesters that block flights deporting even the most violent criminals . We basically don't have a border anymore if we follow European and United Nations guidelines. The boat people are a tiny fraction of illegals we have here on student visas & those that arrive as tourists & don't bother going back when their visa expires . For many people none of these people should be deported . If you ask them how many is enough a year 1 million 5 million people you won't get an answer because they are all refugees . Just as long as they don't dump them in a hotel near them , put them near the poor people. The guy that blew himself up in a taxi in Liverpool not long ago lied about where he came from , pretended to convert to Christianity & his asylum application was rejected . Years later of long drawn out appeals he was still here & decided to try & blow up a maternity ward to spite us .
We give asylum to Afghans & their families that worked with our armed forces during the military campaign or because they are being persecuted. Unfortunately everyone in Afghanistan living under strict Sharia is being persecuted & we can't take all of them. Not all Afghans are automatically refugees many are the so called human rights abusers themselves. There was & is a route to asylum in the UK by direct flights from Afghanistan not France . Your assertion that they need to be on UK soil to apply for asylum is incorrect. As at 3 November 2022 over 11,600 individuals had been relocated to the UK under the ARAP scheme (including during the August 2021 evacuation). The Ministry of Defence estimates that around 4,600 Afghans (including dependants) are still eligible for relocation
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) is for Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK Government in Afghanistan in exposed or meaningful roles and may include an offer of relocation to the UK for those deemed eligible by the Ministry of Defence and who are deemed suitable for relocation by the Home Office. Afghan citizens who are eligible for relocation to the UK under the ARAP may relocate with a partner, dependent children and additional family members who are also deemed eligible for relocation under the ARAP by the Ministry of Defence and suitable for relocation by the Home Office
You do not have any official representation in Afghanistan where people covered by ARAP can go for help, the Taliban control who goes in or out of the airport so no chance of leaving that way, the so called ' safe route ' over the border to a centre in Pakistan lasted 5 weeks before it was closed down for 'operational reasons' and the offers by Europe, and France in particular, for the UK to set up centres to consider asylum applications over here before they head for the boats have been consistently turned down. As for the problems you suggest hold back deportation of economic migrants - who can rewrite the Law, who sets the rules for legal aid, who deals with the applications for asylum, who is responsible for all aspects of the chaos that exists in the UK but nowhere else - the UK Government but what is their answer - bring in another law that is more full of holes than the existing ones and also breaches International Law!!
How many safe countries do Afghan migrants need to pass through before they arrive at seemingly the only safe place in the World the United Kingdom ? France is good enough for you, but not for the picky asylum seekers that a more cynical person than myself would accuse them of being enticed by free handouts here , rather than a safe country . Yes it's their right to claim asylum wherever they want in the World but that undermines their vulnerability victim status that they claim to have . The UK should copy France & refuse to give them money & let them live in tent city's like Paris .
At this point I'm just grateful the women football players are genuine biological women , we seem to struggle with defining what a woman is now let alone a genuine asylum seeker.
Where do you get this stupid idea that every asylum seeker wants to come to the UK? You get fewer applications than most European Countries and the vast majority of genuine asylum seekers stay in Europe. The Albanians, for example, know that if they apply in Europe they will be sent straight back so now they head for the UK where the lack of control is slack and they can just slip away. A lot of genuine asylum seekers want to come to the UK because they can speak the language or have friends or family here but your Government rely on convincing the population that the fault lies entirely with the asylum seekers and is nothing to do with their own incompetence in not dealing with it properly. Judging from your reaction they are succeeding.
A genuine refugee needs to be fleeing war or persecution. Not because they prefer to speak English or have friends here that sounds like a chancer . Europe has way more immigrants because it's a large land mass and Merkel invited in millions of people which European Union member countries are burdened with in the Shengen zone . Only Hungary & Poland refusing to accept certain asylum seekers/economic migrants. Before Albanians simply got Greek EU passports and came to the UK legally . Britain is an Island you can't simply walk from France so they take the dangerous journey on small boats assisted by French coast guards . The UK government are clearly complicit in assisting the boat migrants which could be because they have stock in Serco that are awarded enormous pay outs from the tax payers block booking hotels or perhaps even more sinister motives . The latest estimate is £7m a day just for the hotel costs not including staffing the hotels , legal fees , prepaid credit cards etc etc . The cost for taking care of Afghan refugees , Ukranians etc is separate. The cost to us tax payers is a scandal by itself, without the detrimental effect to communities like mine tasked with dealing with these mainly 20 something, mainly Muslim males with no background checks roaming the streets. We were not asked & the local MP & council even tried to block the use of Ipswich hotels & were blocked by the high courts .
The Government know that there isn’t really a massive immigration problem or even an illegal/fake asylum seeker problem. The numbers are tiny compared to the problems this country is suffering as a whole. And in some ways immigration is a good thing with falling birth rates and an ageing population - the key is for immigrants to be integrated properly. The issue is the Government realise it is an emotive topic and a good way of distracting from the catastrophe they have generated in all other ways.
Integrated properly is fantastic in theory but absurd in reality. Just look at Leicester mainly Pakistani and Indians living in separate enclaves divided by historical hatred & religion. Rioting over cricket & attacking each others religious temples. We managed to import sectarianism . In my community there was a huge influx or Roma people , they look and dress identically almost like a uniform, yes they are pushing up the birth rates but mainly because young English couples feel that it's too risky to start a family when it's impossible to get on the housing ladder . It's a stereotype to say they make mess get pregnant constantly & steal but they do . They have zero interest in integration into our values & culture & it's probably a hate crime to suggest our guests do . I lived in Newham the most diverse area of the UK coincidentally one of the worst crime rates too. This dream of a multicultural melting pot is a lovely thought but in practice it never works . Ironically the replacement theory is a "far right" conspiracy theory but the UN openly admit that refugees from the third World will counteract declining birth rates in the West . For some reason these go getters from Romania, Pakistan, Africa etc from dysfunctional countries will somehow improve ours they just let their own go to **** . It would be better to incentivise young couples to start families with tax breaks & social housing preference. It's more likely governments would rather import a subservient slave class that will do jobs for peanuts. Some even vote as a block like Tower Hamlets & it will always be a Bangladeshi Labour area forever. I'm all for mass immigration just not where I live is the usual mantra of people like Gary . Leicester's most famous son doesn't want to live there anymore which says everything, he prefers to live in a £4m mansion in Richmond London. Perhaps we should have a referendum & let the British people decide if they want to keep importing people and permanently erase , yes erase the indigenous population. Perhaps they do ? Call me a racist a Nazi whatever I don't care I have 4 mixed race children that grew up here with English values. Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside of their religion or they can be killed by their father or brother . It's more likely they will marry their first cousins which sounds horrendous but true . Non Muslim women are allowed to marry Muslim men so long as they convert . This doesn't sound like integration to me . Not long ago an autistic English 10 year old shool kid dropped a Koran in West Yorkshire. He was charged with a hate crime & his family received death threats from the community. She had to beg forgiveness on television so they wouldn't murder her child, no arrests were made from the adults sending death threats to the 10 year old . In England. We have blasphemy laws imposed on us by our guests in the name of tolerance & diversity.
I think it’s not easy to integrate successfully, but on the whole I disagree that it’s a pipe dream. 5000 years ago our ancestors entered the uk and mingled with the neolithic inhabitants. Then maybe a couple of thousand years later the celts swept in and mingled to become our ancestors. 1000 years after that, the Romans came and some of those mingled to become our ancestors. 500 years later the Angles and Saxons arrived, and further intermingled to become our most important ancestors. A couple of hundred years later the Vikings came and some of them intermingled over the course of a few hundred years. Then we had the Normans, who were originally Vikings, but they also came and intermingled, though mainly amongst the aristocracy. Then immigration perhaps slowed for a time, but didn’t completely disappear - we had Dutch settlers coming to East Anglia and they settled and intermingled (giving us gables and canaries). It reared its head in ugly ways in the 16th and 17th Centuries when there was forced immigration in the form of slavery, they intermingled. We have had further waves of Jewish immigration when we stopped banning them from the country. Occasionally we had religious immigrants such as Huguenots fleeing persecution. In the 20th Century we have had even more variety of immigration - Eastern Europeans in the early 1900s, Irish throughout, Caribbean immigrants are well known from the 60s and 70s. All of these immigrants have come in and settled, and intermingled successfully. We are a nation of immigrants. But if anything, for me, your post and it’s careful arguments prove why the comments made by our Government were wrong. They were offensive, short-hand, mindless dog whistles. That’s what makes Lineker completely right. And I know that because you, Dunc, are perfectly capable of putting together a full length argument against immigration or against the idea that successful integration is achievable. And that’s fine, that’s your opinion and it’s not you emulating the Nazis, it’s you making a careful, thought-through decision. I might disagree, but that’s just my opposing opinion - what it just demonstrates is how pathetic the Government have been in putting forward any legitimate argument. And that’s because they don’t believe this stuff. They don’t agree with you. They have just realised it’s easier to beat the drum and make loud and offensive pronouncements because it distracts from their other failures. And frankly to my mind all they do is devalue your valid concerns, by co-opting those concerns, oversimplifying them and then manipulating them for their own selfish ends.
I haven't read much of this thread, but as someone who has benefited from the Australian immigration system I thought I would share my experiences. You have a skill which is needed as there is a shortage- find a company who will employ you, here is a visa. Your company has to pay you a minimum amount (depending on the role) and you have to stay employed for that company, unless another company will effectively take your visa and associated costs. Commit a crime, overstay your visa, bye bye first plane back to your home country. Depending on your role then there are options to be sponsored by your company or your spouse/ partner to stay in the country. If not, bye bye next plane out. You have a skill which is really really needed, here is permanent residency, go do your job. Then there are those from war zones or other areas that Australia has agreed to take as part of the international community, a limit per year and you're given help to get you on your feet, maybe free English lessons if you need it, housing etc. Then if you try to come here by small boat, no, no, there are many other ways you could come here. Money has been paid to Indonesia to help stop if, but if you do manage to get on a small boat the navy intercept and you are sent to a small island facility where you spend years in a camp. The boat is sunk and the people mostly are sent back to their country of origin, though I know someone who was resettled into Perth because they would be killed if they headed back to Iran. Before this policy there were many boats coming because if they were rescued they would be taken to Darwin for processing and it was very hard to get them off Australia once they had landed. People were dying because the smugglers don't care about the lives of those they transport all they are after is the money. Countries can only accept a certain amount of immigrants and there are different types. Some you want, they have skills that you need. Others, it is right to have compassion on and help, but you can't let too many in or you risk social cohesion, stability and have to build loads more facilities to house, school, medically treat the population. A free for all helps nobody, it isn't compassionate, it can be dangerous letting in unvetted (usually young men) who are hell bent on destroying your country from within or without. It puts strain on facilities and causes resentment. Australia's system isn't perfect (there are Somali/ Lebanese gang problems in the east coast), but it seems a whole lot better than the UK's current policy, is there a policy?
Thank you for this Zogean, seems like the Aussie's have managed to sort a system of controlled immigration that works in their interest, why can't we copy it?
Because no Tory Government wants to. Along with the threat of lefties and Trade Unions, Immigration is one of the bogeymen that the Tory Party and right wing media use to frighten the electorate against voting for the Opposition and time and time again that tactic works.
I am not a Tory I hate them they are vile . The problem is Starmer has a plan to allow refugees on French soil to apply for asylum in the UK , the successful candidates would be shipped over to the UK to be housed God knows where probably hotels . Then what about the failed asylum seekers? Are they just going to give up & stay in France ? Of course not they are ILLEGALS they will just pay human traffickers to put them on small boats . The end result will be a huge increase of immigrants not just the people arriving on small boats .
Great post , I had Austrian friends in the casino industry that came to London to work for a few years I naively asked if I could do the same in Australia & they just laughed .
