The EU scheme sounds too much like 'forin aid'
And we know how unpopular that is with a certain demographic...
If I could turn back the clock I would go to Sweden or Norway in an instant rather than UK because of the space, land and fewer people there.
But since I cannot speak Swedish/Norwegian my only choice is UK.
Swedish is the corporate language of much of Sweden, a good percentage of the population speak better English than many who are born and bred in the UK.
I was talking to a migrant family who settled in Sweden and expressed surprise that they left there for the UK since I’d rather live in Sweden, but the racism they were subject to made them leave for the more multi-cultural UK.
Racism/homophobia (a general fear of "others") is quite polarised in Sweden. The little village i live in voted about 35% for Sweden Democrats, which is the mainstream anti immigration party. Yet across the country it's only around 17%. Some of the even more rural areas it's nearer 50%. I've even had neighbours comment that i'm ok as i'm the right type of immigrant. They've been somewhat educated on the subject.
Though if you get into any of the cities or areas with high and long term immigrant populations, support for the SD is much lower.
The EU scheme sounds too much like ‘forin aid’
It doesn't sound like foreign aid to me. It sounds like the EU spending €10.3 million to keep asylum seekers with brown skin out of the EU.
In the same way that Priti Patel's eye watering £120 million for her scheme to keep asylum seekers out of the UK doesn't sound like foreign aid.
Just pissing money on unnecessary and pointless nonsense to placate racists and tabloid commentators. I was going to say right-wingers but even right-wingers like David Davis are strongly opposed to the proposal.
It sounds like the EU spending €10.3 million to keep asylum seekers with brown skin out of the EU.
report on opinion on asylum seekers in Europe. They're reflecting their populations wishes. (from that report)
in 2016 they became more negative. Comparing 2016 with 2014, seven out of 19 countries saw a slight improvement in their opinion on refugees (up around 3%). The other countries saw their support for refugees decline. Leading the decrease was Poland, with 16 percentage points less in 2016 than in 2014 as regards the opinion that the government should be generous when judging applications for refugee status. Close to Poland were the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Slovenia, all with a decrease of around 12 percentage points.
European voters are telling their politicians that they don't want either immigrants or refugees.
Racism/homophobia (a general fear of “others”) is quite polarised in Sweden.
A bit rich given Sweden was part of the area the Vikings came from.
Swedish is the corporate language of much of Sweden, a good percentage of the population speak better English than many who are born and bred in the UK.
In my younger days we didn't have internet and information was hard to obtain (none) because there was/is No embassy branch office in Borneo. However, we had British Council with plenty of education information. Spent 4 years concentrating on studying A-Levels like a part-time student almost daily. I think, I think but cannot recall completely now, I did look at the Swedish education system but English was not mentioned the medium of communication. Yes, in the corporate world English is spoken but not in education in my days. Things might have changed but I don't know otherwise I would have gone there. One of my friend from Uni is a half Norwegian and for some reason he studied at UK Univ, not sure why.
I was talking to a migrant family who settled in Sweden and expressed surprise that they left there for the UK since I’d rather live in Sweden, but the racism they were subject to made them leave for the more multi-cultural UK.
To be honest, I was preparing myself for all sorts before I came to UK including cultural sensitivity. I am not surprised if that happens in Sweden etc but generally speaking UK has been very nice to me, bar one or two incidents but nothing serious, and so I stay and root down. My advantage is that I went to Universities in the UK going through legal route but others might be less fortunate. Again, I wish them luck but time is the biggest fear if I look back. 20 years is like the blink of an eye.
European voters are telling their politicians that they don’t want either immigrants or refugees.
Yeah racism throughout the EU is clearly a huge problem. It's surprising how many people try to deny it.
IMO the way forward is to help create conditions which avoid conflict and wars, not start wars or stoke them up. Help struggling Third World countries to achieve greater economic justice. Stop supporting despots and undemocratic regimes.
And of course educate people so that they overcome their ignorance of the fact that people fleeing wars and persecution aren't a threat.
Spending £millions to dump them elsewhere isn't a solution.
Although people have sought refuge and asylum in Britain for centuries boatloads of desperate people making perilous journeys across the Mediterranean or English Channel on totally unseaworthy vessels wasn't an issue until relatively recently, it certainly wasn't 30 years ago. Something has clearly happened to cause this. There is no "inevitability", it's a problem that needs fixing, not swept under the carpet or dumped elsewhere.
A deal to send 300 prisoners from Denmark to Kosovo for €15 million per year was signed, authorities in Copenhagen said.
The prisoners that will be sent to Kosovo are foreign detainees who are due to be deported after their sentences.
We're talking about 300 people here, surely it would be easier to build a prison rather than send them to Kosovo and pay Kosovo £15 million per year to keep them?
Or just deport them straight away?
But maybe the real motivation is simply a strong dislike of foreigners, as this comment by the left of centre Danish social democrat "justice minister" seems to suggest :
"With this agreement, Denmark is also sending a clear signal to foreigners from third countries who have been sentenced to deportation: your future is not in Denmark, so you should not serve your sentence there," Haekkerup said.
Punishing them for coming to Denmark seems at least in part to be the goal.
Deporting people is easier said than done. If they can pay a third country to accept responsibility for their imprisonment and subsequent deportation they will likely be saving money at 50k per person. I'm not saying I agree with the approach but it may actually be cost effective.
Ernie those aren't asylum seekers
Those are foreign criminals who are deported after their sentence ends, is it not?
https://www.ft.com/content/42e396a5-82df-4e44-a883-18883fb880c3
Patel's scheme is to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda, not just to be processed or if their claim fails , but to pay the regime there to keep them even if their claim is successful!
Anyway the Briefing room had a pretty good breakdown of why it's likely to fail and cost a fortune as the experiences of Israel and Australia have shown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016hfv
Not that that matters to the government long-term, it's just headlines to keep the Tory/brexit base from deserting Johnson
Ernie those aren’t necessarily asylum seekers
No of course not, no one claimed they were. They might be or they might not asylum seekers, but they are definitely foreigners.
As the justice minister says :
Denmark is also sending a clear signal to foreigners from third countries who have been sentenced to deportation: your future is not in Denmark
That's exactly what's been done in the UK for a while though isn't it?
Foreign criminals are routinely deported from UK after their sentence ends
Those are foreign criminals who are deported after their sentence ends, is it not?
I think they are to finish their sentences in Kosovo, so they're being deported before their sentence ends. Not sure of the relevance to this thread. Other than to point out something happening in another country backed up with anti-foreigner rhetoric, as if that makes what Johnson and Patel have planned somehow less heinous, or more practical, or less of a waste of money. I really don't know. We know the political use of foreigner bashing isn't unique to the UK, far from it. It's rife everywhere. Doesn't mean our government's attempt to throw Red Meat to their Brexit supporters shouldn't be called out. It's likely to either never happen, or be stopped after it's proven to be an expensive failure, anyway. Lots of noise to help Save Big Dog.
I think they are to finish their sentences in Kosovo, so they’re being deported before their sentence ends
Aahh Ok I see
Si not to do with asylum seekers at all
No, it's a big fat squirrel with a Danish accent.
I’m not saying I agree with the approach but it may actually be cost effective.
Denmark certainly focuses heavily on the alleged cost of "non-Western immigrants", which I guess helps to demonize them....... sponging off the state etc.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20211015/denmark-says-non-western-immigrants-cost-state-31-billion-kroner/
The cost to the state of immigration from countries defines as ‘non-Western’ was 31 billion kroner in 2018, according to an annual report from the Danish Ministry of Finance.
............................
This means that, along with spending on benefits, the costs of public services to which everyone in Denmark has access are included in the calculation.
Btw only someone who was born in Denmark and had at least one Danish parent is considered Danish. The children of immigrants aren't considered Danish :
A person is considered to be Danish if she or he has at least one parent who is a Danish citizen and was born in Denmark. People defined as ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants’ do not fulfil those criteria.
It really is an appalling level of bigotry and racism.
I think one has to think about what "success" looks like for this policy.
I would say it will almost certainly be successful in reducing the numbers across the board: Boats intercepted, people drowned, applications received, applications granted, people comin' over 'ere takin' our jobs, etc
Key to that is the message being sent to those seeking to come to the UK to seek asylum: Not only will you immediately be sent to Rwanda, but even if you application is granted, you will still not be coming to the UK.... you will be living in Rwanda, until such time you are returned home. Why come all this way, pay all this money, risk the crossing etc, if you are just going to end up in Rwanda anyway? This is about the UK completely abandoning it's obligation to accept asylum seekers - whilst maintaining a paper-thin presence that it isn't.
I think the fall-back position will be to allow people who's application is granted, to come to the UK..... but they they'll just slow-walk the applications like Australia does. This is just about making even the best-case outcome so undesirable that people don't even try to come to the UK.
And it's already been successful:
It's distracted from partygate (somewhat)
It's distracted from the cost of living crisis (somewhat)
It's distracted from whatever today's Tory bumble **** ery is (somewhat)
if it's voted down by labour, the Tories will point and say that Labour are weak on immigration / defending people smugglers etc
If it happens, the tories will take credit for the inevitable reduction in numbers, it will also probably be attributed to brexit.
I detest the Tories, both collectively and individually, but their objective here is not to make an asylum system that works, combat people trafficking etc, it's to make an announcement that will re-energise the debate about immigrants/refugees/asylum-seekers (all those words are interchangeable when what you really just mean is black/brown people) - which is a debate that they know that they will win against labour.
I would say it will almost certainly be successful in reducing the numbers across the board: Boats intercepted, people drowned, applications received
You don't even need to guess, You can download a report about how successful the Australian version has been here It found that "offshoring" didn't reduce numbers of sea migrations, or accidents, or applications. It's not hard to see why, Desperate people don't make rational decisions about the nature of their flight to safety. The report concludes
...Suffers from other policy failures, including enormous financial costs for Australian taxpayers, violations of fundamental rules of international law, numerous legal challenges and systemic cruelty. Because the central principle behind the policy is deterrence, by design you have to make conditions worse at the offshoring centre than what people had suffered before.
The costs to the australian government were about £1bn to offshore 3000 refugees
which quite frankly is insane
It found that “offshoring” didn’t reduce numbers of sea migrations, or accidents, or applications. It’s not hard to see why, Desperate people don’t make rational decisions about the nature of their flight to safety. The report concludes
…Suffers from other policy failures, including enormous financial costs for Australian taxpayers, violations of fundamental rules of international law, numerous legal challenges and systemic cruelty. Because the central principle behind the policy is deterrence, by design you have to make conditions worse at the offshoring centre than what people had suffered before.
Welllllllllll..... yes and no.
The article/paper is appropriately damming of the practice of offshoring asylum seekers for extended periods, in terrible conditions whist their applications are processed. And most editorials focus on the legality, humanity, effectiveness etc of offshore detention during application processing.
To be clear: I think it's all horrendous, and I'm not seeking to defend Australia's approach and obsession with the "ban the boats!" political football in any way.
What's important to understand (in particular about that article/paper) is that Australia's approach has been twofold:
1) Offshore detention whist somebodies application is processed (this is the most controversial aspect, and is the part that most people focus on). Important to note that this is less terrible than what the UK are proposing.
2) Operation Sovereign Borders ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sovereign_Borders) which is the practice of using the Australian navy to aggressively turn-back boats trying to reach Australia.
The second of these HAS been effective at stopping people landing in Australia by boat. The paper that you linked to also attributes the reduction in maritime arrivals to OSB, rather than offshore detention - hence the stated conclusion that offshore detention (the way Australia did it) is not effective itself.
I think my point is that the combination of aggressive measures in the channel, and no route to being settled in the UK, even if your application is eventually successful, is more aligned to offshore detention + OSB, if you are comparing it to what Australia did. I think it will certainly reduce the number of:
Boats intercepted, people drowned, applications received, applications granted, people comin’ over ‘ere takin’ our jobs, etc
And even if it doesn't, the minister will just find a number that suggests that it does. The fallback statistic will be "number of asylum seekers settled in the UK = 0" which is baked-in to this dreadful scheme
The costs to the australian government were about £1bn to offshore 3000 refugees
which quite frankly is insane
How much do you think the Tories would spend (not themselves..... your money, obvs) to reignite the immigration debate? Plus, they don't actually have to do it/spend the money - doesn't cost anything to make the announcement.
Also, the low numbers of people actually shipped to Rwanda and detained will be used to show that the (expensive) scheme is working as a deterrent....... what good value it is. Similarly, if there are large number of people sent to Rwanda, it will be used to demonstrate how necessary the scheme is.
Any way this goes, the Tories will find a way to spin-it so that the gammons/mouthbreathers will lap it up. Based on their ability to convince a significant number of people to vote for Brexit, this should be a piece of cake.
The costs to the australian government were about £1bn to offshore 3000 refugees
which quite frankly is insane
It’s a tick box on taking back control etc, they couldn’t stop the videos of the refuges boats and couldn’t do the turning around or straffing of the inflatables with Spiftfires.
They have to be seen doing something,they don’t care about price, it’s all PR.
Probably cheaper to write them a euro cheque to buy a house and golden visa in Portugal.
To be clear: I think it’s all horrendous, and I’m not seeking to defend Australia’s approach..
And yet you make this comment: "How much do you think the Tories would spend" when it is claimed that the costs to the Australian government were about £1bn to offshore 3000 refugees, and it is suggested that this is quite frankly insane.
How much the the UK Tories are willing to spend is completely irrelevant to whether the Australian government's scheme is insane.
You also make the comment "Important to note that this is less terrible than what the UK are proposing", why is it important to note, if you are not attempting to defend it?
Wow, you do like to look for an argument in everything.
Reading the post as a whole, he's clearly not defending it. He's comparing it.
Because I'm not selective in my opposition to bigotry towards refugees I'm looking for an argument?
Kimbers makes a point which if true is perfectly valid, it is insane for the Australian government to spend £1bn to offshore 3000 refugees,
How much the Tories are willing to spend doesn't make that point less valid.
Sigh. I thought it was clear, but I’ll spell it out for you.
They are not spending a billion to offshore 3000 refugees. They are re-ignite the immigration debate (which costs them nothing), and for which they would probably consider 1bn to be good value, as they know their ruddy-faced “base” will respond favourably.
you seem determined that somehow defending Australia’s policies…. When I state explicitly that I’m not - I’m saying that the tories policy is even worse.
The only thing I'm determined about is opposition to the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
The Australian government's treatment of asylum seekers has been widely condemned. The fact that it might not as bad as another country is irrelevant to me.
Everyone who has posted on here is opposed to the mistreatment of asylum seekers. I suppose it’s good to hear that you are too? Are you also in favour of bears shitting in woods/popes having balconies? Equally as important points to make.
The Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers has been widely condemned. The fact that it might not as bad as another country is irrelevant to me.
Now you’re just being pointlessly argumentative. The point that I made was that the tories plan was EVEN WORSE than the Australian one (which has been widely condemned) as an illustration of how bad it is, not to diminish how appalling the Australian policy is/was
Yeah everyone on here is opposed to the mistreatment of asylum seekers only some people appear to be selective about their opposition.
I've learnt from this thread that apparently Priti Patel's proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is a pointless and appalling exercise but the EU's proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is a well thought out and good idea.
You are entitled to your opinion that what the UK is proposing is worse than Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers but equally I am entitled not to agree with that claim. The fact Priti Patel has sought the advice of a former senior Australian government minister doesn't for me suggest that it will be significantly worse.
Apologies for having a different opinion but if you want a thread where people mostly just agree with the previous poster I would suggest the Boris Johnson thread.
Jesus wept.
The issue is not that you have a different opinion, it’s that you just seem to be flailing about desperately trying to find something to argue about, and in doing so are casting the rest of us as immigrant hating bastards.
The fact Priti Patel has sought the advice of a former senior Australian government minister doesn’t for me suggest that it will be significantly worse.
What does that even mean? Who has said that - certainly not me - who are you arguing with?
The reason that the uks proposed “solution” is even worse than the appalling Australian one is clear to anyone. Feel free to hold the opposite opinion if you like
Feel free to hold the opposite opinion if you like
Thanks.
To be honest I don’t think it matters what Boris’s plan is. Im quite sure that enough illegal immigrants to fill a plane up have arrived since the policy took effect and there hasn’t been a single flight to Rwanda yet or it would have been headline news
It is a sad state of affairs when the only thing stopping this government's appalling policies from being put into place is their stunning incompetence.
You assume they ever intend to implement it and it wasnt just a party gate smokescreen For the gamons
a party gate smokescreen For the gamons
thats what I think too… I suspect that it had been suggested previously in some kind of hellish Alan partridge style Tory brainstorming session where they were trying to think of things that would get all the boomers frothed-up pre-election, and they just grabbed it on the way out the door to the press conference, like somebody desperately buying carnations and an air-freshener from the Esso on their way home from work on Valentine’s Day
It's so obviously illegal and unworkable that the only plausible explanation for the "policy announcement" was to whip up a culture war, presumably with the intention of getting the gammon base out to vote in May.
"Look at the activist judges and woke lefties stopping us from undertaking The Will Of The People™."
I had hoped that this was yet another distraction announcement at the beginning. However, there’s been an announcement this evening that “removals” to Rwanda will begin in a couple of weeks.
I’m so proud to be English.
No one will ever be sent there as the courts will stop them it being clearly illegal under international law
Almost no chance of anyone being removed on that flight. There will be numerous challenges by judicial review and since this is uncharted territory (removal to a third country which the migrant hasn't passed through), it will need to be thrashed out in the courts which will take months, possibly over a year, and will likely end up with the high court/court of appeal.
Yup, Denmark still hasn't managed to relocate refugees overseas despite passing a law to do so almost exactly one year ago :
Although they appear to be getting round that by simply deporting them back to the war zone which they fled from :
Denmark’s policy towards asylum seekers and refugees has become notably more hostile in recent years. “In 2019, the Danish prime minister declared that Denmark wanted ‘zero asylum seekers’. That was a really strong signal,” she says.
“Like in other European countries, there has been a lot of support for rightwing parties in Denmark. This has sent a strong signal for the government to say: ‘OK, Denmark will not be a welcoming country for refugees or asylum seekers.’”
Makes you proud to be European.
I can't say this makes me very comfortable but otoh I recognise that the landscape has changed vastly since the aftermath of WW2 when these rules of asylum and refugees were drafted.
We have, and it will only get worse, an almost unlimited pool of people from the developing world who would like to move to the UK, and modern transport provides an easy means to do this. These people are at complete liberty to move here under the status of 'asylum seekers', and the bar for what constitutes a refugee has lowered beyond all reasonable measure. It's possible, for example, to get asylum in the UK because you had an abusive boyfriend in Serbia, or because you claim to have run foul of gangs in South America, or because you want to live a rainbow lifestyle, or because you don't want to do national service somewhere.
I think we can all recognise that people fleeing Ukraine or Syria are refugees under a common-sense understanding. These other people not so much, and this abuse of the system has caused a kind of empathy fatigue vis a vis the former.
Yes, proud to be English.
Jeepers I scoff cake - your reality is odd. ~thats nothing like the truth and most refugees do not even make it to europe
But we created many of them by bombing the shit out of their countries or giving bombs to people to bomb the shit out of their countries
It’s possible, for example, to get asylum in the UK because you had an abusive boyfriend in Serbia,
citation please because this is very far fetched indeed
My immediate reaction to this announcement of the first group being sent to Rwanda was that it was a dead cat to distract from the growing pressure on the PM - if it happens, the gammon idiots will lap it up, if it gets blocked by the courts, the gammon idiots will lap it up.
But we created many of them by bombing the shit out of their countries or giving bombs to people to bomb the shit out of their countries
Precisely this. It is a problem which has mostly arisen in the last twenty years. There were not overcrowded dinghies crossing the Channel or refugee camps in Calais thirty or forty years ago, despite plenty of people living in the 'developing world'.
