Pickwick

How do we raise the drawbridge? What do you want to do - a genuine question? For the avoidance of doubt (again) - I am not suggesting there is no problem, that would be frankly ridiculous. I am suggesting a complex problem that cannot be solved in a week by gimmick and soundbite. All I see on here is a barrage of posts that seem based on either conjecture, political grandstanding or one-sided political bias, none of which actually bothers to even look at the problem. Do you want to shoot people dead in the sea? Or do you want to remove them to other countries? Given that moving 0.4% to Rwanda costs at least £400,000,000, what do you suggest? Given that the Home Office, when under Tory rule, confirmed in writing that the costs to process people in a third party country costs more per person than the currently unacceptable costs of placing people in hotels, what is your plan? Do you want to stop all migration? How would you do that? And without legal migration (not by boat) how would you fund the lack of workers in our ageing society? Trying to tackle the people who game the welfare system would be a good start, but does not cut the mustard in terms of numbers (unless you are going to argue that everyone who is sick is not actually sick, i.e. that sickness and ill health does not exist) at all. Even then we would still need more working people to support the increasingly elderly population. Do you want to scrap automatic retirement and the state pension? That might work (as reported in the Daily Telegraph), though I doubt the British electorate would stand for it. While Conservative Home Secretary (Braverman) made a speech about economic migrants, curiously the Home Office then refused to release any data about this to back up her claims - no data, no actual evidence. Each person can draw their own conclusion as to why (and will note that some of her own Conservative MPs complained about her speech). The UK should not accept economic migrants. That some are undeniably abusing the system demands change to the system. Why this hasn't been done in the last 14 years despite a huge increase in immigration, most noticeably since Brexit, you will have to ask Suella Braverman and her colleagues. They were responsible after all (not the week old Labour government).

No I wasn't lying - please stop repeating this as if it were a fact. I have provided ample reasons and sources to back up what I have written - all you have done is harp on about the one link that you provided which has one sentence that begins 'the government says' but then goes on to cast doubt on 'what the government says'. Do you even read your links past the first page? (deja vu) I ask because if you scroll down and click through it confirms my quote by the then Conservative Deputy Prime Minister that the numbers processed would be in the 'hundreds'. The government told the Supreme Court that initially there would only be 'small numbers'. Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly confirmed to the House of Lords the numbers would be low and quote 'slowly increase'. He projected that one day there would be no limit, but declined to give any specifics or time frame. The numbers of 200 a year to start with, amounting to 1000 in 5 years stands scrutiny. That there might be some mythical uncapped Nirvana at some point years down the line is based on nothing but conjecture. This is absolutely untrue. There is no agreement by fact checkers anywhere. They write an independent court said 'there was evidence Rwanda had the capacity to house 100 asylum seekers' and subsequently the not independent government said 'the eventual capacity will be uncapped' - with zero evidence, specifics or corroboration by fact checkers on this unsubstantiated claim. You ignore the evidence and rest your entire case on 'the government says'. on a third party website. I gave you a direct quote that the government said, but you bizarrely ignore that. You then continue to repeatedly call me a liar and imply the last Tory government told the truth all the time. The same government rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority (accountable to parliament) for telling untruths 'which undermine the trust in government'. A government run by a Prime Minister who the website you linked to states: 'It is important people in public life correct their mistakes. We have contacted Rishi Sunak 11 times; he corrected his record twice'. Even if this mythical 'uncapped' number was a real goal then how long would it take and at what cost? I previously provided you with a direct link to the Home Office (during the Tory government) that confirmed sending asylum seekers to Rwanda would cost more per person than the current unacceptable situation of putting them up in hotels. If you want to ignore all this by all means do so, but then I assume you are only interested in your own narrow agenda and not in the actual topic.

You are writing as if your link with a vague and unsubstantiated claim is fact. I responded stating there's a myriad of sources on both the left and the right stating that the processing limit Rwanda has is 200 persons per year - sometimes written as 1000 over 5 years. I then quoted the then Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who admitted the numbers would be - quote - 'in the hundreds, not thousands'. On top of that I quoted a Home Office paper that admitted the cost per person would be more, with a further payment of £120,000,000 due in two years when 300 claimants had been processed. On top of that, you posted a link which showed the UK government could not be trusted on its claims about numbers of asylum seekers (as evidenced in a letter by the Home Office itself). Your assertion is as risible as it is disingenuous.

I missed this suggestion, sorry - I thought it was about squatters (as in the video links). I won't comment further on this as I have obviously missed some of the thread at some point.

Leaving the ECHR would probably cause the UK more harm than good and most likely not stop the boats. That's my opinion only, though below is a c+p of one of my previous replies which states why it is fraught with danger. If you disagree with those points fair enough but I'd appreciate to know why - again it is not a challenge but genuine curiosity. My previous post: There has been much noise about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, but that is a complex issue and not at all straightforward. The Human Rights Act would need to be repealed and UK citizens would lose a whole host of protections for themselves - the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to a fair trial etc (as would potential investors in the country). We would have to join Russia and Belarus as the only European countries barred from the Council of Europe. Our trade agreement with the EU would be gone, and our international standing would be reduced. It would contravene the Good Friday Agreement and our relationship with Ireland and the US would deteriorate. It would also most likely not stop the boats. The UK is bound by other acts and conventions, such as the UN Refugee Convention etc. and refoulement is also not permitted under domestic UK law, so the UK couldn't just send people back to countries willy-nilly. I suppose we would have removed the right to life...

I also don't know if you are being pedantic or not. In your middle quote I already said I had read the link so you suggest I am lying. In the bottom link it seems from the context you mean to write 'You and Keir do like to give out false info'. If I am giving out false info or lying, I am naturally a liar. If you are saying that is not what you meant then I'll accept it, I'd rather not distract from the points anyway.

I am not sure if you are being pedantic or just have an axe to grind with the quoted poster, but I am not sure I understand the point about the USA - it is not a challenge, I am being sincere. The odds of finding an Albanian asylum seeker turned squatter in your house is, I think, remote at best - hence my confusion. It wouldn't make sense for an Albanian asylum seeker to lock himself in an immovable property knowing that the police would be called. There is a system to remove squatters, Interim Possession Orders etc. which can lead to forcible removal within 24 hours of notice. The penalty being prison of up to 6 months and a fine of £5000. I do believe it is not the same for non-residential buildings, which might have caused the issue for the Gordon Ramsay pub situation (I have no idea if that was squatters or a protest at a celebrity etc. but shows there is the potential for squatting problems to some extent I suppose.)

I read your quote above as blaming Labour for all of the problems, and if I am being sincere it still reads that way. If you are telling me that you do not blame Labour for everything then I'll take your word for it. This, I agree with. Unfortunately, many seem to think this complex and difficult problem should have been solved in a week. As I have posted several times I think that is unrealistic and unfair.

I do not have personal digs at you. Scroll back and you will see the first 'personal dig' was when you called me a liar. You will notice I ignored that (other posters didn't). I am replying to your posts and disagreeing with you where I see fit, that is the point of the forum. When I see what I believe to be biased misinformation that is presented as fact I will respond. I have been responding to several posters, over 13 pages of this thread. You seem to have a problem with me because I have pointed out the inaccuracies of your links etc. For the avoidance of doubt: I am not looking for a fight but I will continue to debate the points - which I assume you are actually ok with because as I write this you have quoted and responded to my last post.

Four people died off the coast of France, in French waters - what did you expect the Labour government to do? Starmer resides in number 10, not the Elysee. The constant bleating started - and continued - in this thread with unreasonable, incorrect and unashamedly biased rants against the new Labour government. That you try and twist that the other way is a lazy debating technique and one which is easy to see through.

So, Labour are to blame for everything now because they are in government. Labour are also to blame for everything before because they were in opposition. They also had the temerity to oppose things when in opposition. If there were an emoji for Mr Magoo I'd be tempted to use it, though such myopic posts make Mr Magoo seem like the poster boy for 20/20 vision.

Do you even read your own links? There were concerns that the government had manipulated the statistics in 2023 for political reasons. Your link specifically informs you that of the people withdrawn from the list by the Home Office over half were returned at the end of 2023 (after the figures for 2023 had been released - for some reason the year ended in September). Source: the Home Office itself! Your link quotes: A January 2024 letter from the Home Office showed that half of all asylum cases withdrawn in the year ending 30 September 2023 had subsequently re-entered the asylum process and had either resulted in a grant of legal status (15%) or were pending an initial decision (35%). Another 32% remained in the UK, and the Home Office was trying to re-establish contact with them https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/42939/documents/213512/default/

This is one specific case out of hundreds of thousands. Apparently, the main issue was the repeated phrase 'gas the Jews, gas the Jews'. It certainly highlights the need to have a robust procedure of legal review, to try and balance legal protections with individual freedoms. This is true for all laws, however ,and I don't think anyone is seriously arguing with that. So far, however, I can find reference to six controversial cases out of 749,000 or a percentage of 0.0009 of the cases, read into that what you will. The Law Commission - the independent, statutory body, which keeps the law of England and Wales under review - states on page 2 of its Hate Crime Report that "the law does not punish someone for having beliefs that others may class as homophobic, but if those beliefs lead the person to attack a gay or lesbian person, the law will step in". Like the previous post, if you do not believe that there is a disproportionate amount of crime and violence targeting certain groups, that is fine. There's a huge amount of data, from a myriad sources, which would suggest otherwise though.

It is my contention that minorities are getting assaulted and murdered because they belong to minority groups. I don't know where you live that there are no issues of racism, no homophobic assaults and no murders of anyone because they are transgender. It's not the UK certainly, where David Lammy is Foreign Secretary.

Well that's your opinion - but that's all it is. I'd be equally surprised if all were accepted, as that would be unheard of in any country, including the UK under various governments. It sounds more like you are simply anti-Labour and would argue white is black if it suited your agenda or your 'beliefs'. I, and others, have been trying to address your points in a matter of fact way. When you feel you cannot respond to the actual points raised you either move the goalposts or resort to calling people 'naive' or 'idiots'. it does nothing to further your argument - quite the opposite in fact. See point above about moving the goalposts. If you have a problem with the lack of women's rights then start a thread about it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the backlog of asylum seekers we are debating here. Again opinion based on nothing but your own prejudice - betrayed by the final part 'by the looks of it already'. It's absurd to judge any government of any political hue after one week unless you are already biased against them. It's neither objective nor fair.

I am struggling to understand why you quote the BBC if you think they have 'a narrative' yourself. It would suggest cherry-picking when it suits the argument. This was an appalling crime and I struggle to understand why he was allowed to remain in the UK (even before his 'conversion'.) But his application was successful under the Tory government's watch, so why are you posting it on a thread about the new Labour government? If you started a new thread about the failure of previous immigration policy then I would probably be interested in that too, and I would be surprised - astonished in fact - if anyone tried to argue it hasn't been a failure.

I wanted to highlight this post separately because I think it is important to the entirety of this thread. That you added 'IMHO' clearly shows it is your opinion and as such is valid and I respect it, even if I doubt the new government can be any worse than the last one. Unfortunately, this thread is full of IMHO dressed up as incontrovertible fact, and that I have an issue with.

I am not sure if you are implying that I do not live in Thailand? For the avoidance of doubt: I do. That was not the topic change I was referencing. You asserted that Thailand does not let asylum seekers in, indeed you 'shouted' the word OUT. I said that was not true. it is still not true. You then subsequently - and this was the point of my post - changed your point to 'well they don't get free healthcare etc.'; which I stated was an entirely different point, mainly because it is. I really don't understand your objection.

I have no idea if it is 'ridiculously easy' to game the system or not - but moving the goalposts of the topic is tiresome. No one, including myself, is saying there is not a problem. I, and others, are tired of misrepresentation of the facts and the unreasonable blame on a newly elected government barely a week old, for the previous government's failings - a government some on here no doubt voted for at least once in the last 14 years. Who is naive about what? You are the one asserting non-evidence based opinion as fact. Again the goalposts are being moved, only because the original arguments were based on flimsy conjecture, personal biased opinion - and then exposed as such. The thread was about a misrepresentation of the OP, which was blaming the Labour Party for the backlog of asylum seekers created by the previous government and the erroneous claim they 'were letting in 100,000 asylum seekers'. That was not true at the beginning of this thread and it is not true now. (Now, you seem to be arguing as if the topic was 'there's no immigration problem' - which the topic wasn't and isn't.)

No country - including the UK - gives all asylum seekers asylum, despite what the tabloids write. It is very difficult to get reliable figures for the percentage of asylum seekers who have successful applications. There are many different steps, appeals processes etc. and publications (on all points of the spectrum) use different statistics depending on how they want to frame the narrative. The last Conservative government also appeared to massage the figures to try and pretend the number was lower ( a four-fold increase in withdrawn applications by the Home Office, only for them to mysteriously reappear later after the figures had been released to the press). For example, according to the House of Commons Library, 33% were refused asylum last year. But these were 'initial applications' only; some went on to be unsuccessful further down the line; conversely one third of appeals against the initial decision were subsequently successful. There is no reliable data to indicate if they then went on to be ultimately successful or not. What is stark is that France - when compared to other EU nations and the UK - has a much lower rate of successful applications and only grants asylum to about 33%. I have no idea why and on what criteria, and I also do not know if this is just a headline figure and fails to include the actual number (successful appeals etc.). I also do not know how many of the 66% are still actually in France. Please note that France and the Conservatives are not the Labour Party. It is established that - at least in the beginning - Rwanda would only have the capacity to process 200 asylum seekers a year (according to the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Dominic Raab, and myriad other sources). You have already told us 500 have crossed the channel this week. I am not an expert in mathematics but even I can see the flaw in the system. You choose to ignore the former Deputy Prime Minister, and the myriad sources (from all political sides), and you ignore the problems Australia had implementing their system in the real world, despite having much more processing capacity than Rwanda. You also choose to ignore that the Home Office itself reported that the costs to send people to Rwanda would dwarf the cost of hotels etc. that we currently pay - and it is the cost of these hotels, mobile phones, healthcare etc. that people keep complaining about the most. It's a strange and unconvincing strategy betraying your own personal bias.

What is your point? I am trying to take you seriously but it's really difficult. Is your point that Labour have had a week to fix the problems of the last decade and haven't? To ignore what has been written on this thread and suggest there is an easy solution is unreasonable. The UK is not the only country with this issue. Italy, France, Germany and Spain all process more asylum seekers than the UK. You will have noted earlier in the thread that on the surface Australia has a successful policy of limiting the number of arrivals by sea - but at huge cost (and still has a higher number of asylum seekers in backlog compared to the UK). Why anyone would think this can be solved in a week is beyond me, unless of course there is an entrenched bias against the new government and/or they don't take the issue seriously.

I really don't understand your position. To begin with, the safety of Rwanda was not even the point being discussed (it was the cost and capacity), I have no idea why you have tried to pull the debate in that direction. Secondly, you posted a link to the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill - to be honest I am not entirely sure why given the Rwanda plan has already been cancelled. The bill allows parliament to declare Rwanda a safe country, even if there is concrete evidence to suggest otherwise. I have added bold again for clarity. I had never actually said Rwanda was unsafe (until you asked the subsequent question) because the point was not about Rwanda being safe or not, but about parliament being able to declare what it wants as true, even if the highest courts in the land say otherwise. I can only imagine your reaction if Keir Starmer and the Labour majority tried to circumvent the law to suit their goals.

I did read your link. But before I read your link I had also done extensive research on the Rwanda issue. You can focus on vague and unqualified statements that the capacity might be one day increased. I have looked at hundreds of sources - including a direct quote from the Deputy Prime Minister which I have referenced (and you ignore).

That's patently not true. I am not sure if you are choosing not to read what is written or if you do not understand what is written. I did try and highlight the pertinent part in bold. You posted the bill, not me. A bill designed to side-step the Supreme Court's ruling that Rwanda was not a safe country.

This is completely false and you are either being obstinate or you have done no reading on the matter. Your link states that the capacity to process 100 people - which the Court of Appeal believed to be true - was outdated. Furthermore, there are scores of reports from both left and right wing press that the actual number is 200 per year (or 1000 over 5 years). On top of that the Deputy Prime Minister is quoted as saying the numbers would be in the hundreds, not thousands.