No, *you* come on - you were the one who said it needed updating.
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It’s amazing and very worrying how many people swallow the lies and misinformation that politicions like Trump, Johnson, Truss, Patel et al put out, then parrot it on as gospel. Social media is certainly a fertile environment for spreading lies.
I took one of my rare and cautious expeditions into the Mail Online comments section the other day and the ignorance of the facts is alarming.
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This is worth a watch Anne.
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Just checking, you are aware that France takes approx 3x as many refugees as UK?
In UK greater than 70% of refugees who apply for asylum are granted it - ie they are genuinely in need of protection.
Even then the numbers involved are relatively small:
It has been kept relatively quiet by UK govt that the Rwanda deal requires not only money to be paid to Rwanda but that UK will receive refugees from Rwanda.
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You can. You don’t even have war/weather/politics/religion/the economy as reasons to move, you can just do as the whim takes you. So why shouldn’t people (who do have one or more of those reasons to move) be able to?
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Ultimately everyone not still living in Africa migrated from our point of origin.
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Yes, indeed … very, very quiet. At this rate, the UK will be taking many more refugees from Rwanda than we send there. Result !!!
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White Ukrainian refugees good, any other coloured refugees bad.
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@Annej2003 does not seem to want to come back and actually defend her comments - so let’s have a look at them on her behalf.
Your basis for this assertion (that people are not fleeing “terrible abuse” so, by counterpoint must be economic migrants) is flawed, see below.
However, please explain how people fleeing Iran - which persecutes its religious minorities or Syria where there is an ongoing war and which is known for human rights violations, or Eritrea which has a repressive dictatorship, or Albania where people trafficking, especially for the sex trade is common as well as clan violence, blood feuds and revenge killings, as well as political instability, or Iraq which has a humanitarian crisis after decades of violence and conflict.
Please explain how these people are not victims of “terrible abuse”, please explain how they have an easy passage to safe countries - the UK in particular claims that one must arrive legally to claim asylum but has then shut off all legal routes by which these people might reach our shores. Please, please explain how they make an asylum claim that the UK government believes is valid because I’m f***ed if I know.
Please provide evidence for this claim.
In the UK 81% of asylum claims were granted.
Let that sink in.
We have almost the most hostile of asylum systems, one that assumes criminality on the part of the claimant almost from the word go (actually, no, it *is* from the word go) and yet 81% of claims are successful.
And note that is the UK government’s figures.
The vast majority that reach UK shores are not economic migrants.
Now I note your phrasing was that “we have many many more people leaving countries as economic migrants” which is difficult to prove or disprove as you have not given a reference point, nor the point where you want to make the comparison but the intent is clearly that you think they are all economic migrants who want to come and sponge off the UK.
Well, what of it. The few that are economic migrants are generally young and fit. We have more job vacancies than people chasing them - it sounds good until you consider that unfilled posts are not good for the economy. We actually *need* a few economic migrants so why not let them in?
That France is safe is debatable (it is also debatable whether the UK is a safe destination - especially given the Rwanda policy).
France has been sanctioned for its treatment of migrants and refugees, especially muslims have legitimate concerns that they might not be welcome in France.
In addition, as I pointed out there is no requirement that asylum seekers make claim in the “first safe country”, and I’m afraid the UK has, in withdrawing from the EU left itself unable to rely on the Dublin convention to ask France to take them back.
Finally, of course, many do stay in France - as you would know if you had looked at the reference provided by @Mat_Davies - France has settled as many as three times as many refugees as the UK, Germany close to ten times as many refugees as the UK.
In an ideal world people would not be persecuted for their skin colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation o r beliefs. There would not be wars, governments would not attack their own citizens, there would not be poverty in the ex-colonies because the ex-colonising powers still hold all the cards.
In an ideal world people could live wherever they wanted - which for the vast, vast majority would be where they were born, where they had family ties, where they speak the language.
In the real world not everyone has the good fortune to be born in a place that is safe for them and they may feel the need to move elsewhere because of this - in doing so family ties and language are still important factors. Many of those that (literally) wash up on our shores feel they have a connection to the UK. They speak English, they have family here, the believe the UK to be a fair and just country and they simply want to feel safe.
They endure arduous journeys, people smugglers and many dangers because of those beliefs, can you even - for a microsecond - get into their heads to realise how desperate they must be to leave everything behind to make such a perilous journey?
Human rights are absolute, they cannot be watered down, you cannot say “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” but add the codicil “except for the ones Priti Patel doesn’t like”.
You can’t say “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” but specify that’s “mainly Christians”.
You cannot say “Everyone has the right to work”, but not asylum seekers
You cannot say “Everyone has the right to […] housing”, but not in my village.
Any anyone wanting to extract the UK from the EHCR, ultimately, wants to add a “but” to human rights.
So, come on Annie girl - I’ve set out my arguments as to why I think you are full of p**s, I’ve linked to evidence, I’ve been as plain speaking as I can. It is your turn to step up to the oche and blow my arguments out of the water.
@cat, yes this post probably contravenes site T&C, I stand unapologetic, this is something about which I can get quite hot under the collar.
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Well said Billy. What a brillant post.
Izzy x
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Bravo! 
I can see why you chose ‘billybutcher’ as your pseudo!
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It seems that AnneJ2003 does not understand that in many countries despotic governments remove legal documentation from people, just so that they cannot flee from their own country to escape oppression.
The UK government is already encouraging tens of thousands of economic migrants from Hong Kong to come to UK.
Many people just do not bother to understand what is going on in countries where oppression occurs, eg all those who go on holiday to Turkey where intellectuals of all kinds were and still are, imprisoned by the Erdogan regime.
The old saying holds true, if you don’t keep an eye out for all those who are oppressed, who will be there when they come for you?
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I think they do but choose to ignore it.
How many of us readily buy Chinese made goods everyday?
I think that the answer lies in the word readily, also actual availability.
Buying small electrical components is near impossible here in France.
The ridiculous thing is that the postage from China is still that as from a third world country!
I’ve been thinking about a good analogy for the UK government’s claim that by deporting refugees and asylum seekers they put off the ‘criminal gangs’ that transport them.
If the people-traffickers are indeed the criminals, then the refugees are clearly the victims - and it’s clearly a form of victim-blaming (‘they were asking for it’).
So maybe a good analogous policy could be taking away all the remaining possessions of theft victims, to put off thieves…
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Someone suggested that on Twitter.
What was it I said about the UK treating asylum seekers as criminals?
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Tattooing them would be cheaper.
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Forgive me for chipping in here but I need to rant. I can’t compete with you guys for depth of knowledge in politics, but this is how I see it.
Clearly, the Tories are on the ropes in the polls since partygate. The NI protocol which they proclaimed to be a good deal is a lame duck (who knew?), and their total lack of agricultural policy coupled with their reneging on their promise to replace the EU funding for farmers (Bojo? two faced? is anyone actually surprised?), means that even the normally loyal farmers are deserting them.
Now so desperate for support from the lowest common denominator - the daily fail readership, which, rather sickeningly, apparently makes for 70% of the UK population, they come up with another vomit inducing blame the foreigner policy. Totally aimed at the football hooligan style, two world wars and a World Cup, false patriotism sector of society.
I suppose if they can win around even half of the gutter press readership with this appalling sh1te, they may hope to turn the spotlight away and save their skins.
CPS? Not so much a think tank as a septic tank…
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How long do we think it’ll be until the UK reintroduces capital punishment?
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