Why Does The Government …

[naomi24]

want to track small boats coming across the English Channel when we know they're not going to tow them back to France?  They are spending £15 million on spy satellites for the purpose.  A bloke standing on the white cliffs of Dover with a pair of binoculars could do the job just as well.  Is it a complete waste of money or is there a useful purpose to it that we are unaware of?

[Clone]

Make it safer for the migrants.

Which will of course increase the numbers crossing 

[vulcan42]

I assume it's advanced warning to give the authorities here time to open the hotels and warm the beds. 

[douglas9401]

Maybe still to calibrate the death ray guns, it all takes time.

[ToraToraTora]

It's so they can give the Royal national ferry service and the border farce their positions to pick them up. They can also tell the Dorchester to prepare their suites.

[Old_Geezer]

Tracking illegals seems a good idea.

But it needs backing up with towing them to safety in a southwards direction.

[10ClarionSt]

I've said it before; there is no deterrent strong enough to prevent people from attempting to cross the channel in small boats. You can have all the initiatives and plans you like, but until there is something in place that will make people NOT want to make the attempt, then they will continue to come. 

[vulcan42]

There is a solution but our governments are to scared to introduce it. Let it be known throughout the world that anybody arriving on the shores via small boats that the occupants will not be taken to hotels or given anything except accomodation in concentration camps. They will have the choice of staying there or returning to the safe country they have just previously left. No doubt people will say it's wrong to hold them in concentration camps but if they know beforehand that is all they will get, they will stop coming.

[johnk]

Adopt the French system, if you put nothing in you get nothing out.

[10ClarionSt]

I agree with that Vulcan. I had thought of that but didn't want to say it. I would go further, actually. The camps would have nothing and inmates would get nothing. They would just stay inside the wire until they pleaded to return home. But that would bring charges from the ECH, no doubt.

[ToraToraTora]

The simplest way is to get the french to agree to take them straight back. Calais would be empty in a week, problems solved for us both. Sadly the French would rather annoy us than help themselves.

[Samuraisan]

The French must be very happy to wave them goodbye. They surely don't want them either.

[Old_Geezer]

It would still be in their interest to dissuade them from entering France in the first place rather than to let them in and hope they move the burden to us ASAP.

[ToraToraTora]

12:02 yes but if they agreed we could ship them straight back they wouldn' even bother going to France. It'd be fixed in a week.

[New Judge]

"Let it be known throughout the world that anybody arriving on the shores via small boats that the occupants will not be taken to hotels or given anything except accomodation in concentration camps."

Still won’t work. 

Any scheme that allows illegal migrants to land here will never work. Once here they know that there is virtually no chance of them being removed. If they are held in camps they will eventually get out either by physically breaking out or by legal action against the government. Leaving he ECHR will make no difference to that as our own Human Rights Act virtually mirrors the Convention. Despite not having such an Act at all until the late 1990s, it is now “unthinkable” that it should be repealed.

As well as that, if held in such camps the migrants will still have to be fed and watered and there is no reason why UK taxpayers should fund that.

As I keep saying, there is no deterrent that will be effective. The only solution is to physically prevent them from landing. Whenever I say this I’m always told by some that it is not possible. It is perfectly possible to prevent small, overloaded inflatable boats from reaching UK shores. It simply requires the will to do it and the handwringers to stop saying we mustn’t. 

It is the only remedy that will work. Everything else involves deciding what to do with people with no right to land here but who have already landed. All of those solutions cost huge amounts of money and will only make the problem worse.

Unless the government of this country recognises that, stops fannying about with ideas such as  “smashing the gangs” and instead concentrates on (physically) stopping the boats, they will continue to arrive. 

[ToraToraTora]

13:50 judge would my 10:57 suggestion not work? Presumably once here they'll be no legal way of taking them straiught back?? We could change the law but I accept they there are too many handwringers probably.

[davebro3]

TTT - it's quite obvious the French have absolutely on interest in cooperating to effectively stop or even curtail this influx so your idea is dead in the water (so to speak).

NJ is right - sink the boats and forcibly return survivors to French beaches is what's needed. But that requires guts & our leaders don't have any.

[ToraToraTora]

davebro, yes I know, they'd rather annoy us than help themselves. Just saying it would fix the issue for us both.

[Canary42]

The relentless bitterness continues. You lost, man up.

[naomi24]

Canary, instead of depending once again upon your same tired old mantra why don't you try answering the question?  

[newmodarmy]

But do you have an answer to the question, canary? And are you happy for illegals to continue to divert resources (housing, money, school places, NHS resources etc) away from our own who need help?