Shopping & Style0 min ago
Money Well Spent?
During a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, MPs react as civil servants reveal the Home Office are paying for 5,000 empty hotel rooms for asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Un6XtZjpAY
Great news for hotel owners, but paid for by the good old British taxpayer. When will we get a grip?
Answers
Meanwhile after a desperate life or death struggle to reach the land of opportunity almost 1.7 million non UK residents are not working or seeking employment. Economically inactive the authorities call them. I tend to feel that they are active but possibly not in the legal sense. The cost I hear you ask. How about £8.5billion a year. Starmers answer. ... Save...
08:44 Fri 30th Aug 2024
Surely cheaper to rubber stamp their application as 'rejected' and return them back across the Channel immediately ?
If there's no support for that in parliament, because they don't have the nation's best interest at heart, then how about slinging up secure camps to keep them in while the authorities drag their heels rejecting their claims ? Wouldn't even the cost of running that be cheaper in the long run ? It'd be easier to keep tabs on them too.
To bust some common myths :-
1. It is not illegal to cross the channel
2. Refugees are neither migrants nor illegal nor invaders.
3. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that signed 1951 Convention - to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim.
4. Last year approximately 79 million refugees were forced to flee their homes. For its share, the UK took 20,339 refugees - just 0.026% of the world's refugees.
// 1. It is not illegal to cross the channel //
maybe so. but Section 3(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971 states that persons who are not British citizens shall not enter the UK, unless given leave in accordance with provisions in that act, or made under that act. Entry without leave is a breach of section 3(1)(a) and therefore constitutes illegal entry as defined by section 33(1) of the Immigration Act 1971.
are you suggesting that captains of the rubber ferries have the power to grant leave under the 1971 act?
No one suggests it is illegal to cross the Channel, but doing so to immigrate here without permission is another matter.
Genuine refugees are migrants, but that isn't illegal. That isn't the issue though; the issue is the invasion of illegals using the lie that they are refugees.
3. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that signed 1951 Convention - to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim. But the claim can be instantly assessed since they cross from a safe country and thus are not asylum seekers.
4. Last year approximately 79 million refugees were forced to flee their homes. For its share, the UK took 20,339 refugees - just 0.026% of the world's refugees. But this is not likely to be a myth: but the fact is that nations near to Britain do not tend to produce refugees at present, so given the chances of Britain being their first port of call being extremely small, one would not expect hoards of refugees arriving here, thus the small percentage. Again the issue is not about genuine refugees.
"1. It is not illegal to cross the channel"
No it isn't. It's what you do after you have crossed which is the issue.
"2. Refugees are neither migrants nor illegal nor invaders."
As pointed out, anybody arriving without leave to do so is breaking the law.
"3. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that signed 1951 Convention - to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim."
Here's a passage from Article 31 of the very Convention you cite:
31. Refugees unlawfully in the country of refuge
1. The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present
themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.
Note the emphases which I have added.
Firstly, there is frequent mention of unlawful or illegal entry or presence. So, contrary to your "myth buster", the Convention recognises that entries by refugees are usually illegal.
It provides an exception from penaly for those who have come directly from a territory where they were in danger. People living in Northern France are not in any danger. They simply don't like it where they are and would prefer to be here instead. So their protection against penlty for illegal entry into the UK is void.
Unfortunately the myth that they are protected under the Convention (which you have obviously swallowed) has gained widespread traction. The UN itself seems to think its Convention gives refugees the right to roam round seeking the destination of their choice whereas their Convention says precisely the opposite.
But instead of redrafting the Article and putting it before signatories for agreement, they have pushed the idea that the Convention is some sort of passport. Case law has been undecisive on this issue, suggesting that each case should turn on its merits. As far as I know, no UK government has challenged the right to claim asylum by those coming from the safety of France simply on the basis that they're already safe and in no need of protection.
The 1951 Convention is outdated. The purpose of asylum is to seek temporary safe haven when fleeing danger or persecution. But the majority of people who roam across Europe (courtesy of the ridiculous Schengen Agreement) are simply seeking "a new life" elsewhere because they don't enjoy living in the cesspits they come from
Finally, you cite the 1951 Convenion as "international law". It is not. You cannot derogate from laws, but you can from conventions. The Convention is simply an agreement which individual nations have entered into and which they are free to leave. The only asylum seekers that should be entertained in the UK are those arriving directly from a place where they face danger. France is not one of those places and if the interpretation placed on A31 remains at it is, the sooner the UK withdraws from the Convention, the better.
