The Brexit Thread

[tayspru]

Anything that can be done to stop rubber dinghy’s crossing the worlds busiest shipping lane has to be a good thing.
My plan to stop this would be create a place in France where people could go and apply for asylum, trouble is most of those crossing (fit young men) would not be successful so would still try and cross in rubber dinghy’s.
Maybe sending them to the middle of Africa is not such a stupid idea after all.

The current government has zero interest in such a facility. They don’t want to take *any* immigrants or refugees at all and would rather they drown at sea. An alarming proportion of the public feel the same.

 

[pluk]

The current government has zero interest in such a facility. They don’t want to take *any* immigrants or refugees at all and would rather they drown at sea. An alarming proportion of the public feel the same.

You can make your opinions worthless to others with such ridiculous hyperbole you know.

 

[BigT]

I don’t believe anyone with any sense would seriously wish anyone drown at sea.

 

[Alsty]

Except perhaps, Priti Patel, who wanted the Navy to push back migrant boats in the Channel, despite it being illegal to do so.

 

[BigT]

Maritime law says different though.

Under the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, ships have a clear duty to assist those in distress. Article 98 (1) states that “ every State shall require the master of a ship flying its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious damage to the ship, the crew, or the passengers… render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost [and] to proceed with all possible speed to the rescue of persons in distress, if informed of the need of assistance, in so far as such action may reasonably be expected of him. ”.

 

[Alsty]

Which is ultimately why the Navy didn't do what the Home Secretary wanted.

Anyway I'm not sure this has much to do with Brexit, really.

 

[BigT]

Anyway I'm not sure this has much to do with Brexit, really.

Whilst I agree with you some would argue immigration was one of the causes of Brexit.
Taking back control of our borders, whatever that was supposed to mean.

 

[Matt N]

I know a significant proportion of Brexit voters did vote Leave due to immigration concerns.

For instance, my grandad voted to leave, and he would always explain his decision to us using the analogy of a box. He always said that if Britain were a box, the EU/freedom of movement would be a person trying to stuff more objects (presumably meaning immigrants) into the box than it had room for, and if this didn’t stop, things would start falling out of the box and the box would tear.

 

[WillPS]

I know a significant proportion of Brexit voters did vote Leave due to immigration concerns.

For instance, my grandad voted to leave, and he would always explain his decision to us using the analogy of a box. He always said that if Britain were a box, the EU/freedom of movement would be a person trying to stuff more objects (presumably meaning immigrants) into the box than it had room for, and if this didn’t stop, things would start falling out of the box and the box would tear.

Britain isn't a box. No country has a finite capacity, and the march of progress means babies hardly ever die and life expectancy goes up. Case in point, your grandfather will likely outlive his grandfather significantly. There's your population rising and your box bursting. The answer is that you invest in infrastructure with capacity anticipating growth.

Extending the obviously flawed analogy - what if there are parts of that box which have to be occupied to maintain the structural integrity of the box, but none of the objects inside said box want to occupy?

 

[GaryH]

I don’t want anyone to down at sea but I also don’t understand if you are a genuine refugee fleeing for your life why you wouldn’t be happy being in a European country with shelter, food, medicine etc …. Why is it even when in safe country they have to come to the U.K.?

 

[Matt N]

Interestingly, we learned in geography GCSE that immigration was to thank for much of what was keeping Britain’s birth rate from declining. My geography teacher was very frank in telling us that there was a high chance of Brexit tipping the UK into a declining birth rate, or stage 5 of the country development model. Britain was in stage 4, or a stable birth rate, when I was doing GCSE Geography (2017-2019), but my teacher said that there was a high chance that Brexit might tip us into stage 5, or declining birth rate.

I wonder whether the lowered immigration as a result of Brexit has caused a drop in birth rate as my teacher predicted?

 

[BarryZola]

Immigration from anywhere in the world is alright with me, as long as you continue to build houses, schools, doctors, hospitals etc etc to keep up with the new demand. Unfortunately this hasn't happened over many years whilst immigration was growing rapidly. This is what people really mean when they say that the country is full. It's not actually full, there's loads of space, it's just that the infrastructure is full. Make sure the houses and services are there for people and bring immigrants in where needed in a managed way. It's the failure to do this that has upset the applecart. Instead the strategy seems to have been to cram in as many good little tax payers in as possible from anywhere in the world and hope for the best. That has clearly gone very very wrong. Worked for Blair for a little while though, until it didn't.

 

[rob666]

Britain isn't a box. No country has a finite capacity, and the march of progress means babies hardly ever die and life expectancy goes up. Case in point, your grandfather will likely outlive his grandfather significantly. There's your population rising and your box bursting. The answer is that you invest in infrastructure with capacity anticipating growth.

Extending the obviously flawed analogy - what if there are parts of that box which have to be occupied to maintain the structural integrity of the box, but none of the objects inside said box want to occupy

Obviously flawed argument...
Every country has a finite capacity...by geography and physical resources.
Contraception and family planning mean that the average couple now has less than two children, 1.7 instead of 2.4.
That's your population falling and the box emptying.
Then there is the matter of the elderly starting to die younger in poorer areas of the UK...life expectancy goes up...if you have the money!

 

[WillPS]

Obviously flawed argument...
Every country has a finite capacity...by geography and physical resources.
Contraception and family planning mean that the average couple now has less than two children, 1.7 instead of 2.4.
That's your population falling and the box emptying.
Then there is the matter of the elderly starting to die younger in poorer areas of the UK...life expectancy goes up...if you have the money!

Theoretically true in decades to come, but not now. We are all still paying the price for collective failure to deliver new homes (and everything else!) in significant enough numbers since the 70s.

I stand by my comment that we are not limited in any meaningful way by the size of our island - only by the scale of our ambitions with what we do with it.

 

[jon81uk]

I don’t want anyone to down at sea but I also don’t understand if you are a genuine refugee fleeing for your life why you wouldn’t be happy being in a European country with shelter, food, medicine etc …. Why is it even when in safe country they have to come to the U.K.?

Think it has already been answered further up in this thread, but often it is either people coming to join existing family or language, they already know English.

 

[Matt.GC]

Contraception and family planning mean that the average couple now has less than two children, 1.7 instead of 2.4.
That's your population falling and the box emptying.
Then there is the matter of the elderly starting to die younger in poorer areas of the UK...life expectancy goes up...if you have the money!

I was going to make that point myself until I read this. I too was under the impression that life expectancy has actually stalled and is actually slightly falling in some socioeconomic groups and birth rate is also falling.

Not quite at the stage of Japan yet, but it is a serious problem in the UK that rarely gets talked about.

 

[delta79]

When times are tough financially the uk see a drop in birth rate. How many years of austerity have we seen and now we are going into recession.


Sent from my SM-A217F using Tapatalk

 

[AstroDan]

One benefit of Brexit is that all these anti immigration, anti European law, anti freedom of movement folk can now only blame our government.

Personally, I always felt Westminster was more to blame for this country's problems more than Brussels anyway. I guess it's easier to blame someone else though.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

 

[Alsty]

One benefit of Brexit is that all these anti immigration, anti European law, anti freedom of movement folk can now only blame our government.

I wish that were true. Eurosceptics moaned when we were in the EU. They still moan now that we're out of it.

For instance

• Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, who mentioned the miles of traffic jams along the motorways that were affecting residents and businesses, and explicitly said it is "not because of Brexit... but because of Brussels bureaucracy and red tape".
• The UK blaming the EU for trying to uphold the Withdrawal Agreement, which we agreed and signed voluntarily.
• The boss of M&S complaining about having to follow EU rules when exporting goods into the single market.
• There's also plenty of Express articles about the EU punishing us, such as having to pay to take your pets abroad, or the complications of working + holidaying due to the 90 day limit.

They are all framed as either the EU punishing us, or the EU is choosing to apply burdensome new "red tape" and rules to the UK. No mention is made that these rules apply equally to all third countries, and we chose to make ourselves one of them. We chose to have this additional bureaucracy, it was not foisted upon us.

 

[Tom]

Those arguments, as they always were, are a deflection tactic by the Conservative Party and its backers.

The government has always had the ability to restrict the numbers of people coming in, regardless of EU membership status. It simply is more straightforward now that we are out, whereas before the tools were about 'souring the milk' as it were.