gallois wrote:
What France does not need are British policemen marching up and down French beaches. Even if we did want their help have you got enough manpower? Or would you want to be hiring untrained security guards.
I don’t think anyone wants that, trained or untrained.
You have to deal with the problem in front of you and accept the factors that lead to that problem, whether right or wrong. There’s no point raging about that which you cannot change.
France is a free country and there is little its authorities can reasonably do, or would want to do, to prevent undocumented migrants gathering in a particular part of the country with a view to trying to reach another country, nor to prevent them entering the water on flimsy boats. There is especially little motivation to prevent it when, as soon as they enter the water, those people are effectively someone else’s problem. I would withdraw the £50m (or however much it is) ‘support’ because they’re not getting anything for it, and, as the interviewed Genderme pointed out, what can they actually do anyway?
The UK can’t really do anything about the British charity and aid workers who clutter up Calais and try to make things difficult for the French authorities. Quite probably they are a big part of the problem in that they probably give advice on exactly how, when and where to launch so as to maximise the chances of a rapid ‘rescue’ and transfer to the UK coast. The French could perhaps expel them, but without any proof (and are they breaking any laws anyway?) it’s hard to know on what grounds.
What you need to do is stop people wanting to make that journey. The major ‘pull’ factor, apart from many having a basic knowledge of English but not French, is that the UK has a relatively generous asylum system where generally you are housed, fed and given a cash allowance at the taxpayers expense – but not permitted to work. The application process takes a while and there are any number of charities who will help you game the system and steer you towards every delaying tactic and appeal option. All the while you’re being fed and housed for free, given a cash allowance, and you can (illegally) work cash-in-hand in the extensive black economy the UK has. When the system finally rejects you and begins deportation proceedings, you just disappear and continue to live below the radar. Ok you’re on your own and don’t officially exist, but these are resourceful people who’ve taken responsibility for improving their own circumstances – this isn’t going to bother them much – and besides its still way better than Syria, Iraq, Sudan etc.
Once under the radar in the UK, all the things that you need an ID card to do in France (work, rent somewhere to live, access healthcare) can easily be done without papers. I’m sure you can work for cash and rent somewhere for cash no questions asked in France too, but not as easily and extensively as in the UK. The NHS is supposed to check eligibility for healthcare, but it isn’t enthusiastically enforced and medics strongly resent being asked to double-up as immigration officials. It is totally possible to rock up at a hospital, give a false name, and avail of thousands of pounds worth of healthcare without anyone making any serious attempt to find out who you really are or whether you should be paying. They certainly aren’t going to chuck you out, even if they suspect what’s going on.
So it’s nice if the asylum claim is successful, but it isn’t at all essential to the plan. We could try to reduce the pull factor by changing all that and eradicating the black economy but (a) it’s far too difficult, expensive and will never work, and (b) it’s part of the freedom we enjoy – the ability to live largely anonymously – and I can’t see the British people being happy to give it up and show ID cards at every turn.
The only solution I can see working to reduce the pull factor is the Australian one. They broadcast loud and clear that if you enter illegally then you will never make Australia home. The very act of crossing the sea in that manner invalidates any claim for asylum and you will be detained (then deported) immediately without any rights at all or avenue of appeal, nor the opportunity to disappear under the radar. People stop coming once it becomes obvious that no-one is getting in.
Priti Patel wants to turn boats around mid-channel. I can’t see this working, firstly because it requires French cooperation and that won’t happen, but second it’s just material for the charities and human rights lawyers to get their teeth into and the noise they make will make any chance of success zero.
The implementation is supposed to be per Dublin (link above). The problems are
So France will always help them onwards to the UK, and if they drown, it doesn’t matter.
Camps in France are not a long term solution. All that camps do is that if they are unattractive, and I am sure they all are, the message will feed back up the refugees’ Iphones and they will stop embarking on the whole journey in the first place. But all the time the message is that the journey is possible, the refugees (who are mostly young men, with drive and nothing to lose) will start on the journey. And unless all of mainland Europe works together on this, the journey will always be possible. And mainland Europe will never want to solve this, because
So this will not be solved anytime soon. With the brexit-punishment dimension, it’s what the Americans call a “perfect storm” 
Graham wrote:
is that the UK has a relatively generous asylum system where generally you are housed, fed and given a cash allowance at the taxpayers expense – but not permitted to work
The French asylum system is more generous than the UK one – even the Daily Telegraph have reported this recently. Only a minority of refugees in France try to make it to the UK, the majority settle in France.
alioth wrote:
The French asylum system is more generous than the UK one – even the Daily Telegraph have reported this recently. Only a minority of refugees in France try to make it to the UK, the majority settle in France.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. But those under discussion, those who are trying to cross the channel, have not claimed asylum in France and so do not benefit from its generosity.
Some cursory research suggests this is only partly true though. It seems the French cash allowance per single person is higher, and that gets the headline news. But the UK system has a more complex matrix of payments for couples, children, families, etc. A family unit of most sorts gets more money under the UK system, but a single man (which lets be honest, is what most of the migrants are) gets more in France (or he would if he claimed).
I would be interested in hearing the details of the French system. Regardless of generosity of terms (housing, cash allowances, etc. which don’t really matter because they’re all working in the black economy) the particular weakness of the UK one is that it’s easy to drag appeals out forever and then to disappear when the system finally gives you a final no. I would hazard a guess this isn’t so easy in France, and that when claims in France fail they are more likely to actually get deported. As I pointed out before, the UK makes it much easier to exist under the radar, with no ID cards and just about anything readily available on a cash basis.
I would choose France, no question. EU passport for a start! But that’s based on knowing what I know, which the folks at Calais probably don’t. That’s assuming I knew I had a valid claim. If I didn’t have a valid claim and intended to game a system and then disappear when that failed, the UK would be more attractive.
France and many other EU countries have taken far more asylum seekers than the UK.
However the UK has greater appeal to many because
1 The English language.
2 Many already have family in the UK
3 The black economy is far bigger in the UK than in France. In fact it is very difficult to make a living in the black economy here because of the way state services are integrated.
4 Access to free health treatment is much easier in the UK
5 it appears to be more difficult if not nearly impossible to deport failed asylum seekers.
None of this is the fault of France or the EU so its a bit of a stretch to say that this is part of the EU punishing the UK for Brexit. People who say that should really try and see things from the other side occasionally.
Graham wrote:
If I didn’t have a valid claim and intended to game a system and then disappear when that failed, the UK would be more attractive.
I agree – in my limited experience, the ability to live “sans papiers” in a country is proportional to the difficulty in getting past the border guards. The UK and USA are very similar – once you are in, you can live your whole life without having to show an ID card – because they don’t have one! Getting into these countries “illegally” is not all that easy, however, and tragically many people die each year trying.
Perhaps one day over a few adult beverages we can discuss global immigration policy – I think it’s a ripe topic for hours of heated arguments! ;)
its a bit of a stretch to say that this is part of the EU punishing the UK for Brexit
I don’t see anyone saying that.
Read more carefully
Also, remember that the UK has superior food – MacD on every corner 
Peter wrote:
Also, remember that the UK has superior food – MacD on every corner
Actually France is far better. McDonalds…. but with beer :-)
gallois wrote:
France and many other EU countries have taken far more asylum seekers than the UK.
The issue in question is not really asylum seekers or refugees, it’s economic migrants. No-one in France is fleeing anything – although they might have been before they got to Europe – because France is a safe, democratic country with a high standard of living and is quite welcoming to migrants. They have the option to stay there and claim if they prefer. My presumption is that most of those at Calais they know they have a poor case for asylum and would be quite rapidly deported from France, so they prefer to try and reach a country where they are very unlikely to ever be deported and can live in the black economy.
gallois wrote:
The black economy is far bigger in the UK than in France.
I presumed this to be the case but decided to do a bit of googling. Most sources seemed to agree that actually the UK black economy was somewhat smaller than the European average as a percentage of national GDP, and certainly smaller than the French black economy. Obviously it is very hard to measure.
My guess is that the French black economy consists largely of ‘friendly’ stuff among the native population, happening mostly at a local level among people who know each other well. Perhaps the fisherman who gets cash off the books for his catch (and obviously didn’t keep any records either, so cannot get a permit for the Channel Islands :) and tradespeople taking undeclared cash for local jobs, etc. Principally done to avoid tax.
In the UK black economy the localised stuff goes on too but I think there’s also a significant quasi-criminal sector e.g. gangmasters, undocumented migrant labour, etc., where it is principally done because some element of the operation is technically illegal.
I’d love to know where those figures come from.
It would be very difficult for someone offering.to do building works or plumbing or electical work to do stuff cash in hand because of insurance requirements. Also because of the integration of things like pensions to earnings its not really wise to take cash in hand. The last couple of years would have been really bad for them as Covid payments were linked to the earnings before Covid.
