As with the Australians stiling people on Nauru. It’s not the number deported that matters – it’s the number not around to deport as a result of the threat that is.
The threat of being deported to Rwanda is causing an influx of migrants from the UK into Ireland, the country’s deputy prime minister has complained.
Micheál Martin said that the policy was already “impacting on Ireland” as people were “fearful” of staying in the UK.
So, Rwanda works.
“Maybe that’s the impact it was designed to have,”
Yep.
Of couirse, it can still be evil, sensible, whatever, but if it’s even diverting claims then it’s working.
Htf do the small boat arrivals even get to Northern Ireland. Are there minibuses being hired to get to Stranraer, do they make their way in smaller groups on Ryanair from Stansted to Belfast ( passport needed for both I think). We need the press to get their stories. Nigel Farage reporting and interviewing from the N1 in Dundalk,
Ireland’s immigration and border policy are a mystery to me.
On the one hand they seem to welcome everyone with open arms to the dissatisfaction of a native population seeing ever scarcer housing stock and other resources being diverted to the newcomers.
On the other hand Ireland has never officially opted in to the Schengen Agreement (although you’d hardly notice it). Less surprising is their knee-jerk propensity for screaming blue murder at the UK, in this instance for something they themselves do nothing to prevent.
Maybe they’d prefer a hard border – shame about that Good Friday thingy making one impossible.
Bongo,
Maybe its different for an old couple in a van conversion motorhome but when we went to Ireland last year our passports weren’t checked in either direction. We just drove on and off the ferry like we were travelling across a river in UK of to a Scottish island.
They’re leaving the EU on small boats to England then nipping across to the EU to avoid being deported from UK, so we’re just a stepping stone for them. How about we save the EU some hassle and just ferry them straight from Calais to Dublin? We could pay for it with all that money we give to France to try to stop them crossing in the first place.
Yes, Britain and Ireland are one free movement area. Schengen is another free movement area. Which is why Ireland isn’t part of Schengen. Because Britain isn’t and therefore it would be impossible for Ireland to be a member of both free movement areas.
Can someone please explain how it is wrong to deport people to Rwanda because it is a dangerous third world shithole at the same time Arsenal FC wear sponsorship recommending Rwanda as a holiday destination?
Thank you for explaining that Tim although logical impossibilities are no guarantee of anything where the eu is involved.
I think this sounds a bit fishy: unsurprising since the Irish government are a dodgy lot. If you want to get to Ireland the easiest way is via ferries from Welsh ports, where no one will ask for your passport. The cost is lower than going to Scotland for sure.
Surely the only way deporting people to Rwanda is going to be a deterrant is if the people in Shitholistan know about it before setting off. They don’t know they’ll drown in the Channel, they don’t know they’ll get raped, the only people who have heard anything about the deportations is UK people in the UK.
Photo – two brown women (one wearing a hijab) hold a sign saying “NO BORDERS, NO NATIONS. STOP DEPORTATIONS”.
The Irish? Moaning? Say it isn’t so!
“the country’s deputy prime minister has complained.”
Why on earth has he complained? I thought those people enriched us culturally and economically. He should be rubbing his hands with glee at the opportunity we have inadvertently gifted him. Perhaps the “no borders” pro-immigration crowd here in the UK could explain this to him.
The problem is that he’s got to make properties and welfare arrangements for EU refugees under their scheme, but gets no EU credit for those fleeing persecution from the UK (“No. Not a luxury holiday in Rwanda!”)
Meanwhile, some of the Irish plebs have come up with the wheeze of turning up en mass whenever invaders are being deposited in local invasion centres, which results in them having to be taken elsewhere.
If only the Irish government could import a new electorate!?
Just a matter of time, really.
John Galt:
I think we could help the Irish accept the refugees fleeing persecution here by setting up shanty-towns near the ports serving Ireland: Liverpool (who would notice?) Fishguard, Heysham, etc. Then, concerned middle class Irish women could start charities to help them cross the Irish sea, providing them with phones, food, and the occasional bit of rumpy-pumpy. Our coppers could stand back and wave them across.
What about dumping them in a makeshift camp overlooking Holyhead Ferry Terminal on the Isle of Anglesey?
That would give them a real taste of what it means to live in Britain’s rather rainy isles than cooped up in some 4 Star hotel in West London.
Plus if any of them try to escape across the Menai or Britannia Bridge into North Wales, just put them on a bus back to the Holyhead camp.
Sounds a cheaper and more certain arrangement than the Rwanda scheme and it has the added value that it would drive the Welsh Assembly batshit crazy (or crazier, perhaps).
If that fails, do the same in Liverpool and let the local indigenes express their appreciation for the new arrivals.
Finally, Politics has achieved Comedy!
I can see the next move, give them irish citizenship =back to Blighty.
Good piece in the Speccie, if in doubt blame the Brits:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ireland-cant-blame-the-rwanda-plan-for-its-immigration-woes/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020240426%20%20House%20Ads%20%20HT+CID_19a33f99e3f61ad11cc83dce36c7c8ae
“Back of the envelope” is a nice trope, but I thinks she pulled that 80% from a deeper, darker and smellier orifice upon her person.
So the UK is now a not-safe country? Does France know? You ontologically cannot seek asylum from a safe country to a non-safe country. The Republican Nationale Vie Bateu service should be rescuing the canotaux from the Channel and taking their occupants to French Freedom.
jgh @ 5.26.
The French: abide by the rules or offload a problem by ignoring the rules – I wonder which option they choose……..
IIRC, they deport people as and when they like and pay a fine to someone.
If only the British did the same.
(gaffaw!) The Irish Government is considering legislating to declare the UK a “safe country” from which one cannot claim asylum, and will deport applicants back to the UK.
When did the UK become a crowned banana republic?
@Addolff – “Can someone please explain how it is wrong to deport people to Rwanda because it is a dangerous third world shithole”
The reason it is wrong to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is that it is the UK’s responsibility to deal with them. It would be just as wrong a scheme if it was Rwanda attempting to deport its asylum seeker to the UK.
@jgh – “When did the UK become a crowned banana republic?”
The UK is a monarchy – not a republic. As to the other part, have you been watching politics for a the last few years? Missed Boris? And the lettuce?
it might stop the illegals arriving by boat, perhaps, but it won’t solve the problems of migration, which by any measure is official government policy and in great numbers!
“The reason it is wrong to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is that it is the UK’s responsibility to deal with them.”
It might be wrong for many reasons, but the one you give is not one of them.
It absolutely is NOT the UK’s responsibility to deal with them. The only responsibility the HMG has in regards to people arriving illegally on small boats from across the channel is to the actual UK public and it can do that by deporting them straight back to whichever country – all of which are safe – they embarked from in their small boats.
You only have a _duty_ to assess an asylum claim if you are the first safe country where the claimant arrives. That is perfectly obviously not the case.
Deporting the migrants, not the UK public 🙂
Oddly enough Pedant General, the whingers about we beastly Brits dumped from the boats here in Oz over the last couple of centuries never mention our obvious need for asylum.
They merely whine about the poor old abos who we’ve displaced. Of course they don’t mention the 17 million or so others they’ve pushed the government into importing except to complain that we don’t take in enough of them.
@The Pedant-General – “You only have a _duty_ to assess an asylum claim if you are the first safe country where the claimant arrives.”
A common misconception which is obviously wrong when the history of the rules is considered. The duty was agreed at a time when air travel was a rare privilege for the rich, so a “first safe country” rule would have meant that almost all of the burden would have fallen on a few countries neighbouring the problem area. At a time when the British Empire saw itself as a moral leader of the world, that would have been a totally unacceptable outcome. Furthermore, people were very aware of the history of Nazi persecution and genocide when many people fled Germany but were subsequently still made victims as Germany invaded previously safe countries.
The actual rule is that an asylum seeker can travel to anywhere for asylum even if that involves transit through places which are (or appear to be) safe. What they cannot do is accept asylum (even implicitly by settling down) in one country and then move on and apply for asylum elsewhere on the original grounds. i.e. someone who settles down in France cannot invoke the UK’s obligation to accept asylum seekers unless they are unsafe in France, but if they are merely passing through (which the people crossing in small boats clearly are) then they can.
No, you are still getting it wrong.
You’re right about settling in one place and then, without new danger in that place, trying again further on (and obvious reason for the “if further danger” is the experience of those Jews who left Germany in 1933 – 1939 but then were in France in 1941 etc).
However, about choices. Yes, any asylum seeker has the right to seek asylum anywhere. Any country has the right to grant asylum to anyone they desire to. That’s all entirely true.
But only the first safe country *must* grant asylum.
That’s the crucial difference that keeps getting missed. The UK can grant asylum to anyone it likes to. It also refuses a lot of those asylum claims – even though very few then get told to bugger off as a result. The refusal often being that this ain’t that first place. But the UK *must* grant asylum if it’s the first safe place. Which it obviously isn’t for those Channel boats. But might well be for someone landing at Heathrow.
A mate (and coauthor) from Iran is currently going through the process in the US. He probably will get it as he’s sorta connected etc (journalists who’ve been jailed for doing journalism do get a slightly different set of rules. One of his jail stays was for having translated me). But a difficulty is that he went through Spain first.
@Tim Worstall – “But the UK *must* grant asylum if it’s the first safe place. Which it obviously isn’t for those Channel boats.”
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. The exact wording in the convention is “coming directly” and this is considered in 17..20 of the judgement: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/1999/765.html
Note that in 1951, when the convention was drawn up, there would have been extremely few opportunities for asymlum seekers to arrive “directly” in the UK according to your interpretation as air travel was only First Class, extremely expensive, and far fewer routes than we have today.
You appear to deliberately misread me:
(a) “Coming directly ”
17. The respondents accept that a literal construction of “directly” would contravene the clear purpose of the Article and they accordingly accept that this condition can be satisfied even if the refugee passes through intermediate countries on his way to the United Kingdom. But that is only so, they argue, provided that he could not reasonably have been expected to seek protection in any such intermediate country and this will not be the case unless he has actually needed, rather than merely desired, to come to the United Kingdom. In short it is the respondents’ contention that Article 31 allows the refugee no element of choice as to where he should claim asylum. He must claim it where first he may: only considerations of continuing safety would justify impunity for further travel.
18. For my part I would reject this argument. Rather I am persuaded by the applicants’ contrary submission, drawing as it does on the travaux préparatoires, various Conclusions adopted by UNHCR’s executive committee (ExCom), and the writings of well respected academics and commentators (most notably Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, Atle Grahl-Madsen, Professor James Hathaway and Dr Paul Weis), that some element of choice is indeed open to refugees as to where they may properly claim asylum. I conclude that any merely short term stopover en route to such intended sanctuary cannot forfeit the protection of the Article, and that the main touchstones by which exclusion from protection should be judged are the length of stay in the intermediate country, the reasons for delaying there (even a substantial delay in an unsafe third country would be reasonable were the time spent trying to acquire the means of travelling on), and whether or not the refugee sought or found there protection de jure or de facto from the persecution they were fleeing.
19. It is worth quoting in this regard the UNHCR‘s own Guidelines with regard to the Detention of Asylum Seekers:
“The expression ‘coming directly’ in Article 31(1) covers the situation of a person who enters the country in which asylum is sought directly from the country of origin, or from another country where his protection, safety and security could not be assured. It is understood that this term also covers a person who transits an intermediate country for a short period of time without having applied for, or received, asylum there. No strict time limit can be applied to the concept ‘coming directly’ and each case must be judged on its merits.”
20. Having regard to Article 35(1) of the Convention, it seems to me that such Guidelines should be accorded considerable weight. Article 35(1) provides:
“The contracting States undertake to cooperate with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, … in the exercise of its functions and shall in particular facilitate its duty of supervising the application of the provisions of this Convention.”
Everyone agrees that first safe place government must grant asylum. After intermediate stays “each case must be judged on its merits” which I am saying is a “may”.
I am mystified as to how you can read that judgement and then say something that contradicts it.
“For my part I would reject this argument.” … ” I conclude that any merely short term stopover en route to such intended sanctuary cannot forfeit the protection of the Article”
– “Everyone agrees that first safe place government must grant asylum.”
Yes, but that’s deceptive as it can be interpreted to mean that only the first safe place must grant asylum. In fact, the place which must grant asylum is the first place where it is applied for, unless unusual circumstances apply such as the applicant having previously settled in a safe country. It seems pretty clear to me that migrants living in camps in France awaiting a chance to cross the Channel have not, and do not intend to, apply for asylum nor settle in France, so that alone is not sufficient to deny their claims.