Shafted by the French again.....
Discussion
www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/2887445?source=Evening%20Standard
We take all their refugees so that they can close the samned place.. and they open it again a mile up the road.. un-effin-believable..
Brilliant... can barely bring myself to deal with this nonsense today but it looks like Blunketts allowed the French to stick it to us again...
New Sangatte opens in Calais
David Blunkett's deal to close Sangatte camp was in tatters today after an almost identical centre opened in its place.
A new refuge - dubbed Son of Sangatte - has been created only three weeks after the French shut down the old centre, a notorious stop-off for bogus asylum seekers sneaking into Britain.
Like its predecessor it offers food, clothing and shelter to about 1,000 migrants still loitering in the region.
Many staff from Sangatte, which has been bulldozed, have simply transferred to the new centre - as have hundreds of asylum seekers, with their sights set on slipping over the channel.
The refuge, in the centre of Calais, was opened by the French Red Cross on "humanitarian" grounds. It is even closer to the town's ferry ports and the Eurostar terminal than Sangatte.
It is a blow to the Home Secretary's deal with French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy which was supposed to see asylum seekers banished from the region. Mr Blunkett agreed to take 1,000 into Britain and impose tougher controls as his side of the bargain.
In return, Mr Sarkozy promised to close Sangatte, round up migrants from the Calais area and bus them to camps away from the cross-channel ports and railway.
Despite this, French authorities in the Calais region have allowed the new SAMU centre in Calais to start helping migrants sleeping rough in the town.
Local police claim they do not have the resources to move every immigrant from the streets - and say dozens more are flooding into Calais every day hoping to hide aboard a ferry or channel tunnel train.
A police spokesman said: "We do not have enough officers to spend all day herding up refugees and bussing them off to reception centres. There are perhaps up to 1,000 of them spread over a very wide area and many are hiding from us."
A spokesman for prefect Cyrille Schott, head of the region's government, said: "We are trying hard to stick to our deal with Britain. We have moved 1,500 refugees out of Calais since Sangatte closed, and shift a few more each day. The refuge is only open to stop these people suffering from cold hunger during the winter."
This is exactly the same reason France gave for allowing Sangatte to open three years ago. But unlike 1999, migrants this winter have no need to starve in Calais, when they can take a free bus to a reception centre 50 miles away.
Calais Red Cross chief Hugues de Diesbach said: "We have no intention of allowing this refuge to become another Sangatte. It has been set up on purely humanitarian grounds to help whoever needs us, regardless of their race, colour, nationality or status."
A spokesman for Mr Blunkett said: "We are checking this out."
We take all their refugees so that they can close the samned place.. and they open it again a mile up the road.. un-effin-believable..
I am not in the least little bit surprised by this.
Recall the Navy, I think it's time to blockade the ports and dynamite the tunnel.
Slim chance the feeble minded liberal elite will listen though.
Andy 400se
Edited to add: You can't blame the French for doing this though, after all if you take your pants down and bend over in front of them (as Blunkett did) you run the real risk of getting fcuked (as we are now).
Imagine how much they laughed when the great "Sangatte closure" deal was trumpeted by Blunkett, Bliar and co. I'm embarrassed the Govt was SOOO naieve!
>> Edited by andymadmak on Monday 13th January 15:47
Recall the Navy, I think it's time to blockade the ports and dynamite the tunnel.
Slim chance the feeble minded liberal elite will listen though.
Andy 400se
Edited to add: You can't blame the French for doing this though, after all if you take your pants down and bend over in front of them (as Blunkett did) you run the real risk of getting fcuked (as we are now).
Imagine how much they laughed when the great "Sangatte closure" deal was trumpeted by Blunkett, Bliar and co. I'm embarrassed the Govt was SOOO naieve!
>> Edited by andymadmak on Monday 13th January 15:47
I thought your little article says the Red Cross opened the centre, not the French government. Small point, but you suggest it's the French govt thumbing their nose, which is somewhat misleading.
Bottom line is if there are thousands of people hanging about in Calais, centre or no centre it doesn't make much difference. You can argue that if theres a humanitarian centre then you can keep tabs on the occupants, if there isn't one you don't even know where they are / how many there are.
Given that most of these people have travelled thousands of miles in terrible conditions to reach France, closing Sangatte and not having a refugee centre for them to sleep in 20 miles from their intended destination was never going to stop the problem.
Bottom line is if there are thousands of people hanging about in Calais, centre or no centre it doesn't make much difference. You can argue that if theres a humanitarian centre then you can keep tabs on the occupants, if there isn't one you don't even know where they are / how many there are.
Given that most of these people have travelled thousands of miles in terrible conditions to reach France, closing Sangatte and not having a refugee centre for them to sleep in 20 miles from their intended destination was never going to stop the problem.
Agree with you up to a point Mr_Tony, but...
i) The French government (be that local or national) must have approved the plan to open the centre, before we'd even finished receiving the 1000 or so people we took off them.
ii) There is free transport for people to get to the nearest french refugee centre, 50 miles away..
So yes, the Red Cross opened this camp but you don't think they did so in defiance of the French Govt do you?
i) The French government (be that local or national) must have approved the plan to open the centre, before we'd even finished receiving the 1000 or so people we took off them.
ii) There is free transport for people to get to the nearest french refugee centre, 50 miles away..
So yes, the Red Cross opened this camp but you don't think they did so in defiance of the French Govt do you?
Well if I were living in Calais I'd be pi55ed about 100s of illegals sleeping in my shed and stealing my washing. What would you do as the local council? The people will still arrive, centre or no centre. We can't let them starve/freeze to death.
While our own ports let these people in and let them loose across the UK they will keep coming. The problem is ours, not that of France. We should be much much more strict with immigrants and have a less generous welfare system. I'm all for people trying for a better life/escaping persecution - heck, I would try to get into the UK if I were them - who'd want to live with the French? (joke).
While our own ports let these people in and let them loose across the UK they will keep coming. The problem is ours, not that of France. We should be much much more strict with immigrants and have a less generous welfare system. I'm all for people trying for a better life/escaping persecution - heck, I would try to get into the UK if I were them - who'd want to live with the French? (joke).
Now off on a slight tangent.........
How about letting as many 'imigrants' as we can into this country on the understanding they are conscrpted into the forces and sent off to fight Sadam
Kills 2 birds with one stone, gets rid of the dodgy tached one, and saves our boys from fighting in the sand
How about letting as many 'imigrants' as we can into this country on the understanding they are conscrpted into the forces and sent off to fight Sadam
Kills 2 birds with one stone, gets rid of the dodgy tached one, and saves our boys from fighting in the sand
CarZee said:Can't or won't?
trefor said:We can't let them starve/freeze to death.
The fact is that they know this and they know that whatever they do, we adhere to our so called duty of care to them....
We're being exploited by cynical spongers... but then we elected them
I have to agree with you on this one.
There is a certain morality that pervades most of the western world that we wouldnt simply let someone freeze / starve in the street.
Lets look at this another way. How many homeless people are there in the UK?
In Europe?
People die every day as a result of delayed NHS treatment, yet we allow people with serious, expensive to treat conditions into the UK (HIV/AIDS for example) and treat them as a priority case.
Shouldnt we have an obligation to house, feed and care for our own people before we help others?
There is no suprise that people want to live here rather than in the third world, or in countries wracked by war and famine.
If they wish to claim "political asylum", then why cant they do it in europe? Its a "safe" place.
We are simply too easy a target.
We're being exploited by cynical spongers
Maybe so, but bottom line as I see it is that the red cross are right, ok you can tell the people to go to centres away from the routes into the UK, but it can't work.
These people have travelled usually for months in the back of vans hiding in ditches or being suffocated in container lorries often under armed guard by unscrupulous types.
Having to sleep rough for a couple of weeks in calais is not really a deterrent to any of them, so they'll be there sleeping on the pavements whether you like it or not.
If you don't want the whole of calais swarmning with refugees looing for places to sleep and anoying the locals, you've got no choice but to provide somewhere to contain them.
Just taking the tent away will never solve the problem.
In the long run you have two choices :
1. Turn the English channel into a no go area, mine the whole english coastline, issue ID cards to all citizens and encourage random spot checks. Up transport security to paranoid levels and increase journey times considerably and double the national police budget to cope with the above.
2. Try and look at the countries involved in the highest levels of migration and try and work with those countries to stem the tide at source. Either by economic aid, investment or by trying to improve the human rights situations in those countries.
These are your options, neither is likely to be 100% sucessful.
Becoming a 'Nazi Police State' would decrease the quality of life for us all. Ok you might have less 'undesirables' but everyone suffers such that the whole reason for living here in the first place (freedom, democracy, liberty, rights etc) is voided.
Option two is a long term solution and will take years to have an impact. It will work and has worked successfully in the past, but it takes a long time.
My bottom line is that you can't keep people out in the end, you have to try to work at making it unnecessary to come by making what they want to come here for available across the world.
trefor said: We can't let them starve/freeze to death.
Why not, they have obviously got the resources to get here. That should surely include sufficient warm clothes. Oh but hang on it says in the sponging bastards guide to britain all clothing, etc will be provided along with a properly centrally heated house and a cheque once a month no questions asked.
As an aside how many 'asylum seekers' live in different areas. In South Yorkshire there are areas that are like little kosovo.
I have seen some kosovans in the local Asda buy a 21" telly with food vouchers and return it without leaving the shop. They then take the refund in cash. Taking the piss to a certain degree methinks.
I have seen some kosovans in the local Asda buy a 21" telly with food vouchers and return it without leaving the shop. They then take the refund in cash. Taking the piss to a certain degree methinks.
Yeah, well blame the government for giving food vouchers, just makes the whole thing a complete farce.
Done purely so the papers coundn't say they were handing out cash to refugees. Administration cost of the vouchers has got to be significantly higher than giving cash, so it ends up costing more to us the tax payer, purely to keep the mathematically inept Daily Mail readers quiet....
mr_tony said:
We're being exploited by cynical spongers
Maybe so, but bottom line as I see it is that the red cross are right, ok you can tell the people to go to centres away from the routes into the UK, but it can't work.
These people have travelled usually for months in the back of vans hiding in ditches or being suffocated in container lorries often under armed guard by unscrupulous types.
Having to sleep rough for a couple of weeks in calais is not really a deterrent to any of them, so they'll be there sleeping on the pavements whether you like it or not.
If you don't want the whole of calais swarmning with refugees looing for places to sleep and anoying the locals, you've got no choice but to provide somewhere to contain them.
Just taking the tent away will never solve the problem.
In the long run you have two choices :
1. Turn the English channel into a no go area, mine the whole english coastline, issue ID cards to all citizens and encourage random spot checks. Up transport security to paranoid levels and increase journey times considerably and double the national police budget to cope with the above.
2. Try and look at the countries involved in the highest levels of migration and try and work with those countries to stem the tide at source. Either by economic aid, investment or by trying to improve the human rights situations in those countries.
These are your options, neither is likely to be 100% sucessful.
Becoming a 'Nazi Police State' would decrease the quality of life for us all. Ok you might have less 'undesirables' but everyone suffers such that the whole reason for living here in the first place (freedom, democracy, liberty, rights etc) is voided.
Option two is a long term solution and will take years to have an impact. It will work and has worked successfully in the past, but it takes a long time.
My bottom line is that you can't keep people out in the end, you have to try to work at making it unnecessary to come by making what they want to come here for available across the world.
Sorry, but this is rubbish. You can keep them out by stopping them from wanting to come here in the first place. The reason they come here is for the handouts. So stop the handouts. We don't owe these people anything, either here or at their place of origin.
Just a though, but do the french not have any border controls?
They are harbouring large numbers of people who presumably have no Visa or other legal instrument for legally entering France.
Why the hell dont they deport these people instead of sitting back and letting them enter the UK illegally?
(thats a rhetorical question, we all know why...)
They are harbouring large numbers of people who presumably have no Visa or other legal instrument for legally entering France.
Why the hell dont they deport these people instead of sitting back and letting them enter the UK illegally?
(thats a rhetorical question, we all know why...)
mr_tony said:ah - out of context quotation - I was talking about the politicians....
We're being exploited by cynical spongersso what did Blunkett do the deal for if the reality would always be that they'd setup shop again within weeks?
Just taking the tent away will never solve the problem.Well yes, but people are coming through several other 'safe' countries and those safe countries are, I believe, compicit in moving asylum seekers towards the UK rather than handling the problem theirselves, being as the French and Germans both have their own immigration problems, I imagine they're only too happy to offload this political hot-potato on us..
My bottom line is that you can't keep people out in the end, you have to try to work at making it unnecessary to come by making what they want to come here for available across the world.
We're not being exploited by asylum seekers, we're being exploited by European and UK governments.
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