The lesson is… dont report it
If you are one of the lucky people who haven’t had their lives decimated by more austerity, more benefits cuts, interspersed by bouts of meaningless ‘essential’ work (such as stacking shelves) on a zero hours contract, good for you. You can have the luxury of taking that attitude, and feel good about yourself while you do so.
But, genuinely with the best will of the world, when you are looking at not far off a London a decade, immigration is simply not sustainable. Ignoring this reality pushes Reform towards power.
You should watch Gary Stevenson on YouTube. The problem is wealth going to the rich. Immigration is the ruse.
I am aware of this, however, the reality on the ground is exactly as I described.
Nobody is going to fix capitalism in the time frame available, so deal with the world as it is, not as any of us would like it to be.
Speaking as a Brit, though, it is not generally the Londoners who are complaining about the immigration.
It is the rural counties, who get the least of it. Speaking from experience, as someone living in a county that is (as per the 2021 census) counted as 95.2% White British, and yet has a strong Reform showing, and having to deal with countless friends and relatives complaining about “the immigrants”. The ones that simply don’t exist here.
It helps put into proper context that Reform’s popularity in many places is more cultural than demographic - based on feelings more than facts.
You can argue that immigration is a legitimate problem, but you should also have an answer to give in regards to people like the ones in my local area, whose view of immigration isn’t representative of any sort of lived reality, but is completely manufactured. People like the ones in my locality rightly delegitimise concerns about immigration for many people, because it shows how people can irrationally fear it without any experience of it at all. It shows how concern is often an issue of false perceptions, rather than being grounded in reality.
The cost to public services harms everyone. Unskilled rural labour has absolutely been hammered by immigration. ('they do the jobs British people won’t do! (Actually we don’t want anybody doing that work for that pay.)
I have no idea why you specify London. I only used the ‘not far off a London a decade’ as an illustration that every reasonable person will agree shows that the level of immigration is unsustainable. Please don’t make me waste my time having to respond to silly comments.
The cost to public services harms everyone. Unskilled rural labour has absolutely been hammered by immigration. ('they do the jobs British people won’t do! (Actually we don’t want anybody doing that work for that pay.)
Whether correct or not, you seem to be entirely ignoring the point made: I am talking about populations of people who have scarcely seen an immigrant in their life (that is to say, not competing locally with immigrants for jobs), complaining that there are “too many immigrants”.
I stated I lived in a rural county - this is true - but I live in the county town of this county, population of >100,000. From my lived experience, I am not talking about the most rural parts of the county, but a decently sized urban area. As with most county towns, the immigrant population is slightly higher here than the overall county figures - we are over 93.5% White British according to the 2021 UK census.
Furthermore, I work for a payroll bureau (a job I would recommend to everyone, personally; I would also recommend internal payroll, in-house for a national company, which I worked in before this) - I have direct firsthand experience of hundreds of clients within the local economy, and could tell you firsthand the proportion of immigrants working in those jobs and the pay differentials between people of similar positions.
From where I’m sitting day after day (seeing the names and backgrounds of many employees working across many local businesses), there is no “immigration problem” within my local area, but that doesn’t change the people who are perceiving there is an immigration problem.
I don’t know your situation (maybe there are more immigrants where you live), but when I see the people around me living in a false reality where they feel anxious about what are effectively boogeymen that only exist in their minds - where they are scared and stressed about something nonexistent - I consider that a problem. It’s a problem of internal beliefs having no basis in reality - a problem of mass-delusion. The solution isn’t to “get rid” of the tiniest of tiny minorities that these people have never had any exposure to or threat from to begin with; the solution (as with anyone deluded) should be to address that false belief itself and seek to ground that person more in reality. People are very clearly living not as materialists, but idealists - they are imposing their ideas on the actual world, and using their ideas to colour their judgement of how the world is - and this is a problem, as the world simply does not reflect those beliefs, yet it isn’t stopping people holding them. In this sort of atmosphere, there are no guardrails to prevent anyone believing any sort of fantasy.
Unskilled rural labour has absolutely been hammered by immigration. ('they do the jobs British people won’t do! (Actually we don’t want anybody doing that work for that pay.)
A member of my family is in a building trade. When he started, he was a labourer, bottom of the heap. He observed that most of the Brits on the crew with long Brit ancestry were work-shy and bolshy. The only people he respected were the Poles and Romanians. They showed up every day, did the job and didn’t constantly moan. Now almost all of them have returned to their home countries, or at least have stopped working in England.
Working-class white “true Brits” learned a bad habit during the Empire: assuming there was always someone else to do the dirty work: an Irishman, someone from somewhere in the Empire, or (more recently) an Eastern European. It’s entitlement, pure and simple, and a passivity when it comes to improving one’s lot in life.
My family member has moved up rapidly in his trade and is now in education to move up the food chain even further. His British friends who started with him as apprentices have now moved on to faking disability, dealing drugs, stealing things, or remain at the bottom of the heap.
Exploitation is a problem. But so is the learned helplessness and the entitled sense of being too good to put any effort into working or learning.
Want really pushes Reforms power is believing that immigrants in some way make it harder for you to find a job. Of course they don’t, that’s bullshit. Companies like Tesco’s are not allowed to hire people who aren’t documented, and the thing is, they don’t. Literally no one ever has lost their job because a company hired an immigrant at bargain in basement wages, it doesn’t happen.
You just believe it happens because you believe Nigel.
If you were going to berate people you really should look up what you’re talking about.
Also
when you are looking at not far off a London a decade, immigration is simply not sustainable.
What on Earth does that mean?
Want really pushes Reforms power is believing that immigrants in some way make it harder for you to find a job.
One of Reform’s most committed voting bloc is pensioners, who aren’t competing with anyone for jobs. Instead they’re down the pub, nursing their half-pints and having a whinge about the travellers, the South Asians who are smarter and work harder than them, the West Indians, and everyone else but themselves. They’re my age (I’m nearly 70), and I can’t stand the miserable bastards.
I don’t believe Nigel Farage for one second.
There is absolutely no doubt that immigration has battered poor, former working class people in the UK. From perfectly decent people of Eastern European origin taking the role of scab labour, undermining pay and conditions, leading to the misery of zero hours contracts, to difficulty getting any unskilled work, to the ‘benefits’ system and healthcare being absolutely hammered.
This simply isn’t sustainable.
The coming climate refugee crisis will make this look like a picnic. The line is going to be drawn, it is only a matter of when. We have missed all of the chances to minimise the impact of climate change, and help developing world countries achieve a demographic transition to a low birth rate future, without exploiting their fossil fuel reserves. It is too late.
Net migration to June 2024: 728,000. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/
Multiply that by ten gives you 7.28 million - nearly the number of people in London. This is primary school maths. You have wasted my time once, I will not have it wasted again.
And for the record, I am believing Oxford University, the link I provided, not Nigel Farage. Who are you believing? (This is a rhetorical question, I am not interested in an answer.)
I know that people want to feel good about themselves, and they also want a high consumption lifestyle (that is most contributing now to the future climate change refugee crisis). Political liberalism covers the hard fist of neo-liberal economics with a soft and fuzzy veneer of socially liberal policy. Neo-liberals don’t want to feel racist while consuming an amount that destroys others. Unfortunately for many people in countries like the UK, neo-liberalism’s sell by date is passing. The result in our case is the rise of Reform, Trump, and other far right parties across Europe.
You all just assume that is what I want. In fact I want the opposite.
You are currently incapable of dealing, or unwilling to deal with reality. This inability or unwillingness is contributing directly the Reform’s rise to power. This need to feel good about yourself while not only failing to be adult enough to deal with reality, while at the same time insulting and making incorrect assumptions about me is genuinely pathetic. You are an embarrassment. Most won’t be able to learn so the rise of the far right it is very likely to be. Well done.
You are currently incapable of dealing, or unwilling to deal with reality.
An ironic statement from somebody who is so goddamn stupid but they believe right-wing talking points and then claim I don’t like right-wing retric, despite clearly slurping it up.
There is absolutely no doubt that immigration has battered poor, former working class people in the UK. From perfectly decent people of Eastern European origin taking the role of scab labour, undermining pay and conditions, leading to the misery of zero hours contracts, to difficulty getting any unskilled work, to the ‘benefits’ system and healthcare being absolutely hammered.
Yeah bollocks. Immigration has nothing to do with lack of low skilled jobs.
Exported labour is the huge cost. The UK simply not making thing in the UK. Immigration is nothing but distraction.
The whole argument that less available staff increases wages collapse when other nations have lower cost labour.
All reducing staff dose is make the UK as a whole less competitive cost wise. And move even more low skilled jobs to other cheaper nations.
The immigration debate is nothing but a wealthy business owners tactic to stop voters recognising the real problem.
Immigrants didn’t do that to us, Nige. Look it up.
I’m sure Farage knows it’s a lie. I don’t think he believes his own bullshit the same way that Trump does. Farage is a cynical, manipulative weasel, not a bellowing idiot.
Yeah if there is no proof that you transported the kid, why report it. Its not like he did it on accident, just pretend you didnt see anything.
I read this as the Home Office sending a message to people like this couple. They almost certainly know it’s unfair and they may even lose on appeal but they have successfully highlighted the importance for people who travel into the UK to be bloody careful in checking their vehicles (including exterior bicycle bags, if the couple’s claims are true). The downside is that should someone sneak onto a vehicle successfully from now on the chance of them not being reported has risen a bit. There’s also a point to be made I think about the media latching onto this story because they love anything controversial to do with immigration. The other thing I wonder about is the life that boy must have led to get him to a point where he would do such a bold and dangerous thing. Brings home what a cushy life I had when I was 16.
I’m conflicted on this.
On the one hand, this is harsh, the couple clearly had no ill intent, and £1500 seems like a large fine for negligence (although I’m unaware how wealthy the couple is)
But at the same time, if you remove the fine for negligently smuggling illegal immigrants into the country, it will be weaponised by criminals.
I’m not familiar with the process of driving across the channel. Is it drilled into you, multiple times, that you must check your vehicle? If not, it really should be.
I actually know their son, he is the bartender in a pub a frequent, they are not a wealthy family. I met his dad once when he came in to see him, nice bloke.
The problem is that they found them and reported them, then still got fined!
That encourages people to not report it, hell, it discourages checking… Because if you find someone and report it you get fined!
But if you remove the penalty, the criminals will report it and face no consequences.
But this existing system also clearly discourages legitimate people from reporting stowaways.
It’s a mess without an easy solution.
Why would they report it and attract attention to themselves if the fine was removed?
I guess it would enable 1 off recruits, do it once get paid and then report it to be legally clear…
Yeah exactly, gives them a bit more plausible deniability if a camera or witness picks up on it
But I really don’t know how well policed the channel even is, I’ve never been. Perhaps this is all unnecessary.
There are huge metal fences all around the port facility. Far taller than seems practical.
This guy must have snuck in before they entered the port there’s no way they could have got into the port on foot. Which means he’s been in there for a while so they claim that they checked their vehicle just before they entered the port, which is what you’re supposed to do. They clearly didn’t because they would have found this guy otherwise.
Their claim seems to rest on the idea that he gained access to the motorhome after they entered the port (which definitely would be the responsibility of the port authorities), which is extraordinarily unlikely. After you enter the port there’s an awful lot of hanging around especially now Brexit has broken everything, so you often do leave your vehicle. But there is an enormous amount of security wandering around so there’s no problem doing that and also you lock your vehicle. But all that security presupposes that you didn’t enter with a compromised vehicle. They don’t x-ray every vehicle, only lorrys, so if somebody gets in before you enter the port, they’re basically guaranteed not to be discovered.
Not a fan of the headline, a hit misleading in my opinion. They were fined for negligence as they did not search and secure their own motorhome properly before travelling.
The couple seemingly want to blame the port authorities for not searching their motorhome fully.
I look at this like a traveller in an airport - I am responsible for what’s in my bags, for packing them, securing them and ensuring there is nothing illegal in them.
Its the same if youre travelling through ports in cars, lorries or motorhomes. They are being fined for allowing this to happen by not taking basic precautions like securing the bike storage andn checking over their vehicle.
If they had done this, then even if it had still happened they couldn’t be accused of negligence.
I look at this like a traveller in an airport - I am responsible for what’s in my bags, for packing them, securing them and ensuring there is nothing illegal in them.
There have been many miscarriages of justice that were the result of someone skilfully slipping something into a traveller’s bag. It is unrealistic to think that a bit of vigilance is all that’s needed. If that were the case, there’d be no pickpockets and mobile-phone thieves.
The stowaway was on the outside. Therefore could have attached after they checked. I doubt very much that it’s practical to require constant vigilance from all travellers at all times (do travellers need to hire temporary guards for their vehicles when going to the toilet in order to comply with this law?)
Also, ignoring that, it’s braindead to not make an exception when the people in question self-report and fix the issue, it’s directly undermining the goals to punish people for vigilance (even belated vigilance).
But ignoring all of that, the law (or implementation) is flawed. The stated goal of the law is to discourage negligence, but negligence needs to be measured against a fair yardstick like “could a reasonable person catch this easily”, not just “were you smarter than whoever tried to hide on your vehicle?”. Defining negligence competitively like they seem to be doing isn’t reasonable and I hope these people win and force the law to be interpreted more judiciously. Next they’ll be fining old ladies who get scammed for “negligently supporting criminals financially”.
Clearly what should have happened is that the stowaways should be granted asylum and the motorhome couple should be paid £1000s for their services in helping these desperate people to the UK. /s
