Brexit: Now What? Part II

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Airfix said:
I voted to leave the EU, there wasn't an immigration box on the form.
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The people who asked for your vote were pretty clear. The result of your vote is pretty clear. No point trying to disown the consequences of your actions. You made the problem worse not better.
 
We should either tow the boats back to Libya or, if that's not possible, just leave them to their own devices.

Either approach would discourage the flow of migrants and so reduce the number of deaths caused by traffickers packing them onto dangerously overloaded boats.
 
Airfix said:
More patrols from EU states do not stop traffickers sticking people in dangerously unseaworthy vessels.

Action in the countries affected would. And that is what we should be moving towards. Obviously there's a little bit of that, but not enough.
Currently things are at "breaking point".

There shouldn't be one trafficker vessel crossing the Mediterranean.
All developed countries not torn apart by war need to get together with the UNHCR build camps in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Israel, to process asylum applications and transport safely, refugees to safe countries.
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I assume you'll be withdrawing your assertion that the EU is doing nothing then?
 
Aepervius said:
Yeah and he was "seating" on the fishery EU meeting group and getting paid for it, while NEVER attending any of those meeting.
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Now that's no quite true; Garage only missed 41 of the 42 meetings. He attended one because I believe part of his salary was in danger if he didn't. He never once voted on fishery issues.
 
ceptimus said:
We should either tow the boats back to Libya or, if that's not possible, just leave them to their own devices.

Either approach would discourage the flow of migrants and so reduce the number of deaths caused by traffickers packing them onto dangerously overloaded boats.
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Utter bollocks. Passengers and traffickers have already amply demonstrated that they don't care about the risks. And what you propose is probably illegal under maritime laws.
 
catsmate said:
Now that's no quite true; Garage only missed 41 of the 42 meetings. He attended one because I believe part of his salary was in danger if he didn't. He never once voted on fishery issues.
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And if Airfix had listened to the youtube video I posted with Guy Verhofstadt's rant, he'd know. I'm not at all surprised that Farage now is upset that Verhofstadt was appointed to be the EP's liaison for Brexit.
 
Airfix said:
There shouldn't be one trafficker vessel crossing the Mediterranean.
All developed countries not torn apart by war need to get together with the UNHCR build camps in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Israel, to process asylum applications and transport safely, refugees to safe countries.
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You are aware that Lebanon has a population of about 5 million, of which about 500,000 are Palestinian refugees mostly living in camps? You are aware that Lebanon already gives shelter to 1 to 1.5 million Syrian refugees? Jordan has an even smaller population, but with a larger share of Palestinian refugees, and though substantially larger than Lebanon, it's 95% desert.

(I'm too lazy to look up the precise numbers; feel free to correct me, the precise numbers will validate the overall picture).

I'm irked by the whining from the UK side to even take up some tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. There's a brutal civil war raging there, The millions of people who flee that simply can't all be taken up by the region. Ms. Merkel has be so brave to say that Germany will take up 800,000. France and the Netherlands are also pulling their weight, and Sweden is doing more than that. When Ms. Merkel called on the European states to all pull their weight, it was again the UK that was one of the most vocal opponents and managed to scupper any form of agreement on quotas and refuses to pull their weight.

Really, this is all a load of waffle to disguise the indisputable fact that the EU has to take care of a significant share of those Syrian refugees. That's our humanitarian obligation, and I commend Angela Merkel for sticking out her neck for doing so, even if she has backtracked a bit since then. She rightfully got the Four Freedoms Award last year, and I'd raise the glass if she got the Nobel Peace Prize for it.

Likewise, I would have voted for Guy Verhofstadt if I'd had a separate vote for President of the European Commission. Note that my general political outlook is slightly to the left of the late Tony Benn. But continental right-wingers generally do not scoff at the ECHR, do not scoff at human rights, do not want to revert to sweatshops or abolish all workers' protections, unlike the Tories.

For full disclosure: I've been drinking before posting this. Belgian beer over dinner, Drambuie and French cognac over coffee. That's European spirit! ;)
 
GlennB said:
Utter bollocks. Passengers and traffickers have already amply demonstrated that they don't care about the risks. And what you propose is probably illegal under maritime laws.
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Well you're obviously wrong about the legality - there's no legal requirement for our boats to be patrolling that area in the first place.

My post never mentioned the intentions or motivation of the traffickers. My point is that the migrants (the customers of the traffickers) are more likely to buy their passage in the expectation that they will be 'rescued' and taken safely to Europe. If the migrants thought that there were a much greater chance of drowning or otherwise not surviving the journey then there would be many fewer of them attempting the crossing.
 
ddt said:
For full disclosure: I've been drinking before posting this. Belgian beer over dinner, Drambuie and French cognac over coffee. That's European spirit! ;)
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Drambuie is like hair lacquer.
 
ceptimus said:
My post never mentioned the intentions or motivation of the traffickers. My point is that the migrants (the customers of the traffickers) are more likely to buy their passage in the expectation that they will be 'rescued' and taken safely to Europe. If the migrants thought that there were a much greater chance of drowning or otherwise not surviving the journey then there would be many fewer of them attempting the crossing.
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They're desperate and will do anything, as we have seen countless times. The 'deterrent' of not being rescued when in deep trouble is virtually non-existent. What's even more disturbing is that someone might envisage a strategy that cheerfully leaves them to drown.
 
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Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie
Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns
Holding their own last orders commanding attention
We sit here and listen to all of the story so far
This is the story so far
 
GlennB said:
They're desperate and will do anything, as we have seen countless times. The 'deterrent' of not being rescued when in deep trouble is virtually non-existent. What's even more disturbing is that someone might envisage a strategy that cheerfully leaves them to drown.
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Sometimes you have to be callous to be kind.
 
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