The Bibby Stockholm!

[Count Steer]

I wonder what happened in 2020 that made the numbers higher than any previous year?

Got to love a bit of 'taking back control' eh? I don't suppose that played into the people smugglers hands at all.

[Dodgy69]

Reckon a few more 24 hr surveillance cams on the French border hot spot's wouldn't do any harm. Scramble the border cops. Big injection for the traffickers. Job done.

[Mussels]

I wonder what happened in 2020 that made the numbers higher than any previous year?

Got to love a bit of 'taking back control' eh? I don't suppose that played into the people smugglers hands at all.

That looks like 2022 to me, nothing to do with Brexit.

[KungFooBob]

On the radio just now they said that the Dutch use them for homing immigrants too along with another European county that I didn't catch.

They're also used to home workers in the petrochemical industry.

So I guess they can't be that bad on board?

[mangocrazy]

It's full name is the 'Bibby Stockholm Syndrome', where you learn to love your prison boat...

[Mussels]

On the radio just now they said that the Dutch use them for homing immigrants too along with another European county that I didn't catch.

They're also used to home workers in the petrochemical industry.

So I guess they can't be that bad on board?

They look a hell of a lot more comfortable than a warship.

[KungFooBob]

Probably more spacious than a Japanese capsule hotel.

[Yorick]

I've heard loads of folk moaning about it. Wonder how many have actually seen it for themselves?

[Count Steer]

I wonder what happened in 2020 that made the numbers higher than any previous year?

Got to love a bit of 'taking back control' eh? I don't suppose that played into the people smugglers hands at all.

That looks like 2022 to me, nothing to do with Brexit.

Well, you'd hardly expect there not to be a bit of a lag. It is after all the number granted asylum. As we know, it's not a quick process any more.

[Ant]

[Hoonercat]

It's a Tory problem?

Screenshot 2023-08-09 at 11.14.48 AM.png

The last Labour government encouraged and rewarded 'asylum seeking' so much that they created a whole new industry for international organised crime. Look at the stats, Labour come into power, the numbers skyrocket, the only thing that slowed it down is the 2009 crash and a change of government, but it was too late, it was allowed to become an industry worth billions of dollars.

The problem with the Conservatives is that they've been unable to stuff the genie back into the bottle.
It's never going to go away now, the more resources any government throws at it the more the criminal gangs will step up the pace.

I'm assuming this site is quoting total figures (1960 to 2022)? Seems to be miles off the figures quoted by the UK Govt.
According to the chart

2021 was 137,078
2022 was 328,989

According to Gov.UK, the numbers for 2021 was 14,734, 2022 was 23,841

[Count Steer]

I'm assuming this site is quoting total figures (1960 to 2022)? Seems to be miles off the figures quoted by the UK Govt.
According to the chart

2021 was 137,078
2022 was 328,989

According to Gov.UK, the numbers for 2021 was 14,734, 2022 was 23,841

Well, it doesn't actually say it's UK only on the chart.

[Kneerly Down]

The Conservatives sacked a load of the staff who did the processing and now the backlog is absolutely huge. Thats the Conservatives fault, process them and a vast majority could now be in work and contributing to the economy instead of being held in a situation where turning to crime is their only way to make money.

Is it really the case that the Conservatives have culled the number of staff?
That doesn't seem to tally with the 62% increase in caseworkers from 2011/12 to 2021/22

Despite a 62% increase in caseworkers from 2011/12 to 2021/22, decision making rates have decreased by the same amount in this period. And in December 2022, there were 1,237 caseworkers who made an average of four asylum decisions per month per staff member, compared to 380 caseworkers with a productivity rate of 13.7 decisions in 2011/12.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org. ... um-backlog

The UK grants asylum to c.75% of claimants compared to 34% in the EU. Is it just we have a much better class of asylum seeker or is the UK an easier place to get a positive decision?...eventually.

[DefTrap]

It's gold isn't it when you find a problem 'caused by someone else' and then find every excuse possible for avoiding sorting it out, or use increasingly vague, expensive or ridiculous solutions.

[Mussels]

It's gold isn't it when you find a problem 'caused by someone else' and then find every excuse possible for avoiding sorting it out, or use increasingly vague, expensive or ridiculous solutions.

And frustrating when the people who caused the problem are still trying to block any attempts to fix it.

[Ant]

It's the whim of a Guardian reader....throw accusations and conspiracy theories around and wait for the ball to stop bouncing, whilst expecting everyone else to pick up the tab.

[mangocrazy]

You'd have to be especially mental to want the people in your communities to be so poor and disenfranchised that they constantly vote erratically to express their displeasure. I've never met a rich person that wants all their neighbours (i.e. people in their town) to be poor, it's a complete fallacy.

I don't believe that either, but what I do think is that the very rich simply have no concept of what it's like to be genuinely poor. How could they? They don't mix with them at all; their social circle consists entirely of people with similar wealth. They probably regard the 'less rich' or the 'middle classes' as being poor. They have no concept of being so poor that even finding the money for the necessities of life is a major stuggle, or not even possible.

[mangocrazy]

I don't believe that either, but what I do think is that the very rich simply have no concept of what it's like to be genuinely poor. How could they? They don't mix with them at all; their social circle consists entirely of people with similar wealth. They probably regard the 'less rich' or the 'middle classes' as being poor. They have no concept of being so poor that even finding the money for the necessities of life is a major stuggle, or not even possible.

You may be right.
And if you are right then quite naturally there must be another end to that spectrum, there must be poor people that have no idea what it's like to be rich, their social circle consists entirely of people with similar circumstances, so they make up assumptions that rich people must be out to get them, or want to disadvantage them in some way, or some sort of conspiracy, when IME it's quite unlikely to be the case.

I don't think many people spend much time trying to view things from someone else's perspective.

Yes, I'm sure it works both ways and there are wildly incorrect assumptions on both sides of the wealth divide. The big difference is that the really poor are effectively trapped in their situation whereas the rich (and especially the super-rich) have much more control of their present and future.

[Hoonercat]

I'm assuming this site is quoting total figures (1960 to 2022)? Seems to be miles off the figures quoted by the UK Govt.
According to the chart

2021 was 137,078
2022 was 328,989

According to Gov.UK, the numbers for 2021 was 14,734, 2022 was 23,841

However, the point I made still stands, the figures might vary from agency to agency, but during the last Labour government the influx to the UK rose very sharply and created the industry we see today where migration into the UK is largely driven by organised crime delivering these people. Any government will find it incredibly challenging, and probably impossible, to reverse it now.

Do you have any official numbers to back that up? I'm not outright disagreeing, but I can't find any official figures per year.
It's worth noting that asylum claims in the UK are being processed at a very low rate per year, hence the actual numbers of grants should in theory be lower than in previous years.

Asylum apps.jpg (191.16 KiB) Viewed 752 times

Something I could find is the number of applications per year. From 2010 (when the Tories took power) the number of applications has steadily risen before rocketing after Brexit. And while I can't find actual numbers for granted applications, the percentage of grants has also steadily increased over the past 5 or so years.

Gov.uk
Just over three quarters (76%) of the initial decisions in 2022 were grants of refugee status, humanitarian protection or alternative forms of leave. This is a substantially higher grant rate than in pre-pandemic years when around a third of initial decisions were grants. The grant rate in 2022 is the highest yearly grant rate in over 30 years

In short, applications have been rising under the Tories and the percentage of those applications that are granted have also been rising. Which is why I'm struggling to see how Labour opened the floodgates.

House of Commons Library
The percentage of asylum applicants refused at initial decision reached its highest point at 88% in 2004. Since then, the refusal rate has been falling overall and was at 24% in 2022, its lowest point since 1990.

Labour were in power in 2004. The Tories are in power in 2022.

[DefTrap]

I don't believe that either, but what I do think is that the very rich simply have no concept of what it's like to be genuinely poor. How could they? They don't mix with them at all; their social circle consists entirely of people with similar wealth. They probably regard the 'less rich' or the 'middle classes' as being poor. They have no concept of being so poor that even finding the money for the necessities of life is a major stuggle, or not even possible.

I stayed in a mate's Chateau at the weekend (a proper completed one, not one of those Channel4 doer-upper hovels). Obviously it was brilliant but it does make you feel a bit grubby. I didn't think about a poor person once until I realised that some poor bastard had spent simply ages cleaning all the dozens of windows, let alone tending the acres of lawns.