Opportunity Missed?

[Gladys]

1 hour ago, Josem said:

 

On #3, true that loans require repayment, but they also tend to create an asset at the same time. 

 

If loans are used to fund liabilities rather than assets, that is not the case.  Very simply, if you borrow to fund ongoing expenses, you are underpinning cash flow not creating assets.  So, if the borrowing is to, say, fund pensions, you get nothing in return, just a restructuring of your liabilities.

I am not an accountant, but look at these thing on a revenue vs capital basis.  If you borrow to fund a capital obligation you do get an asset in return.  If you borrow to fund a revenue expense, you get nothing. 

[Expat.]

On 4/14/2022 at 11:22 AM, Eris said:

But why should the UK taxpayers have to do anything to help them when these rubber boat people are illegal economic invaders who should be rooted out of the UK?  

Because we signed the 1951 United Nations refugee convention whereby if a person pitches up in this country and asks for asylum (ie an asylum seeker) we promised to give them a fair hearing. There's no such thing as an 'economic migrant' it's a political construct used to try and define deserving and undeserving refugees asking for a place to stay. Anyway, I'm an economic migrant. I left the Isle of Man after I graduated because there was sod all work there. Most people are economic migrants. Further, that 1951 convention which gives every person on the planet the right to seek asylum in another country, and which has saved millions of lives, recognises that refugees will usually have to use irregular methods to get to the country they want to seek asylum in.

The UK doesn't have a refugee/ asylum seeker problem. 86% of the worlds refugees get as far as the country over the border. Less than 1% of the worlds refugees end up in the UK. almost every other European country has taken more. There is  no international law requiring refugees to be processed in the first country they get to. Refugees have a right to make it to the country of their choice. The EU has a regulation that refugee processing take place in the first EU nation the refugee arrives in, but then, we left the EU. Accordingly, the vast majority of the people you see being picked up in the channel are coming to the UK because they already have family here. They have no sense of a benefits system but they all want to work, pay their taxes and fit in, in a place where they feel safe. In any case the UK offers them no benefits and denies them the chance to work. A few find a place to live in the community and get a £5.66 daily allowance. The rest are effectively imprisoned in detention centres.

Finally, refugees can make a huge difference for the better. For example, the BMA has 1200 medically qualified refugees on its on its medical register all working in the NHS, although is a long process to get the Home Office to let them. Or a pandemic.

 

[Expat.]

On 4/16/2022 at 11:31 PM, snowman said:

Post 1 Flint talks about asylum seekers.

 

Post 3 Teapot talks about immigration policy.

 

Josem talks about the UK being more welcoming than anyone else in Europe, yet in absolute numbers Germany has taken more people

 

This thread is all over the place.

 

Migration, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers .....

all different issues yet mixed together

Just to say that an illegal immigrant is a person who is living in a country under the radar, so to speak. It isn't illegal to be a refugee and travel to another country and ask for asylum, or become an asylum seeker. I had an aunt who went to America on holiday and never came back. She lived there as an illegal immigrant until she married an American, and eventually applied for and was given American citizenship.

But you're right, the thread is all over the place. And I haven't helped get it back on track. Sorry.

[Josem]

3 hours ago, Expat. said:

There is  no international law requiring refugees to be processed in the first country they get to. Refugees have a right to make it to the country of their choice. The EU has a regulation that refugee processing take place in the first EU nation the refugee arrives in, but then, we left the EU.

I'm sure that each of your statements here are literally true, but combined, people might be misled into thinking inaccurately.

Article 2 of the the refugee convention requires that refugees comply with the laws and regulations of the countries that they are in. If, as you say*, "the EU has a regulation that refugee processing take place in the first EU nation the refugee arrives in," then any refugee is required to comply with that regulation.

Putting that all together, if you are correct in your interpretation of EU law, then unless a refugee has somehow traversed to the UK without transiting through the EU, they are obligated to apply as a refugee in the EU.

*I defer to your expertise here, I'm not familiar with EU laws here

[John Wright]

6 hours ago, Josem said:

I'm sure that each of your statements here are literally true, but combined, people might be misled into thinking inaccurately.

Article 2 of the the refugee convention requires that refugees comply with the laws and regulations of the countries that they are in. If, as you say*, "the EU has a regulation that refugee processing take place in the first EU nation the refugee arrives in," then any refugee is required to comply with that regulation.

Putting that all together, if you are correct in your interpretation of EU law, then unless a refugee has somehow traversed to the UK without transiting through the EU, they are obligated to apply as a refugee in the EU.

*I defer to your expertise here, I'm not familiar with EU laws here

The Dublin agreement provides that if you register in the first country you get to in the EU, and then move on to seek asylum in a second EU country,  the second country can return you to the first, which must accept the return*. It doesn’t say that a refugee seeking asylum has to register, or apply, in the first, or any subsequent, EU country.

*Hence the reluctance of France to register and process refugees who get to the channel. They don’t have to. 

[Eris]

Unlawful entry into a country is invasion and a criminal act.

[John Wright]

19 minutes ago, Eris said:

Unlawful entry into a country is invasion and a criminal act.

Please point me in the direction of the legislation you say provides that.

If it were an invasion it would be an act of war and they’d be entitled to the protections under the Geneva Convention, which would mean far better treatment than asylum seekers or refugees get now, and, incidentally, wouldn’t allow movement to Rwanda.

[Ringy Rose]

13 hours ago, Josem said:

I'm sure that each of your statements here are literally true, but combined, people might be misled into thinking inaccurately.

Nope, just you.

Anyone who does the most basic research knows that refugees don't have to seek asylum in the first country they come to, EU rules don't count as the UK is not in the EU, even if they did the Dublin Agreement includes a "solidarity agreement" meaning all EU nations should take a fair share (which is why the Ugandan refugee Priti Patel wanted Brexit) and that the French take three times as many asylum seekers as the UK in any event.

So now we've got that straight: who funds the Manx Taxpayers Alliance?

Edited April 20, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[quilp]

The Rwanda project appears to've been touted before Boris introduced the idea...

[Ringy Rose]

28 minutes ago, quilp said:

The Rwanda project appears to've been touted before Boris introduced the idea...

I'm assuming that's from the Guido Fawkes website.  I wouldn't trust Thirsty Paul Staines if he told me today was Wednesday, and he's even more secretive than Michael Josem about who funds his political activity.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[Manxweegie]

12 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

I'm assuming that's from the Guido Fawkes website.  I wouldn't trust Thirsty Paul Staines if he told me today was Wednesday, and he's even more secretive than Michael Josem about who funds his political activity.

Is this a better source? https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/denmark-talks-with-rwanda-transfer-asylum-seekers-2022-04-20/ 

[John Wright]

47 minutes ago, quilp said:

The Rwanda project appears to've been touted before Boris introduced the idea...

Except it’s actually a very different type of scheme. The only similarity is Rwanda.

The scheme floated by the EU Commissioner, and the one by the Danes, is to arrange for refugees, not asylum seekers, in terrible camps in Libya, on the North African/South Mediterranean coast, to be moved to Rwanda, so they never get into the hands of people smugglers. 

They’ve not got to wherever they want to apply for asylum in. They’ve already been smuggled from point of origin to Libya.

They've not got to Denmark or even the EU.

I suppose the French could consider doing this with those wanting to get to the UK and camped on the Channel coast. They don’t because it’s against the letter and spirit of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which allows asylum seekers to apply for asylum in the jurisdiction of their choice.

The big difference with the Tory scheme is that refugee asylum seekers arriving onshore in UK, or picked up in the Channel on the English side of the border, have actually made it and under UN1951 have the absolute right to apply for asylum, be treated well whilst waiting for the decision and not to be shipped off somewhere else.

The only similar scheme has been the Israeli one. 95% of the refugees sent by Israel to Rwanda absconded, no doubt straight back into the arms of people smugglers.

[quilp]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

I'm assuming that's from the Guido Fawkes website.  I wouldn't trust Thirsty Paul Staines if he told me today was Wednesday, and he's even more secretive than Michael Josem about who funds his political activity.

Yes it is. The source matters-not if the facts are true. 

[John Wright]

17 minutes ago, quilp said:

Yes it is. The source matters-not if the facts are true. 

Problem is the facts are skewed and not comparing like with like.

[Ringy Rose]

49 minutes ago, quilp said:

Yes it is. The source matters-not if the facts are true. 

The word if is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

I don't think Paul Staines has ever knowingly told the truth about anything. As @John Wright suggests above, Staines is being disingenuous here too.

And even if it is true, the Danish government have also repeatedly faced criticism for their immigration policies, including a previous plan to seize all the personal possessions of asylum seekers. So I'm not quite sure why Thirsty Paul thinks anyone needs to sit down.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Ringy Rose