Those poor lost souls

[Suff]

Who are trying to illegally get into the UK.

One driver tells Sky News some migrants have knives "and they're not afraid to use them".

Mr Alexander said several migrants broke the padlock to his trailer earlier on Wednesday in an attempt to get on board.

"They snapped it off in two seconds," the driver told Sky News.

"There is a lot of fighting between the migrants who all want to be on the best part of the road to get on to the lorries,” he said. “The situation is worse than it has ever been."

When are we going to call a spade a spade instead of a hand activated excavation and material moving implement...

These are criminals and should be treated as such. If they were migrants in imminent plight (refugees), they would have stopped at any of the countries which they had to cross to get to Calais. They didn't, so this is not about being a refugee. This is about making money and a comfortable life on UK benefits, whilst waiting for a "decision" which might take years , if ever.

Not that I didn't predict this, but it gives me no pleasure to have been proved right.

Perhaps the authorities might want to wonder why so many people, independently, wind up in the same place trying to do the same thing illegally. They might want to think about pen and paper or even email via the internet.

All those who made it illegally and didn't immediately get thrown out of the country have unlimited access to communicate with those they left behind. Explaining exactly what to do, how much it should cost and who to use to get them there.

If this doesn't start waking people up, what will???

[TheOstrich]

If this doesn't start waking people up, what will???

Possibly the death of the first British lorry driver. Only then will something get done, like a wholesale boycott of Calais as a port and freight terminal. I'm more than happy to go without European produce and goods for a few months ...

[medsec222]

The UK has no alternative but to take a hard line with these economic migrants. Leaving the EU would be a start.

[Aggers]

The UK has no alternative but to take a hard line with these economic migrants. Leaving the EU would be a start.

I quite agree. - and the sooner the better.

[cromwell]

The UK has no alternative but to take a hard line with these economic migrants.

Agreed.

The TV news makes me sick tbh. They (and the politicians) are desperately trying to get the debate centred on the evil traffickers, the hardship that these poor migrants suffer (sound of a tiny violin), the risks they take in "pursuit of a better life", the poor women and children (heartrending music swells in the background...

And it's done deliberately, so they don't have to talk about the real issues.

Namely that these people are illegal immigrants (not migrants). They are neither use nor bloody ornament and WE DON'T WANT THE BUGGERS HERE.

[Workingman]

Leaving the EU would make not one iota of difference to this particular problem. Europe would still be 22 miles across the Channel, at Calais; and these non-European illegal immigrants would still mass at Channel ports to attempt to gain entry to the UK.

I see a few more are now aware of my long-term bugbear: the "Soft" descriptions use to describe these illegal immigrants. They are used to tug at our heart strings and make these criminals seem more 'appealing' to the hard of thinking and understanding.

[Suff]

Whilst I agree WM that leaving the EU would not solve the immediate problem, it would certainly solve it in the long run.

Because once we get the monolith of the EU off our backs, it will be possible to carry out policy that the EU would drag us into the EU courts for. Only our government and our courts would judge what our actions should be.

So, say, for instance, we went to France with the French immigration teams, fingerprinted, photographed and ID'd everyone there who was illegal. Then we came home, identified the relatives and neighbours who lived next to them in their native country and threw them out of the UK.... That would send a serious message to people thinking they could "get on the gravy" train just because somebody else from home/family did so.

Totally unthinkable in the EU. Totally possible in an independent UK.

Leaving the EU gives us avenues to deal with illegal immigrants which are not open to us today. Also anyone who gets themselves to Italy, Greece, Malta or Cyprus can't even try the EU avenue to get into the UK. They can go anywhere they want in the EU, but would be completely locked out of the UK.

Add to that the fact that customs controls on trucks and other vehicles would be much stronger and there is a definite possibility that the UK would not be quite the darling of the immigrant migration rush.

At which point are the French going to act and send them back to Italy? 100,000? 200,000? 300,000? Because there is one thing which is certain. A Conservative government under Cameron is not even going to think about taking any illegals from Calais as Blair did.

As Cameron said, this is a French issue. Yes we will help them to solve it at home but no, we will be neither responsible for it nor will we take any of them. The law is clear. If they go there illegally and stay there illegally, they must be sent back to the country of first entry and that is neither France nor the UK.

I'm sure the French could find cattle cars to send them in if they tired hard enough. They are not obliged to provide seats, just transport and sustenance for the journey.... Although it might bring back memories in the population of another time. Not our issue...

[Workingman]

Our Schengen opt-out already protects us from the Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta scenario. Even if those countries give them temporary visas they are still non-EU citizens and we do not have to let them in.

Regarding the other thing. In the current climate Human Rights law trumps the letter of International Law as far as "migrants" (should read illegal immigrants) law is concerned. Anything stepping outside the International Laws, as your proposals do, would not be supported by the International community.

So, an independent UK would still have to follow some of the rules, as Australia continues to find out. Go too far and we certainly would be independent, in the wrong way, we would be pariahs.

[Workingman]

For Cromwell.

There have been campaigns to discourage the use of the term 'illegal immigrant' in many countries since 2007, generally based on the argument that the act of immigration may be illegal in some cases, but the people themselves are not illegal. In the United States, a "Drop the I-Word" campaign was launched in 2010 to advocate the use of terms such as "undocumented immigrants" or "unauthorized immigrants" to refer to the foreign nationals who reside in a country illegally.

News associations that have discontinued or discourage the use of the adjective "illegal" to describe people include the US Associated Press, UK Press Association, European Journalism Observatory, European Journalism Centre, Association of European Journalists, Australian Press Council, and Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

So there you go. We have been deliberately conned.

[cromwell]

Thanks for that WM, I had suspected something like that must have gone on, it's nice to have confirmation.

Latest news is that the EU has caved in, saying they will "distribute" 40,000 "migrants" around the EU over the next two years. Why make a decision today when you can defer it for a few years, eh? Because this will be just a green light for the first hundred thousand or so to get their foot in the door before claiming a right to a family life under the Human Rights Act, and sending for Uncle Abdul and the rest of the tribe from back home in dear old Scratterland.

And all the while more and more and more will come.

One thing about the EU (and politicians in general) is that a rule is a rule until it gets inconvenient, at which point it gets dropped. So these people are illegal? Squirm.. well....

The thing is, we've gone soft. Our rulers think that every problem can be solved with sweet reason and soft words. Well, they can't.
These illegal immigrants want to come and as long as they are dealt with softly (just being stopped getting on one lorry only to get onto another) they will keep on coming, and coming at an ever faster rate.