Boats this month…

Just a reminder that we are more than twice as densely populated as France, which is why we can't keep taking more people. Remember this.
UK: 749 people per sq mile
France: 322 people per sq mile
Stop saying we are not taking enough people. When France gets up to 749 people per square mile then we can have this discussion.

I don't think many native Brits want the whole country concreted over to provide homes for newcomers when we don't have enough for the 70 million already here. Then we have a struggling NHS system, education system, sewage system etc. How much more evidence do you want that this country is overcrowded?

My nearest town in Wales is a military base for the Gurkhas, and a lot of them settle here when they retire too, so we have that in common. They are integrated well with the local community, and they have been for many years. However, small rural market towns in mid Wales don’t offer the same life to individuals or family units from other cultures who are isolated from everything and everybody they are familiar with, and I don’t know how that could be changed easily. Local people are not unwelcoming, but offering accommodation, schooling etc. is not enough in itself to make a new place your home I don’t think, and they can’t be prevented from moving to places that suit them better once they have established themselves. There aren’t any easy answers.

Casdon my point was that if England is so less welcoming to immigrants than Scotland as claimed by Basgetti why wouldn't the message spread and immigrants go to Scotland?
Of course it's natural to want familiarity around you, I'd never suggest otherwise. I just get fed up with England being poorly compared with Scotland. I am allowed to question on what basis Basgetti made her assertion.
My borough has the largest Nepalese community outside of Aldershot. They evidently find England very welcoming.

The UK government allocates refugees and asylum seekers to councils UK wide Rosie51, so I’m not sure what your point is?

What I do know from personal experience is that once people have been given permission to settle and have found their feet in the UK they don’t all stay where they are allocated, because they want to be near the other people who they are familiar with, have the same religion, family ties, culture etc., just as British people so often do when they move abroad, in seeking to be near other like minded Brits.

Maybe Scotland isn't as welcoming as Basgetti claims? Perhaps ask Basgetti how she knows Scotland is more welcoming than England, and perhaps at the same time she can list where NI and Wales come in her table?

Has anyone bothered to ask them why?

Scottish weather can be challenging?
Job opportunities?

Nearer to the centres of commence?
Their families are there?
Transport links?

Though Tbf, Scotland is far more welcoming to immigrants than England generally is.
Scotland has a nearly 93% white ethnicity, England around 81% white ethnicity, London as a whole 54% white ethnicity. I wonder why so many immigrants choose to stay in England and especially London when Scotland is so much more welcoming?

“These boat people”? Seriously, have a word with yourself. They’re just people.

friendlygingercat

With the outbreak of a new and virulent strain of Ebola in Africa (for which there is no effective test or diagnosis) is no one worried about these horrific African diseases entering this country? We have no idea where these boat people have been or what land route they took. So a good reason to process them offshore until they can be cleared of infection. We have enough cold and wet little islands in the far North of Scotland.

WTF? Those cold and wet little islands have populations just as important as you! Though Tbf, Scotland is far more welcoming to immigrants than England generally is.

Incidentally, they’re not “African” diseases. They’re diseases that affect human beings. You know, the same species as you?

The way some people try to “other” is pretty disgusting.

It’s an easy solution for lazy thinkers to say it’s France’s problem though. As is any other glibly voiced ‘solution’ which implies that the UK should not face up to the reality, like other developed nations have to, and work together with them to help find real solutions. It’s the me, me, me culture at play.

JenniferEccles

I don’t necessarily think highly of him generally - like I said he certainly has had some crazy ideas, but I am thinking about how he has stopped, or at least drastically reduced, the number of Mexican migrants and drug smugglers from pouring over the border into the US.
He said he would do it and he did.

Yes, let’s just ignore the US citizens killed along the way 🙄

Only around 6% of the UK is developed and that includes all the houses, schools, shopping centres, factories, the entire built environment and all the green space within it.

We have far more land given over to golf courses than urban development. Fairways cover about four times more land than continuous urban fabric, and roughly twice the land used for all UK homes. The UK proritises people chasing a small white ball over housing and infrastructure.

There are around one millon homes in England alone sitting long term empty.

It is a complete myth that the UK does not have enough space to accommodate everybody needing a home including those coming from overseas.

What it doesn't have is the political will, or even if it does, the the cooperation required from powerful landowners and construction companies to build more homes or to bring back into use those that are sitting empty.

"Put simply, France has a similar population to the UK yet is receiving and processing far more asylum applications."

France is twice the size of the UK so they have far more room for an expanding population.

The councils are already building on our greenbelts to accommodate the population growth.

There seems little point in trying to discuss anything with the fact-blind. The energy is takes becomes exhausting after a while - Brandolini’s Law but I feel I have to try else Gransnet just becomes an echo chamber for the Daily Mail.

I have just pointed out that as many people are being turned around at entry, are leaving voluntarily or being deported as are arriving.

I’ll also repeat what I have already posted. France receives between 130,000 and 160,000 asylum applications every year. Recent annual intake figures average roughly 130,000 first-time applicants, with thousands more arriving through specific United Nations (UNHCR) resettlement programmes. France is one of the top destinations for asylum seekers in Europe, typically processing the second or third highest number of applications each year, trailing only Germany and on a par with Spain.

Germany, France and Spain … the UK is not even in the top three.

Put simply, France has a similar population to the UK yet is receiving and processing far more asylum applications.

This is a pan European issue that all countries need to deal with.

As for Ebola, it could take months even years for a person trafficked from the DRC to reach the UK even if they wanted to come here. The language of the DRC is French. Untreated they would be dead long before they ever reached France let alone the UK. Asylum seekers from the DRC make up a very small fraction of those seeking refuge in the UK, with only 134 Congolese nationals applying for asylum in the year to June 2025. Ebola is not an airborne disease. It transmits through blood, sweat, saliva, vomit, semen or vaginal fluids. There is an effective vaccine.

The current Ebola outbreak poses a low risk to the UK population. Although the outbreak is serious, it is rare for Ebola cases to occur in returning travellers. In the UK, the NHS has safe procedures in place for any such cases and specialist centres where they can be looked after.

ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2026/05/18/what-is-ebola-and-how-does-it-spread/

Do read the official information about this and stop scaremongering.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Primrose53

Casdon

What we are looking for is steady progress rather than draconian measures which put people’s lives at risk. So here are the totals by month since 2018. Let’s compare the figures for May crossings at the end of the month for 2026, compared with previous years, instead of ‘sensationally’ posting the day to day numbers which mean nothing as stand alone headlines, unless you are sucked in to the tabloid mentality.

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10590/

Maybe you should have a word with the person who started this thread. 🤔

Anybody who makes inane comments needs to take this on board. The comparative numbers over a sustained period are the only reliable measure of success here.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Yup £49.18 p.w.and roof over your head, a life of luxury indeed

This government are doing more about the problem than the previous one and getting through applications faster. It's a difficult situation with no easy answers.
It's noticeable that people voted for Brexit to stop the small boats but now it's worse than ever.

The French are seeing the UK as the Rwanda scheme now! Wash their hands of them, get them here and we will accommodate their every need.

In the year ended March 2026, 39,000 people arrived on small boats so it isn't hundreds (plural) arriving every day. It is just over one hundred a day averaged over the year.

There was a total of 94,000 asylum applications to be processed which included those in the 36,000 who made applications (not all do) and those cases which has been brought forward.

There were 18,000 port returns straight in and out plus 9,000 voluntary returns, 9,700 enforced returns and 2,000 in detention. I make that 38,700.

People love to talk as if the current government is doing nothing when it is clearly doing a great deal and a darn sight more than the Tories. They just shoved people in hotels (Jenrick) and stopped processing applications. They knew the Rwanda scheme was a dead duck and knew they would soon be out of office so why not leave a big backlog for the next government to deal with?

The Tories claimed they would be deporting tens of thousands of people to Rwanda when there was never any agreement with that country to take more than 200 which could be accommodated in the Hope Hostel in Kigali. Rwanda spokesperson Yolande Makolo confirmed that to Laura Kuenssberg on TV just days before Sunak called the election.

In August 2025 Rwanda agreed to take 250 deportees from the USA to be accommodated in the same hostel which indicates that that was the only accommodation they ever had.

Let's have a system which enables genuine asylum seekers to apply without having to be actually on British soil, then it's easier to deport those who arrive by small boat. Most of those who arrive by small boat are given asylum because they are genuine, they shouldn't have to risk their lives and people traffickers should not be able to make money out of people's misery. The UK should take it's share of refugees and asylum seekers and we should try to do this as humanely as possible.

Then speed up the application process. Which is already more effective since Labour came to power.
Continue with projects like the recent one, hunting down the organisers.