Several people, including a small child, died when overcrowded boats were trying to cross the Channel to the UK, French authorities said. The interior minister said the child was trampled to death on board.
France’s interior minister said that several people, including a small child, died on Saturday trying to cross the English Channel in overcrowded boats.
“Today several people died trying to cross the English Channel,” Bruno Retailleau said. “A child was trampled to death in a small boat.”
Retailleau said the “tragedy” again highlighted the need to crack down on people smuggling groups organizing the dangerous crossings.
“The people smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who are getting rich by organizing these crossings of death,” he wrote.
I don’t actually think economic migrants are a drain on our economy. Are you paid what you are worth? Nobody is, because then the company would be losing money on you. If the boss pays the expat 40 quid an hour, then he’s making 60 quid an hour off them, otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable. The boss is the winner, all the way up to the top of the company. Even if these expats are all working cash in hand and avoiding taxes (I don’t think that’s true: the vast majority of expats are decent and hardworking according to the government figures) they are stimulating the economy by doing the jobs nobody else wants to do, and making their companies/bosses rich in the process.
I’m going to have to disagree on the conditions in other countries as well. France, for example, has a much more socialist approach to refugees. It takes more refugees than we do, and it shelters and supports them better. The main reason people choose to pass through France, which offers a better life for refugees than the UK, is because either they speak English (often because they are coming from a country we colonised) or they have family or friends who are settled here already. I mean, put yourself in their shoes for a second. What would be more important to you if you were fleeing your country, or even if you were just sick of it and wanted a new life somewhere. Would you go somewhere you didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak the language to be totally alone and lost, even if there was an extra 100 quid a month in it for you? Or would you go to the country where you have an existing support network and the ability to communicate and negotiate without the need for a translator. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not borne out by any of the studies we’ve seen.
Totally agree on the legal routes. It needs to be sorted NOW though, because while there are no legal routes, people are dying in the channel and there’s nothing we can do that will stop that.