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With anger towards migrant Channel crossings building, the UK is reminded of the Southport riots last Summer. Natasha Devon asked LBC callers what they thought should happen to stop the scenes from last year repeating.
0:00 Leroy: ‘Give the new migrants a chance!’
3:00 Mervin: ‘They’re an economic drain on the country’
7:14 Becky: ‘The previous caller’s cruelty took my breath away’
9:29 Triss: ‘We need a 2 year ban on immigration’
A new fast-track asylum appeals process will be introduced to speed up the process of removing people with no right to be in the UK, Yvette Cooper has promised, amid protests about the use of hotel accommodation for migrants.
The Home Secretary said "completely unacceptable" delays in the appeals process left failed asylum seekers in the system for years.
There are about 51,000 asylum appeals waiting to be heard, taking on average more than a year to reach a decision.
As measures have been put in place to speed up initial decisions, court delays over appeals are now thought to be the biggest cause of pressure in the asylum accommodation system.
The Government plans to set up a new independent panel focused on asylum appeals to help reduce the backlog, as first reported by the Sunday Times.
The new independent body will use professionally-trained adjudicators, rather than relying on judges.
Ministers are introducing a new 24-week deadline for the first-tier tribunal to determine asylum appeals by those receiving accommodation support and appeals by foreign offenders.
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0:00
I came from Jamaica in 1962, and it was an hostile environment when we came here
0:06
The BNP and the NF was on the street with their flags riding through our community
0:12
and breaking windows and smashing up everything. They went through Southall and Lewisham
0:18
But we made a success of it, you know. We are from the Windrush, you know, we came on the SS Windrush, which was a big boat
0:25
It wasn't a small boat. and, you know, we just kept our head down and just worked
0:31
I myself worked for 49 years, never been on any benefits. And to reward us, they've built a square for us called Windrush Square in Brixton
0:41
Yes. And they even named a railway line and a tube line called the Windrush Line
0:48
So that is a success we've made. So if you give these poor souls a chance who come on a small boat
0:55
i think they could you know make a success of it just give them a chance you know yeah i i i hear
1:05
you leroy it's and it's a shame that people don't learn that's the thing because i was i was actually
1:12
talking to my producer earlier we were talking about how riots and and protests of this nature
1:16
have always occurred and i was saying i remember them affecting my family back in the 1980s and and
1:24
how terrified that made me as a child and I definitely wasn't the only one and this inability
1:32
to distinguish between an asylum seeker or a refugee and an illegal immigrant and just anybody
1:39
who's not white or you know has a British accent or whatever it might be it all ends up getting
1:47
meshed together and it does create as you quite rightly describe it a hostile environment I mean
1:52
what will it take do you think for us not to have to go through this every time well well natasha
1:58
i'll tell you that you know i came with a british i came here as british citizen because jamaica
2:04
wasn't independent when i came here yeah i came with my pound shillings and pence i'm as british
2:11
as they come if i walk down the street now i'm just painted as an asylum seeker because of my
2:17
colour you know which is you know it's disgraceful because uh what i'm seeing on the street now
2:24
it is very hostile and it's raised its ugly head again and it's terrifying you know yeah i do and
2:32
does it affect you still it still affect me because um you know i cannot walk down here
2:39
alone and things like that uh i'm looked up on as you know maybe one of those off the boats
2:46
you know so i'll say give them a chance yeah their working age give them a chance
2:54
give them their work permit and they will make a success starmer should enable all the things
3:06
that Farage has said, get out of the EHSC. And all immigrants and not illegal immigrants..
3:17
Do you mean the ECH the European Court of Human Rights Yeah But all the people coming on the boat whether they want to be economic immigrants or asylum seekers or whatever you want
3:30
not one of them allowed to be here and get five planes a day
3:35
taking them off to somewhere, maybe somewhere that they don't want to be
3:42
but getting them out of the country because there are big economic drain on the country
3:49
We've got loads of potholes around here. Okay, just a few questions
3:54
Okay, so who do you think is going to agree to house our unwanted refugees
4:02
Which country? Maybe Afghanistan or North Korea or Vietnam or anywhere. Why would we send refugees who are escaping persecution to places with high rates of persecution
4:18
No, there's no persecution in Afghanistan or North Korea, surely. Or Vietnam
4:26
You don't think there's any persecution in Afghanistan or North Korea? No
4:31
Or the other thing is, do a little deal with Australia, and they've got an island in the Pacific
4:39
Australia doesn't have an illegal immigrant problem, because as soon as they get there, they're put onto that island in the Pacific
4:47
Yeah, which we don't have, unfortunately. We don't have an island. We could do a deal with Australia and say, can we send all our people to there
4:58
And they can spend the rest of their life in an island in the Pacific
5:04
The rest of their lives? What, even if their asylum application is found to be absolutely legitimate
5:09
And they have family here, perhaps, and they speak English or they have other ties to this country
5:14
No, no, that doesn't come into it. because what the Australians do
5:19
when they go onto the island in the Pacific, they're offered you can get a free trip
5:24
back to where you came from or you can get a free trip to anywhere in the world
5:30
Right. And if they are escaping the Taliban or another authoritarian regime
5:35
which is making threats to their and their family's life, they're not going to want to go back
5:38
to where they came from, are they? They're not going to be able to go back to where they came from
5:43
Yeah, but that's not our problem. Well, refugees are the world's problem
5:48
Despite what you might have read, Mervyn, we don't even take our share
5:52
Very few people, comparatively to places like Greece, will even try and make it to British shores
5:58
You're saying that, but in Germany, after Merkel let a million people in, murderers, rapists and whatever
6:06
um in germany now at the borders they actually turn back people that they don't want to come in
6:14
from austria because austria is a safe country they say you can't come to germany but that's not
6:20
feasible long term is it according to the refugee okay mervyn thank you for your call i should say
6:27
according to the refugee convention and to international law which we all abide by
6:33
people do not have to settle in the first safe country that they
6:37
can find. Many refugees do take that option but a smaller proportion choose to go on to other countries for reasons that they might feel an affiliation with Britain They may speak English they may have family here but nothing compels
6:54
them legally to stay in the first safe country that they reach. And if you think about it for
7:00
more than three seconds, if you get off Facebook and maybe just have a think with your brain
7:05
you will realise how unfeasible it is to expect any one country to house the world's refugees
7:14
I was kind of moved to call because of the previous caller. Just the cruelty sort of took my breath away
7:20
I think, you know, I haven't had internet for the last couple of weeks
7:25
I've been listening to a lot of LBC. And what I kind of gather if I was to sort of, you know, do a study
7:30
is that what most people in this country want is, you know
7:33
the best for themselves and their family. And yet they can't confer that level of humanity upon other people
7:40
maybe if they're strangers or if they, you know, come across on a boat, whatever, to realise, you know
7:44
even the sort of dismissive, sneering economic migrants. And you think, well, maybe they're coming from poverty
7:49
Maybe they want better for, you know, just the framing of it is just quite cruel
7:55
And I just think, you know, people pride themselves here on the history of compassion towards refugees
8:01
but I think if the Kindertransport were to happen today people would be calling LBC complaining about those grasping, whiny Jewish brats
8:10
who are coming over here, sending our resources. Well, I mean, two things
8:14
First of all, there's a reason it was the Kindertransport. It's their Jewish parents were not allowed to come with them
8:19
and secondly, there were people at the time, there were columnists at the time who were using the kind of language that you describe
8:27
And this is what I mean when I say we just, we only ever seem to be able to see people's humanity in retrospect
8:34
And I don't know how we fix that issue. Yeah, not all of us
8:38
And I think that's the thing to try and remember as well is that sometimes, you know, you get a call like that
8:42
Or you read, you know, some of the horrible, most inflammatory news, like the columnists
8:46
or hear the most awful things from the populist politicians. And I think you kind of, we get a skewed perspective on, you know, how people think
8:55
And I think a lot of us do care and still see other people as people
9:01
And, you know, of course, I do accept that there are legitimate issues with the processing and with, you know, there are strains on resources
9:08
So I'm not trying to belittle any sort of legitimate concerns. But the whole framing of it, the language of invasion, calling people illegal, it's so dehumanizing
9:18
And it's like, can we not learn from our very recent history of, you know, it just leads to no good
9:25
and not good for our society. Thanks to the stupidity of previous governments
9:32
we've had lots of people arrive. I'm not saying that's a bad thing because you'll always need some immigration in the country
9:39
Now, the problem is they've not invested in public services and now there is such a creaking strain on them
9:46
that we are at the point where we cannot cope and we have to deal with the here and now
9:51
regardless of what happens in the past. That's where we're at. So my idea is this to stop us having to put the drawbridge up altogether forever I think we need a two to three year fixed suspension on immigration until such time as the money that goes on the asylum issue goes into public services so that we can take more people on Okay I think the problem with that idea is that there a conflation of two different things So
10:21
you've got immigration, which includes legal immigration, people coming across on a valid
10:26
visa, etc., which many asylum seekers do as well, come across on a valid visa. And then you've got
10:32
immigration which takes place via illegal means which is more likely to be asylum seekers who are
10:37
more likely to come across on small boat now you could you could suspend all legal immigration i
10:43
mean it would be a headache but you could feasibly do that you cannot stop people from trying to enter
10:49
this country across the channel it's not it's not a possible thing to do unless you opened up a safe
10:55
and legal route for them that's the only way really you would yes i agree but the problem is
11:00
is if you say if you enter the country illegally for the next three years
11:03
there will be no citizenship, no benefits, no nothing. I know it's harsh
11:08
but we've got to a stage where we cannot afford to keep taking numbers in
11:12
I know it's cruel. I'm not saying forever. I'm really not. But the alternative is we will leave the ECHR altogether
11:21
Do you know how many people are currently waiting for their asylum application to be processed
11:27
Yes, it's a big number. I think it's about 100,000, I believe, if I'm not mistaken
11:31
It's about 32,000. Oh, OK. My apologies. OK. So it's not even enough to fill a football stadium
11:39
If you were able to magically make those people disappear overnight, his cost to the taxpayer is about $3 billion per year
11:46
That's not an insignificant amount of money. It's a large amount of money. But it wouldn't fix all of our public services overnight
11:53
No, it wouldn't. But we've got to start somewhere. there aren't the public services to keep going
11:58
We've not got the housing. Now, this migrant hotel situation is going to be shooting themselves in the foot
12:04
the people who are advocating this situation. But I don't think anyone is
12:09
I don't think anyone's advocating for migrant hotels or asylum seekers. No, I'm saying getting rid of them
12:15
because people are saying we don't want them in our towns. Well, imagine how they're going to feel
12:19
when they're in a house of occupation in their street. It's going to inflame tensions even further
12:24
I'm not sure whether that is the case because when you put people in housing, the argument then becomes, well, there are lots of people who need houses who are British born
12:36
That would be the argument, right? But people would be more evenly distributed throughout communities
12:44
I understand why you wouldn't necessarily want 200 young bored men in your town or village
12:54
I do get that. I don't think their colour or where they've come from
12:58
has anything to do with it whatsoever, but I do understand that concern
13:04
Whereas if it's one family in your street, that's a different proposition entirely, isn't it
13:09
But we're talking houses in multiple occupations, so it's just micro-scaling the issue that people have out there
13:16
A lot of people have, isn't it? It's not families, is it
13:20
It's like individual young males for the most part. That's an absolute fact
13:24
But if you opened up safe and legal roots, then it would be entire families
13:28
The reason that men are coming over is because they consider themselves to be strong enough to make that perilous journey
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