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Calais: Migration and the UK Border

panpete said:
These people are an example of trying to find a light in a very dark place.
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That's the most extraordinary thing about the jungles. The fact that most of the people there are still smiling, still friendly, still insistent on sharing whatever they have for you. The biggest danger you face if you go to visit migrants in Calais is kidney failure brought on by the sheer number of cups of tea you will be obliged to drink. This despite their obvious anger, frustration and fear.

For most people in the world beyond Europe, no amount of hardship is a suitable excuse not to be hospitable.
 
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My sister has been in touch with Worldwide Tribe and is driving up there in the next week or so with a vanload of clothes, tents, food etc to try and help.

If you can donate anything - clothes, non-perishable goods, cooking utensils, anything useful, please do. If there isn't a collection point near you, you can donate.

Pleasingly, the original target was to raise a grand. It's currently at £18000.
 
Voley said:
My sister has been in touch with Worldwide Tribe and is driving up there in the next week or so with a vanload of clothes, tents, food etc to try and help.

If you can donate anything - clothes, non-perishable goods, cooking utensils, anything useful, please do. If there isn't a collection point near you, you can donate.

Pleasingly, the original target was to raise a grand. It's currently at £18000.
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I never knew world wide tribe existed, thank you for letting us know.
How do I find out if there is a collection point near me?
It says on the justgiving website to pledge, but how do you actually donate money?
Sorry to sound thick.
 
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Voley said:
My sister has been in touch with Worldwide Tribe and is driving up there in the next week or so with a vanload of clothes, tents, food etc to try and help.

If you can donate anything - clothes, non-perishable goods, cooking utensils, anything useful, please do. If there isn't a collection point near you, you can donate.

Pleasingly, the original target was to raise a grand. It's currently at £18000.
Click to expand...
They should change their target on the just giving page, perhaps. "Due to overwhelming generosity we're encouraged to increase our efforts and have revised the target to £25000"
 
Did anyone see this? Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has been commenting on African migration.

Migrants from Africa threaten the European Union's living standards and its social structure, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday, saying the bloc was unable to take in millions of people seeking a new life.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/09/uk-europe-migrants-hammond-idUKKCN0QE0J320150809

It is a big issue for Europe certainly the closest states like Italy and Greece, but the Germans take by far the most migrants esp compared to the UK, we are hardly in a position to postulate. Surely the only way to reduce the flow of people is to resolve the wars that blight the region and build the economies so people prefer to stay in their own countries.

A great example of economy building was when the former East and West Germanys underwent reunification. The west poured subsidies into the east for many years to improve standards of living and modernise infrastructure and industry. If Europe wants to stem the migration from Africa perhaps it needs a plan!
 
weltweit said:
Did anyone see this? Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has been commenting on African migration.

Migrants from Africa threaten the European Union's living standards and its social structure, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday, saying the bloc was unable to take in millions of people seeking a new life.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/09/uk-europe-migrants-hammond-idUKKCN0QE0J320150809

It is a big issue for Europe certainly the closest states like Italy and Greece, but the Germans take by far the most migrants esp compared to the UK, we are hardly in a position to postulate. Surely the only way to reduce the flow of people is to resolve the wars that blight the region and build the economies so people prefer to stay in their own countries.

A great example of economy building was when the former East and West Germanys underwent reunification. The west poured subsidies into the east for many years to improve standards of living and modernise infrastructure and industry. If Europe wants to stem the migration from Africa perhaps it needs a plan!
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I think that is exactly what is needed for these African countries, but the west are intent on destroying rather than building up these countries.
The west created this mess whether directly or indirectly, so I think that their intention is to further destroy these countries, and to displace millions of people, and not only that, but to refuse, or to make it hard for these displaced people to re-build their lives here. :(
 
weltweit said:
I hope a doctor sees that and fixes that kid's leg.
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There is a little clinic (basically two portakabins) outside the main Calais hospital where people without papers can get basic medical treatment no questions asked. I expect they're fucking swamped at the moment though, numbers have more than doubled since last time I was there.

My worry with that little boy would be that he's gone so long without treatment that the bone will have set badly and will need major surgery to get put right.
 
https://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/are-journalists-people-too/

Journalists are everywhere in Calais these days. A real swarm of them. Strutting around the jungle, barging into people’s tents and private spaces, asking the same questions over and over (can’t they google, or read each other’s stories?), shoving their oversized cameras in people’s faces without asking for consent …
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The thing is, though, it’s not just about individual journalists good or bad. The mass media play a systematic role in the border “crisis” and the border regime here. The rightwing UK press whipped up the political storm that shut the Sangatte refugee camp in 2001, and is now turning Calais into a militarised zone. The liberal UK media are also part of the problem. They continually reinforce the “common sense” establishment view: migration is a crisis, police and borders are necessary and legitimate, just can we make the violence a bit softer and less visible.
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I wonder what happens when these folk do make it into Britain - are there support networks that are ready to receive them if they don't claim asylum?
 
I read this in the Indy today with a lot of sympathy but could scarcely credit this passage:
Meanwhile, just offering a helping hand to an undocumented migrant in France can result in fines of more than £20,000 and up to five years in prison, which has discouraged many support networks from giving out food and other essentials.
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My French Google fu isn't brilliant but turned up this 2009 Slate article, which in turn pointed to the relevant law on foreign residents and asylum seekers. Chapitre II : Aide à l'entrée et au séjour irréguliers. So it's true. You can be fined €30 000 or go to jail for up to five years if you assist someone without legal papers to enter, move about or stay in France.
There are limited exceptions for providing legal advice, food, accommodation or medical care or aid with a view to preserving dignity or physical integrity, whatever that means. It doesn't cover supplying books or mobile phones, or teaching, or a host of other things.

I realise this thread is about the UK border and don't want to get into any French-bashing with my limited understanding of French and the law and general situation there. Charitably, one might hope that it was aimed at traffickers and smugglers but unintentionally caught up charities and aid agencies in its wake. But at first sight it seems that the Brits aren't alone in framing laws to set everyone else's hand against migrants.

Perhaps someone with a knowledge of French law could weigh in. Meanwhile, yeah, Godwin.
 
I don't know of any cases where that law has been used against aid agencies or activists. Most of the people helping migrants in Calais (outside of the three or four big charities who have a presence there) are not French nationals, and I doubt the French authorities would be keen to prosecute people from elsewhere in the EU under such a dodgy law.
 
DotCommunist said:
well the point is that the british empire was still very much extant after the second world war, fatally wounded but it limped on for a bit. It would useful to make a thread about places the empire didn't fuck over. And still today, we have had our state fuck the middle east right up. So I think its a bit rich to start moaning when people want to come wsomewhere that if not brilliant is better than airstrikes or sectarian violence
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So you believe in an open borders - I don't. I do not feel responsible for empire or any other crimes committed by someone else's wealthy ancestors. Where's my fucking family castle...Oh sorry - it's in the workhouse with your nan who worked her fingers to the bone!

I didn't realise airstrikes or sectarian violence was happening in France btw?
 
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alfajobrob said:
So you believe in an open borders - I don't. I do not feel responsible for empire or any other crimes committed by someone else's wealthy ancestors.
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But you're not the one paying for those crimes. The people in Calais are, amongst many others.

It's not about five hundred years ago or fifty years ago or last week for that matter, there are people who need help now and people who are able to provide it but choose not to. Ignore history completely and that situation is still unjust.
 
SpookyFrank said:
But you're not the one paying for those crimes. The people in Calais are, amongst many others.

It's not about five hundred years ago or fifty years ago or last week for that matter, there are people who need help now and people who are able to provide it but choose not to. Ignore history completely and that situation is still unjust.
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They are in FRANCE not Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea etc. etc.

If people want to come for whatever reason then ok. but please don't say there is no choice.
 
SpookyFrank said:
I don't know of any cases where that law has been used against aid agencies or activists. Most of the people helping migrants in Calais (outside of the three or four big charities who have a presence there) are not French nationals, and I doubt the French authorities would be keen to prosecute people from elsewhere in the EU under such a dodgy law.
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I have massive sympathy for refugees. I understand migration more than most I hope. I know you have been over there to help also and seriously respect you for that.

I just really object to the current terminology and self righteous bollocks without a solution. It goes deeper than opening Calais and needs to be addressed as such.

It needs a UN approach. People are still dying in whatever sea to go where ever hundreds at a time and the press is wittering on about Calais and a few jumpers.
 
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alfajobrob said:
I just really object to the current terminology and self righteous bollocks without a solution. It goes deeper than opening Calais and needs to be addressed as such.
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We are agreed on this then. But any international solution must involve the UK taking some kind of responsibility. With the situation as it stands we are able to disregard our obligation to the international community solely on the grounds that there are twenty miles of open water between us and the rest of Europe.

Of course we need more than jumpers to fix this, of course any material thing we can give is a temporary measure at best. But as individuals there is a limit to what we can do, what we can take responsibility for. But every act of kindness, however small, is a rejection of the official consensus which states that these people are not our problem. And the more people who reject that idea, the closer we come to replacing it with something better.

That might sound overfully hopeful, but to see the sheer numbers of people who want to help makes me hopeful. And there is not much in this world that gives me hope if I'm honest.

And even if we can't fix the bigger picture, the world is a better place if one person has a good pair of shoes they might otherwise have gone without. The world is a better place if one person feels that they are not forgotten by the people around them.
 
Not to say that I don't worry that anything we do is counterproductive/a waste of time/a load of patronising liberal shit.
 
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