On this stormy day, Darren is standing with his fishing rod near a spot on the beach in the small village of Kingsdown north of the English Channel town of Dover, where many immigrants arrived in rubber boats this summer from the French side. He says he didn’t see any today and yesterday, and only watched the Border Police patrol the waters along the beach from time to time.
No, says Darren and explains how the forces of nature have forced him to go ashore further during the day in order to fish, and in this weather I do not want to be in a small boat there.
This is confirmed by area hunter Paul Parisman. He says he hasn’t even gone out with his fishing boat in the difficult water conditions of the canal this day, it’s too tough. But other things have been quieter days of the year here.
Paul Parisman says he has seen many migrant boats in the canal this year. He hasn’t captured anything, but as captain of his boat, he has the task of alerting the Coast Guard if he sees anything and he does.
This year, a record number of migrants have traveled more than 30 kilometers on the long journey in smaller inflatable boats across the English Channel. They often start from the beaches around Calais in France and aim for the area around the White Cliffs of Dover and from time to time just come ashore at Kingsdown, although many of them were picked up by British Coast Guard boats before they arrived.
So far this year, there have been more than 6,300 people who have made the trip compared to, say, just over 1,800 over the course of the year and about 300 in 2018.
The wind on the beach in Kingsdown is really holding the mic when Julia Theo says she sees the whole thing as a problem she doesn’t really know how to deal with. And her partner, Alistair Laird, says this is a big topic of conversation around the village, with many different opinions.
And he’s right, but at least not just in Kingsdown.
The surge in migrant boats crossing the Channel this year has sparked intense debate in the UK.
Not because it is a straightforward new phenomenon, immigrants who have moved in various ways from France to the UK has been a central topic of conversation for a long time, but because it has been many more years this year and not least because this is the year of Brexit, after all, the government has promised Britain’s destined for Brexit delivers on the promise of the 2016 referendum that Brexit means better border control.
This has given an additional boost to the issue of immigrants, and has also been used explicitly in the political debate this year.
In August, Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined in, having become prime minister in part on a promise that borders would be better controlled through Brexit. He has now explained the whole thing to the criminal gangs believed to be supplying the migrants with boats and appealed to the French government to do more to stop them.
Yes, the case even during the year led to harsh diplomatic words between France and Britain, and some British newspapers used the case to push public opinion further.
But organizations that help refugees and migrants in the region and around the UK have also organized demonstrations for migrants and helped welcome them in.
In early September, there were both pro and opposition demonstrations in the city of Dover that were at times heated and in some cases aggressive.
Pro-refugee groups, some media and politicians have pushed the British government to change the asylum system so that migrants in France who wish to seek asylum in Britain can do so immediately in France without having to take the risk. Journey through the canal. to examine their asylum application.
The controversy escalated when a young man from Sudan drowned near the French coast after the boat he and his friend were trying to capsize.
“I understand they do, but there has to be a more organized way to do it, but how I don’t know,” says recreational fisherman Darren on the beach at Kingsdown.
No, the issue is far from resolved. But it does not appear that the Johnson government has any plans to create other avenues for those who want to come to Britain. Instead, they are now working with the help of planes to return some asylum seekers to the European Union countries where they first applied for asylum.
This is possible as long as the UK lives under EU rules until the end of the year. Few people know what to do next.
But for the first time this year, the government has created private asylum accommodations in the area around Dover. On that day, the first opened, at short notice, in a military barracks a few inches in the town of Folkestone near Dover. It also sparked strong opinions in the region.
A woman who wants to remain anonymous and lives near the barracks in Folkestone that have been used as an asylum residence this week said she understands that asylum seekers have to be somewhere and that she thinks it is OK to live there, as long as they live there. They also behave well, she said.
The woman also says that there has been a lot of discussion about the new asylum setting in neighboring groups on social media in the area and many divided opinions.
Yes, the summer of Brexit 2020, when the Brexit mantra of “control our borders” came true For those who voted for Brexit, the immigrant and thus the border issue became more expensive than it was in the UK For a long time.
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