[Closed] Ascension Island

The key thing to remember is that in order to become a cabinet member, or in charge of a public body under the tories, you have to prove that you are incompetent.

Yes but there is incompetent and there is stark staring mad. Ideas like this look at the boundary between the two a take a running jump into the void

This will be lapped up by the '...any colour, provided it's white' mob.
To any right-thinking person it's pathetic and despicable - not surprising give who uttered it.
Ascension island now discounted but, I paraphrase, other off-shore locations being considered.
To describe johnson and his clown circus as being a shower of shit is a massive disservice to shit.

Sounds more humane than Glasgow.

I think this will be a real vote winner for the Tories, sadly their faithful will lap it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Regional_Processing_Centre

An overly complex, overly expensive idea which disregards practicalities, humane treatment of others and basic tenants of a civil society?

Yep, that seems bob on for our current cabinet and leader.

Meanwhile, on the Government Procurement Gateway, there's a tender opportunity for the supply and ongoing maintenance of 500 Dementors.

there’s a tender opportunity for the supply and ongoing maintenance of 500 Dementors.

I can see potential job opportunities for members of the ERG

Whenever they announce something like this, I always try to imagine the' Thick of It' style conversation that went on behind the scenes.

There are more asylum seekers arriving by the day minister

Can we not just kill them all? Send the Royal Navy in to sink them at sea, or set up machine gun towers when they approach the shore. What are we doing with those helicopter gunships all back from Afghanistan?

No Minister, we're not actually allowed to do any of that

What? Not even once we're out of the EU?

I'm afraid not, minister.

Bloody hell! Then what on earths the point of being in government? Can we not just send them somewhere else then? Get me a map and show me the places we still own.... Whats this one here? Ascension Island? That looks far enough away.

The other Island mentioned was St Helena. My Dad was the education officer there in the 70's and my brother + one sister were born there. Lovely Island by all accounts and always spoken about very fondly by my mob so if they are dishing out free tickets I'll take one!

Very proud people are the Islanders, can't imagine they'll accept becoming a dumping ground.

I would think it has been announced as a consideration to see how it is received by the electorate and press. If it appears a vote winner, then expect to see it happen.

Dumping ground ?

Anyhoo, for illegal immigrants, why would it be an issue ?. If it's more comfortable that the jungle in Calais.

...other off-shore locations being considered.

Can we instigate border controls on the Isle of Wight ?

I think this will be a real vote winner for the Tories, sadly their faithful will lap it up.

100% this

If it’s more comfortable that the jungle in Calais.

At least in Calais there are, admittedly poor, options.

I'd rather take my chances in the back of a lorry than try clinging to the undercarriage of a C130.

It's an inescapable prison colony she's proposing.

ascension is a great place. i really liked it despite it being a wierd mix of piecemeal developent, dereliction, urbanisation, absolutely nothing and, well, volcanoes and the bonkers notions of building quite large engineering projects 1000s of miles from anywhere. the runway there is mindbendingly huge.

i can recommend swimming with turtles and tuna fishing and 4x4 driving across the lava fields. And if you are into geology or the fragile nature there its just amazing.

there are no longer direct army flights so you get a bonus stopover on st helena too!

id love to go back with teh MTB for some proper freeride.

i can recommend swimming with turtles and tuna fishing and 4×4 driving across the lava fields.

I'm sure that Priti will be insisting the asylum seekers do all those things during their short and pleasant stay

Ascension island now discounted but, I paraphrase, other off-shore locations being considered.

perhaps the Barclay Brothers can offer a bit of house room on Sark. The security is already pretty good and they’ll be getting up in years and apparently carers are a bit hard to come by at the moment so it’s win-win

I’m sure that Priti will be insisting

"Insistin" 🤬

The security is already pretty good and they’ll be getting up in years and apparently carers are a bit hard to come by at the moment so it’s win-win

The asylum seekers might complain about how heavily bugged the buildings are though.

Gruinard island is empty and perfectly clean as well

Anglesey is the obvious answer

I just despair of what this government has become.

Instead of looking to humanely deal with people who are traumatised and have had their lives destroyed and travelled vast distances to try and find a safe haven, they treat them like refuse and use that fact as part of their core appeal to voters, who lap it up.

I know a lot of these attitudes have been entrenched for decades, but it's really upsetting that in less than five years we've reached a point where it's acceptable for this sort of xenophobic cobblers to be out there.

To quote Private Eye, perhaps it's time to end this disastrous experiment that is humanity!

Right wing populist government does right wing populist policy approval research.

Who will rid us of this inconvenient government?

We invented the concentration camp during the Boer war.

It seems fitting and only right that we should go back to tried and trusted means of inflicting misery and suffering on people now that we are no longer part of the oppressive EUSSR regime.

What I really can't get my head around is that under the very rules she's promoting Priti's parents, when they arrived in the UK, would have been immediately carted off to a rock in the South Atlantic.

Thats a special kind of pull-the-ladder-up-behind-yourself selfishness.

I suppose thats fairly typical of a Brexiteer to deny other people the luxuries and privileges you yourself have enjoyed all your own life

Anyhoo, for illegal immigrants, why would it be an issue ?. If it’s more comfortable that the jungle in Calais.

Not illegal. And you could make Alcatraz comfortable with some sofas and a good hifi system… would you want to be locked up there indefinitely just for trying to cross borders to escape a war zone in a failed state?

And some people wonder why it is that so many of us Scots want away from Westminster as soon as possible. it's not the English that we dislike, it's the crazies that run the big hoose that we despise.

I always thought that when you are looking for solutions you need to consider all the options, even ones as stupid as this. You consider all the options and then reject the ones that can't/don't work which leaves a list of ones that may be workable. The trouble we have with the media in general is that they grab the fact that the stupid alternatives had even been added to the list to show how stupid/inconsiderate/alien/etc the current government is.

We wonder why there are more and more informal meetings in government and in the civil service, without minutes being taken. This is an example of this. Even if it wasn't inhumane, shown to not work elsewhere it is not practical. Remember that another alternative that would have been considered would have been to welcome all immigrants who make it. Is that a workable solution?

How naive? You don’t think this was given to the press on purpose?!? Wowzers.

I always thought that when you are looking for solutions you need to consider all the options, even ones as stupid as this.

There is nothing wrong with adding an idea to a list. Throwing money around examining its feasibility is another matter. If you ignore the ethical issues simply googling the experiences of other countries who have tried similar ideas (ok perhaps not shipping people thousands of miles) would show it's a none starter.

Let's try and be Australia but without the sunshine or natural resources (and employ their failed dinosaur politicians to help us).

I keep thinking we can't sink any lower as a nation/species, and being proved wrong.

Must be depressing to have such a low opinion of ourselves.

I don't have that off course, but it seems a lot on here do.

You probably have much too high an opinion off yourself.

Who’s gone off course?

brads
Must be depressing to have such a low opinion of ourselves.
I don’t have that off course, but it seems a lot on here do.

We have a government who, in the last 12 months alone:

- disastrously mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic, resulting in 000's of unnecessary deaths - more than double of Italy, who at the time were held up as a bad example;

- have actively campaigned on and have sought to break international law and treaties;

- have given succour to the far right and modelled their policies to appeal to them;

- have deliberately sought to sabotage Brexit negotiation talks and, when faced with the reality of a no deal Brexit have no idea whatsoever how to actually resolve matters, meaning if you think this is a bad recession now, wait til next year.

I am not sure it is an overexaggeration to say the present lot are by far and away the worst bunch we have had in power in living memory. Rule by populist nonsense.

Anyone who says they are happy with the way this country is going is either deluded or a disaster capitalist (or both!).

It’s a bone dropped to keep a certain kind of voter on side…

https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1311294750671155202?s=21

You probably have much too high an opinion off yourself.

Maybe you should talk to someone about trying to increase your self worth mate, it's not healthy to feel you have sunk so low.

Maybe you should talk to someone about trying to increase your self worth mate, it’s not healthy to feel you have sunk so low.

Talk about the subject. Stop going off course with your irrelevant personal insults. Please.

Maybe you should talk to someone about trying to increase your self worth mate, it’s not healthy to feel you have sunk so low.

Its precisely because I think the UK is better than sending desperate people to concentration camps

how much must you be full of hate to want to do this?

Id suggest you need to take a look at why you are so bitter that you think its OK

Obviously stupid idea, but there's a difference between just "considering" it, as an option that other countries have done to deal with this perceived "problem", and "are actively considering actually doing it".

The media run a story, we all jump on the crazy idea, and in the meantime something slightly less obviously shit happens while we're not watching.

In much the same way that when someone asks for advice on dealing with a cat crapping on the lawn, we'll "consider" nuking it from orbit but we know it's not practicable.

Remember that another alternative that would have been considered would have been to welcome all immigrants who make it.

The thing is, she's not talking about illegal immigrants. She's talking about asylum seekers, who have lawfully applied for asylum from warzones/tyranical states/whatever horrible thing they need to escape from. It would be like sending every foreign national that applies for a spouse visa after marrying a British person to St Helena. It's punishing people doing things legally. Asylum is a fundamental right granted by the Geneva Convention.

In Europe, governments are obliged to house those who are seeking asylum until they have been granted asylum. Until they have asylum, UK law dicates that asylum seekers can't work - which means if we didn't house them, we'd have a bigger problem of untraceable homeless people who have sought asylum. Fortunately, our gracious government already has lovely places for asylum seekers to stay until either asylum is granted or they are ejected from the country without shipping them off to an island - they're a type of prison where people who have committed no crime are detained called Immigration Removal/Detention Centres.

As with everything immigration related in this country, the whole thing's a disgrace designed to keep racist Tory and Brexit voters on-side.

I can hear the conversation now: Hello my fadda, I made it across the Sahara and the channel to the UK.

Well done my son. When will you start sending money back so we can settle the loan shark?

Er... Not for s year or two yet - I'm on a small island just off Africa.

why spend the money shipping them thousands of miles away. There are no benefits over keeping them in the UK. Except one. out of sight out of mind. guantanamo bay exists because it allows you to act in a way contrary to law. It isn't as if the UK has history....

Talk about the subject. Stop going off course with your irrelevant personal insults. Please.

I haven't insulted anyone and you missed out having a word with ALL the people drifting the thread or having personal digs.

Must be personal.

Unfortunately Brad, you veered outside the STW echo chamber, so you will be relentlessly flamed!

At least the weather looks better than current Southampton! 😆

Unfortunately Brad, you veered outside the STW echo chamber, so you will be relentlessly flamed!

I'm getting used to being cancelled lol.

I haven’t insulted anyone

Well, your words are there for everyone to read and decide for themselves.

Remember that another alternative that would have been considered would have been to welcome all immigrants who make it. Is that a workable solution?

It's quite clearly a better idea than putting them in prison.

It’s quite clearly a better idea than putting them in prison.

Which is what the government already does. I'm surprised Brads, sadmadalan and Rockape63 aren't happy with the situation as it is.

I saw this mentioned on Twitter this morning and thought it was a joke.

If you really, really want to assess people who seek asylum in the UK, there's no need to find islands thousands of miles away, no need for prisons, no need even for interviews - just drop them into Barrow-in-Furness and tell them this is what the UK is REALLY like, if they're desperate or fleeing persecution, they'll stay, but if they were simply looking for a better life in the UK, they'll realise that this sh1thole isn't actually better and they'll request to leave of their own accord just as soon as they can. 😉

I wonder when the UK govt will make the connection between the bombs they sell to drop in distant countries and the increasing number of refugees.

Richard Branson offered his island as collateral for a business bailout didn't he? Let's start sending folk there. Not all of them obviously, we should cherrypick the most contagious, criminal, noisy, and smelly. Actually let's take that idea further and apply it to liverpudlians too. Select the top 1% of shit neighbours in the country regardless of nationality and send them to live on the islands of people who I don't like.

I think Priti's been watching Papillon on tv or something?

apply it to liverpudlians too

... you got my vote..where do I sign.

Rockape63
Free Member
Unfortunately Brad, you veered outside the STW echo chamber, so you will be relentlessly flamed!

OK Brad & rockape63

Tell us why it's a good idea?

I love this place for assumptions. And the fact folk make up what they think they read lol.

You presume to assume?

I'm surprised

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1311334834904748032?s=19

Yet I'm not surprised

https://twitter.com/adrianongaming/status/1311335355363348481?s=09

Sigh.

I think there are lots of workable solutions..... including an offshore processing center. The fact that it's offshore isn't what makes it shit. It's the contempt with which asylum seekers/immigrants/brown people are held by a certain chunk of our society, that makes it shit. Unfortunately, it's that chunk who the government are pandering to, and so are actively encouraged to treat them like shit.

Joe public cannot see any distinction between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, and all of that is caught up in race. This is just a cynical dogwistle for racists who disguise their racism behind "legitimate concerns about immigration".

Australia's use of Naru for the same purpose is reprehensible - not because it's offshore, but because of the appalling way that the "inmates" were/are treated. Who was the architect of that? Oh yeah.... Tony ****ing Abbot. The Australian personification of gammon (which is probably spam - I'll ask some Australian's and get back to you).

I'll see your Ascension Island and raise you Papua New Guinea. Not sure if you can make it out in the print but yes, PNG was considered too...

Looks like it might be prison hulks now though? Won't need ferries after Brexit anyway.

i can recommend swimming with turtles and tuna fishing 

I know Ascension very well and have swum a fair way around the island (NE Bay to Pan Am Beach - in stages of course!), but you can't do it anymore....

A few years ago the galapagos sharks decided to take more interest in the island on their migration route and now, rather than enjoying a swim with the odd shark, there are shoals of them and they're hungry! And they've tasted human flesh....it's all a bit 'sharkey' at the moment. Plus at English Bay a couple of people were killed by rogue waves. It's not a safe place to swim; in fact it never was and I don't suspect I'll repeat any of my previous swims.

Fishing is also off. Since the runway restrictions the fishing boats and crews have gone off island. That will slowly change, no doubt when the direct flights resume once the runway is refurbished (was subsiding and had some nasty dips in it..).

Surfing is possible (dangers above notwithstanding) but it's hyper-sketchy and is more scary than fun. Sharks and currents make that a non-starter now.

Walking is great there, some good MTB action to be had too.

I hope they don't bother with this plan; it's far too nice a place to bugger up!

I thought you needed the Governors permission to land there anyway? Seems a very simple way to ensure it doesn't happen.

Current lot don't seem particularly bothered by obtaining 'permission' or anything resembling it.

Looks like a Scottish island is out.

The First Minister has said, "They can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me."

I thought you needed the Governors permission to land there anyway?

It's a British Overseas Territory; the Governor will do what Whitehall ask.

As a casual visitor, however, yes you do have to seek permission to arrive.

There's no infrastructure there to house significant numbers of people and the logistics alone make it a non-starter.

The First Minister has said, “They can rest assured that any proposal to treat human beings like cattle in a holding pen will be met with the strongest possible opposition from me.”

Which means Ian Blackford mouthing some worthy words at Westminster and Pete Wishart flooding the Twittersphere just before blocking everyone.

Isle of Sheppy.
Close by so no expensive travel.
Loads don't know where it is so can tell people it's far far away.
Local population sure to be welcoming.

Seeing as Gruinard Island has been mentioned, here's its previous use.

Sketchy sound unfortunately.

This is all a smoke screen so it won't look too appalling when we imprison them off shore on decommissioned car ferrys.

concentration camp

noun

a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities.

I saw a great analysis of Priti Vacant earlier...

A woman who would happily unplug your life support machine to charge her phone

batfink
Full Member

Sigh.

I think there are lots of workable solutions….. including an offshore processing center. The fact that it’s offshore isn’t what makes it shit.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with an offshore centre, except that building anything offshore is way harder and more expensive than building it on the mainland, and the commute is worse for the staff even if you put it in a harbour, let alone if you put it halfway around the world for no valid reason.

Let alone all the extra costs of ferrying residents there- who is served by finding people in Dover, flying them to Ascension, then probably flying them back and forth a bunch of times for hearings. Serco, that's who (any centralised processing centre will inflate these costs, but putting it offshore inflates it further. Again, a little bit if it's in a harbour, a lot if it's anywhere else)

This is just one of those things that you should maybe oppose for moral reasons, but you should definitely oppose for financial reasons, just like the covid response, the student loans increase, the changes to immigration rules, and the decision to destroy the events industry.Doing bad things for good financial reasons is sometimes defensible but Tories prefer to do bad things for bad financial reasons, as long as their mates can make some money off it and they can get a board place when they leave government after getting caught shagging their secretary.

We could kill two birds with one stone here. They're all tipping up on the shores of Kent. Gove needs 50,000 customs staff. Having travelled halfway across the world through so many jurisdictions, mostly in the back of an artic, surely they're all ideally qualified? They can all work on the new Brexit lorry parks

Blue sky thinking, right there

OK Brad & rockape63

Tell us why it’s a good idea?

Not sure where either of us suggested it was a good idea....I just spotted the title and as Ive been to Ascension Island a few times, clicked on the thread.

My comment was based on the sight of the 'STW Thought Police' descending on Brad, simply because he hadn't adhered to the Party line. Its all a bit sad really, that anyone coming out with an alternative view, doesn't get debated with...they just get insulted!

What ‘alternative view’? He just had a go at another poster and said they should ‘seek help’. We’re waiting to hear what his view is… I’d like to hear his thoughts… there is no policing… some people might agree with him… some might not.