Sunak announces new legislation to make cross-channel migration illegal

[UndercoverElephant]

If I'm remembering right, her ideas included new, planned megacities in what are now sparsely populated high latitudes. A project for the 2nd half of the century providing labour to exploit newly unlocked resources and redress the economically challenging demographics in many northern countries.

Well, Russia and Canada anyway. Russia is an unusual case. It has the biggest cache of resources and potentially useful land, but it is one of the least attractive places to live, for obvious reasons.

It read as a technical solution, pretty much ignoring politics and cultural issues. An optimisation problem of solving for 8bn+ people on a 3°C warmer world.

In which case it completely ignores Garrett Hardin's basic argument about why we are ecologically screwed: the Earth is not a spaceship because it doesn't have a single captain capable of solving problems optimally on a global scale. We're screwed because of the politics and the culture, not because we lack technical solutions. Each sovereign entity acts in its own interest, and in the case of democracies this is subject to internal political struggles. Hence the tragedy of the commons and lifeboat ethics.

If each sovereign state optimises its own survival prospects then migration needs to be tightly controlled by the recipient state.

[mr brightside]

The best way to stop the boats is to tow them back to France, where 40 people will make their way back to the camp and spread the word, whilst looking for the people who took their money. Pretty soon the traffickers will be afraid to show their faces there and people will start making their way back home to the families that sponsored the trip in the hope of a regular income posted from blighty.

While I agree with you on this, I'm not sure that it can legally be done.

Why can't it be done?

I thought the best idea was something similar; fill their outboards up with fuel and tow them out towards france, just keep refuelling and redirecting them until they sink or go back to france.

My other idea was to ground a second hand oil tanker off the south coast somewhere and convert it into a prison, but don't call it a prison, just adopt the layout and facilities principle. If you bung them all in there then they won't actually ever set foot on british soil, which the way i see it helps massively. Probably not something we could get away with.

[clv101]

In which case it completely ignores Garrett Hardin's basic argument about why we are ecologically screwed: the Earth is not a spaceship because it doesn't have a single captain capable of solving problems optimally on a global scale. We're screwed because of the politics and the culture, not because we lack technical solutions. Each sovereign entity acts in its own interest, and in the case of democracies this is subject to internal political struggles. Hence the tragedy of the commons and lifeboat ethics.

If each sovereign state optimises its own survival prospects then migration needs to be tightly controlled by the recipient state.

Yeah, agree with that. Sooo many people prefer to see it as a technical problem though.

[Potemkin Villager]

Each sovereign entity acts in its own interest, and in the case of democracies this is subject to internal political struggles. Hence the tragedy of the commons and lifeboat ethics.

Of course, there is a further twist to this in the set of assumptions made that particular
sovereign states and locations actually do represent viable stand alone lifeboats.

[UndercoverElephant]

Each sovereign entity acts in its own interest, and in the case of democracies this is subject to internal political struggles. Hence the tragedy of the commons and lifeboat ethics.

Of course, there is a further twist to this in the set of assumptions made that particular
sovereign states and locations actually do represent viable stand alone lifeboats.

Most of them do if the population is low enough. The UK would be one of the best placed sovereign entities on the planet if there were 20 million fewer people here. We could still do better than most other places, but only if we stabilise and start reducing the population.

[Vortex2]

The UK would be one of the best placed sovereign entities on the planet if there were 20 million fewer people here.

The population is due to at least double as climate change pushes people out of their home lands.

The British climate will remain mild-ish in the face of climate change and so will attract MANY people.

[UndercoverElephant]

The UK would be one of the best placed sovereign entities on the planet if there were 20 million fewer people here.

The population is due to at least double as climate change pushes people out of their home lands.

The British climate will remain mild-ish in the face of climate change and so will attract MANY people.

The UK population will elect a far right government to stop that happening long before it gets anywhere near that level, unless mainstream politicians finally grasp the nettle first. Sunak appears to have two goals -- stop the migrants and get the fiscal situation under control. I suspect the former will prove more achievable than the latter.