Comment by regularfry

Why this false dichotomy? Either we do whatever authoritarian crap the Home Office are pushing this month or it's pushing people back into the sea and drowning them? No. What will discourage people from getting into boats is to provide safe routes in. Literally a desk in Calais where you can walk up and say "I'm going to request asylum and need a ferry ticket, have Borders Agency meet me at the other side please" would undercut the people smugglers to the extent that you wouldn't have boats any more. The French offered us almost exactly this but we turned them down.