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When Will Illegal Immigration to the UK be Addressed?
Coming up on 5-years from the June 23, 2016 referendum to leave the European Union, and 1-year and 6-months since the UK actually left the EU, it seems reasonable that Britons could expect to see some of the oft-touted ‘benefits of Brexit’…
Unfortunately, other than a smattering of small-ish trade deals, nothing else seems to have been accomplished by this Parliament — other than a colossal mishandling of COVID-19 (at first) — followed by an extraordinary commitment by the UK government to get every Briton vaccinated as quickly as possible. Success at last!
Well done, Parliamentarians. Slow start/good finish. If only every situation in this troubled world proceeded thusly…
But ‘So Much More Was Promised’ said every Briton!
And one of the main reasons the British electorate voted to leave the EU was to give the UK the ability to control how many foreigners are allowed into the country annually.
Another important factor is what kind of people the UK wants to accept. At present, the UK has many unskilled or low-skilled immigrants living in the Kingdom — which might be fine if there were enough jobs for them. Certainly, farmers and others depend on large numbers of low-skilled/low pay workers, but how many is too many?
Things reach a boiling point when so-called ‘grooming gangs’ are owning every street corner in certain towns and cities — making it advisable to forego walking (or even driving!) through some parts of town at any hour of the day or night.
What has this country become that it can’t stand up to local hoodlums?
Is it the government’s fault? Is it the Mayor’s fault, the fault of the Police, or are individual Britons too weak to own the streets that their tax payments financed? Is it complacency? Or is it just too dangerous to make a stand for oneself — now that different levels of government have avoided their responsibility to provide safety and security to citizens for so many years — that even the Police have (largely) given up?
‘This isn’t what we voted for!’ said every voter ever.
If Not Addressed – Heads Will Roll at the Next Election!
Previous generations of Britons stood up to fascism twice in the 20th-century and played a leading role during the Cold War struggle. That’s the legacy of their generation and no one can take it from them.
Yes, sometimes mistakes were made. But decisions often needed to be made ‘on the fly’ and without the huge benefit afforded by today’s instant communications, the internet, and the much larger body of knowledge that exists in today’s world. Even so, the ‘greatest generation’ met their (exponentially larger and orders of magnitude more terrifying) challenges with dauntless stoicism because they knew they were fighting and suffering for the greater good.
Will this Generation Rise to Meet the Challenges of Their Time?
It remains to be seen.
Almost meeting the UK’s renewable energy targets and slowly gravitating towards electric cars — approaches something akin to progress — but if citizens are too afraid to leave their homes, too afraid to take the train, too afraid to attend an Arianna Grande concert, or are too afraid to walk in the park, what is the point?
Why Pay Taxes When You’re Too Afraid to Leave the House?
The first duty of government (any government, anywhere) is to protect the citizens of the country. But it’s also true that ‘the government’ or ‘the police’ can’t be everywhere to solve every problem.
That doesn’t mean they can abdicate their responsibilities and exclaim ‘There’s crime everywhere! What can we do?’
Not good enough!
No matter how unfair it may seem, the government and the police must do a better job of protecting Britons and those who visit the United Kingdom. Yes, it’s become a super-sized problem as successive governments have let the problem fester because they were too busy opining on far less important matters.
But it’s reached a breaking point. Something must be done, and soon.
Hundreds of young men are crossing the English Channel every day, and are (astonishingly!) given a lift the rest of the way to the UK by HM Border Force ships after being fished out of dangerously overloaded boats.
In my opinion, the number of young men attempting to reach the UK via such dangerous means has dramatically increased since they have become convinced (through decades of inaction) that the UK Parliament lacks the resolve to take any actual steps to rectify this ongoing disaster…
Channel crossings: Migrant crossings continue amid good weather (BBC)
“So far this year, according to government figures, more than 3,200 people have made the crossing.”
Illegal channel migrants threaten ‘mob unrest’ on arrival over housing delays (The Telegraph)
“Record numbers of illegal migrants expect to be moved quickly to their accommodation, says Border Force union.”
India (Brilliantly!) Wants to be Part of the Solution, Instead of Part of the Problem
(REUTERS May 4, 2021)
India to take back illegal migrants to UK in return for visas for young workers
Britain and India on Tuesday signed an accord on migration and mobility, an Indian foreign ministry official said, as they look to deepen economic, cultural and other ties following the UK’s departure from the European Union.
The pact will provide enhanced employment opportunities for 3,000 young Indian professionals annually, in return for India agreeing to take back any of its citizens who are living illegally in the UK, Sandeep Chakravorty told a news conference.
The migration pact comes after the two countries announced 1 billion pounds ($1.39 billion) of private-sector investment. Talks on a full trade deal are due to begin in the autumn.
“It is our solemn duty that Indian nationals who are undocumented, or are in distress abroad and not being given nationality or residence permits, have to be taken back,” Chakravorty said.
Britain’s interior ministry said in a statement that the deal aimed to attract “the best and brightest, and supporting people coming to the UK through legal routes, while stopping the abuse of the system and speeding up the removal of those who have no right to be in the UK”… (Continue to Reuters.com to finish reading this article)
Now, that’s an example of a country that wants to be part of the solution to a serious and rising problem, and doesn’t want to play the ‘blame game’ with UK leaders.
And that’s called ‘LEADERSHIP’ people!
Have a wonderful summer wherever you travel!
Written by John Brian Shannon
Why the Commonwealth needs a space programme
Exploring space is fun, isn’t it?
From the Sputnik launch in 1957, to the Apollo mission putting man on the Moon in 1969, to the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 that are now the farthest human-made objects to travel from Earth, to the Mars rovers ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ and other great projects — all these programmes succeeded far beyond their designers best expectations.
The most recent space programmes concentrate on researching the nearest star, the Sun, which emits heat and light (and very dangerous) molten plasma that flies into space at thousands of miles per hour. These ‘Coronal Mass Ejections’ (CME) are ejected from the Sun and are occasionally 100-times the size of the Earth.
“NASA and the ESA are developing missions that will allow us to explore our own Sun like never before. These missions, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Solar Orbiter, will explore closer to the Sun than any previous mission. In so doing, it is hoped that they will resolve decades-old questions about the inner workings of the Sun.
“These missions – which will launch in 2018 and 2020, respectively – will also have significant implications for life here on Earth. Not only is sunlight essential to life as we know it, solar flares can pose a major hazard for technology that humanity is becoming increasingly dependent on. This includes radio communications, satellites, power grids and human spaceflight. — Universe Today
Aside from the NASA and the ESA ‘Cool Science’ stuff – We Need to Track ‘Boring’ Objects on Collision-course with Earth
While all of the above is endlessly fascinating, the gaping hole in space exploration (which should concern everyone who lives on the planet) is the millions of space rocks (asteroids) and comets that pass by and sometimes hit the Earth.
The Earth is hit by meteorites (bits of space rock and ice) every day of the year. Most fall harmlessly into the world’s oceans as water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, and thousands of them have been recovered from the ice sheets in Antarctica, Greenland and Siberia where they appear as small black rocks on the ice in plain view. You can pick up a handful of them in some parts of Antarctica in less than an hour.
Some asteroids are as large as 1/5th the size of the Moon (but those ones are easy to spot and have very stable orbits, meaning we don’t have to worry about them, ever) while millions of them are the size of the Empire State Building in New York and could wreak considerable damage if they were to impact the Earth at their usual 24,000 miles per hour impact speed.
If a skyscraper-sized object impacted Antarctica we’d barely know about it — but if one were to impact within 100 miles of any city we’d know! — the entire city might be destroyed especially if it hit the ocean near any coastal city, or if it hit a nuclear power station or even a hydro-electric dam where the impact could destroy the dam, causing severe flooding.
Read how asteroid impacts could harm humans living far from the impact site (The Express)
The thing is, we know the trajectories of only a fraction of them!
Yet, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a rock from space 65-million years ago, and only small mammals and birds that lived or nested underground (and some species of fish) were spared.
Few humans live underground it must be pointed out.
Which is exactly why we need a dedicated asteroid observatory in space to collect data on asteroids and comets in our neighbourhood!
Watch an actual GIF of “2010 WC9” as it passed by the Earth on May 15, 2018 (Slooh)
We Need a Geosynchronous Space Station to Track near-Earth Objects
While NASA and the ESA concentrate on the fascinating planets, various moons, and our Sun (and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the ESA’s Solar Orbiter will provide excellent realtime knowledge of the Sun and of CME’s that could potentially hit the Earth) and with both China and Japan mounting missions to the Moon a huge opportunity presents itself for the UK and its Commonwealth partners to save Earth from asteroidal or cometary impacts.
Although tiny groups of people are working to detect objects likely to impact us, typically they notify media outlets as the object passes or within a day or two of it passing the Earth — for the simple reason there are millions of asteroids in our space neighbourhood and they are difficult to spot, especially when black rocks are coming at us from black space with glare from the Sun blinding terrestrial observers.
Once they have passed by, we can more easily see them from the side that is illuminated by the Sun. But that would be much too late in the case of objects on a direct collision course with the Earth. We’d be hit before we could see them!
Such Extinction Level Events (ELE) are relatively uncommon, but a large asteroid or comet could hit us at any moment, or not for 100 years. Why sit around waiting for another ELE, when we may soon have the ability to deflect them from hitting our planet?
“Aerial view of Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. This crater is ~1.2 km in diameter and ~170 meters deep. The crater is the result of an impact of a 40- to 50-meter iron-nickel asteroid roughly 50,000 years ago.” — NASA
Near-Earth asteroid “2010 WC9” that passed by our planet on May 15, 2018 is twice the size of the meteorite that created Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona.
For a direct comparison of the consequences of a Statue of Liberty-sized impactor, we need to consider the 1908 Tunguska Event which scientists say was caused by a meteorite of similar size to “2010 WC9”.
Read a great article about the Tunguska Event (NASA)
EXCERPT: “While testimonials may have at first been difficult to obtain, there was plenty of evidence lying around.
Eight hundred square miles of remote forest had been ripped asunder. Eighty million trees were on their sides, lying in a radial pattern.” — NASA
Using Parallax to Detect Objects in near-Earth Space
Many space objects pass by us without us knowing and it’s sheer dumb luck that we haven’t been wiped out by a large space rock as the dinosaurs were millions of years ago. In fact, there is evidence that there have been more than one mass-extinction event caused by asteroid impact in the Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, something that itself, is still being studied.
Trying to see black objects in black space heading toward us is folly
Even with our modern instrumentation and optics, we’re lucky to catch one-out-of-every-thousand of these wanderers. By setting up a permanent geosynchronous space station (geosynchronous means 22,236 miles above the Earth) the people in the space laboratory will see a much different view of objects hurtling through space on a collision-course with Earth.
At the geosynchronous orbit, such rocky loners would be much easier to spot and record, as they will be backlit by the Sun during part of their orbit around the inner solar system where we live.
It would cost billions of dollars to operate such a space station — yet the very survival of humankind could be at stake.
Whether it is 10-years or 100-years before our planet is hit by a major or medium-sized asteroid or comet now is the time to get ‘out there’ and get tracking all of these nearly invisible objects (from the view of the Earth) to determine which of them will hit us on their next pass.
India Advanced Rocket Programme + UK Advanced Payload Programme
India has a rocket programme advanced enough to allow the country to launch payloads to Mars.
Perhaps UK leaders could convince India to be partners in saving the Earth from asteroid impact and by splitting the costs among all Commonwealth of Nations countries, the Commonwealth could conceivably save all life from extinction.
If India provides the launch vehicle and launch facilities, other Commonwealth partners like the UK, Australia and New Zealand could supply the space station exoskeleton and the other technologies required for people to survive in a remote-ish space station.
Commonwealth partner Canada could supply a double-ended Canadarm (similar to what the NASA Space Shuttle delivered to the International Space Station) to facilitate movement of various space station modules and to assist resupply spacecraft docking at the Commonwealth space station, along with supplying sophisticated asteroidal and cometary identification and tracking technologies.
Non-Commonwealth countries may want to contribute to the asteroid/comet knowledge base — and some may offer to add their own modules and crews to the Commonwealth’s geosynchronous space station. Hey, the more the better!
For now, even an unmanned geosynchronous satellite designed to track potentially dangerous objects that could go up this year would be 1000-times more effective than the ‘system’ we have now for tracking potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. And in the future when we’ve studied these objects and understand them more fully, we will devise surefire ways to deflect them from impacting our planet.
Each year, more modules with greater capability could be added to the geosynchronous satellite, and within 5-years a permanently manned module could be attached.
ANYTHING is better than what we have now, which is almost nothing!
A Time to Lead
I respectfully urge the leaders of Commonwealth countries to make this dramatic and much-needed entrance into space for the greater good of humankind and to serve to further deepen the links between Commonwealth member nations.
So much good has come about from space exploration since 1957 and there is much more to come, but for that… we need to ensure the survival of the human race.
Therefore, let us go forward together on what may become perhaps the most important mission ever undertaken by our human civilization.
Visit www.asteroidday.org for more information about the asteroids in our solar system.
Money… Money Changes Everything!
At this moment in UK history, more money is needed to fund the NHS, schools, roads, railways, airports and other national infrastructure, Trident, foreign aid — and to fund 500 million sterling worth of renovations to the House of Commons.
Money is certainly the problem, as more money would solve all of those issues and many more.
Unfortunately, some governments ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ but with little change in the total amount of revenue actually collected by the government.
- In some cases, a socialist (Labour) government will raise more revenue by raising taxes. Let the wailing begin!
- In other cases, a conservative (Conservative and Unionist) government will cut expenditures via fiscal and budgetary belt-tightening. Groan!
Which is why governments everywhere are always on the hunt for more money.
But are they? Are they really on the hunt for money? Are they really trying to increase revenue? Or do they automatically hit their default mode every time a budget crisis looms?
Some observers think that governments dismiss attempts to increase revenue via increased trade with other nations too quickly and move to their particular default mode.
Where Could the UK Find 1.3 Billion Consumers Wanting to Buy British Goods?
Well, India, for one. And they’re a Commonwealth nation. Ta-Da! See? It’s sooo simple.
All the UK government must do is to reach out to India’s leaders (especially post-Brexit, but nothing stopping them from getting started now!) in the interests of ramping-up trade by at least one order of magnitude.
Why should India purchase trillions of rupees worth of goods from non-Commonwealth nations when they could purchase them from the UK?
Why does India purchase their aircraft carriers from Russia, their fighter-bombers from Russia, other significant navy ships from Russia, and billions worth of goods from China, the southeast Asian nations, and the United States?
A century ago, Great Britain’s trade relations with India were booming. Shipyards couldn’t build ships fast enough to keep up with the annual increase in trade.
Who dropped the ball?
Heads should roll for allowing that relationship to falter — a relationship of prime importance to both the UK and to India!
Never Mind Playing the ‘Blame Game’ There’s No Time!
Instead of UK government departments fighting each other for funding, the government should work to ramp-up trade with India to increase Britain’s GDP by 5 per cent.
We need to get a piece of that rapidly growing and rapidly modernizing economy, and thereby add five per cent to Britain’s annual GDP.
Yes! More money will solve all of Britain’s spending problems… but it isn’t going to fall out of the sky and land in the Treasury building by itself!
Someone! Anyone! Perhaps the Prime Minister or the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary (or both) along with the Queen should invite Prime Minister Modi of India and his high officials to London, for an unprecedented and long overdue re-look at the macro relationship between the two countries to see how increased trade could improve the economies of both nations, and how each nation can play to their own strengths and work to offset each other’s weaknesses.
Instead of UK Government Departments Fighting Each Other for Funding – Increase the Available Revenue Pool for All Departments
Companies fight over ‘market share’ because that’s what companies do. And it is often a vicious competition.
However, governments have an unparalleled advantage here because they can increase the overall size of the market — which, using this metaphor, relates to UK GDP.
By dramatically ramping-up trade with India the government could increase GDP by five per cent, easily meet the spending requirements of all departments and still have the economic clout to run balanced budgets indefinitely.
This so badly needs to be done that Brexit is a side-show by comparison, although without Brexit it would be difficult to enter into new trade arrangements with any non-EU country.
In summary, Brexit is merely the means to an end — an end with a much stronger economy for both Britain and India, and a stronger Commonwealth partnership.
Letter to Britain 