UK will finally off shore illegal asylum seekers crossing the channel

"We must accept false dichotomies, because the only alternative is cannibalism!"

You say that "the only policy that can be implemented at a national level that doesn't divert trafficking is, effectively, an open border." I don't have a problem with a policy that diverts trafficking if it also does something that is actually of some use. But if you are really proposing a simple dichotomy - divert trafficking or open your borders - then it's a no-brainer that opening your borders is the morally correct policy; that will cost money, but it will also reduce human suffering. Offshoring just costs money.

But of course the dichotomy is an absurdly false one. It's patently untrue that, if I object to the Australian policy (or the proposed UK policy) I am de facto supporting open borders. There are lots of other avenues that can be explored - e.g. multilateral refugee resettlement programmes; providing avenues for people not already in the country to apply for protection without having to be trafficked in; etc. Most countries in the world don't offshore asylum seekers like Australia does and the UK proposes to, and they also don't have "effectively" open borders.

When you talk about what's morally correct, it may that you are only looking at what's good for your chosen group. But don't generalise from yourself to the rest of the world.

I've already said that "support offshoring or support open borders!" is an absurd and preposterous suggestion. But, as a thought experiment, in a hypothetical world where that really was the only choice, both options would indeed have significant costs. I'm not suggesting that open borders would have no negatives; just that it is likely to produce less misery than the only alternative permitted in this hypothetical.

I wouldn't, though, buy into all the negatives that you suggest. Australia is a society that has been built by importing people with, mostly, limited skills and education (but the right colour skin), whose various cultures were foreign - sometimes very foreign - to the one they were coming to. And, while this hasn't been without its problems, on the whole Australia is now regarded as a fairly successful country. Certainly the suggestion that Australia cannot survive a migration policy not very different from the migration policy it has been practising for most of the the past two centuries (except without the overt racism) is not obviously true.

My morally obligation decreases rather quickly with distance.

By the time it extends past my family, friends and neighbours, it's very small, and past the borders of this nation, I'm not sure it exists at all.

Perhaps you're posting from a monastery having previously donated your worldly goods to charity, and have fully implemented your perfect utilitarian moral framework in your actions.

But I suspect it exists mainly in costless words on the internet.

The moral claim, such as it is, is satisfied by the Australian system: you can flee here from peril, and your life will be protected, but you will never live on the mainland and never have the living standards and opportunities of an Australian resident or citizen.

I find it revealing that this system resulted in a collapse in applications. You have asserted, without proof, that people simply fled elsewhere.

It seems to me to be far more likely that what they were fleeing from was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as a life lived confined to a camp in Nauru, and they made their decisions accordingly.

Fascinating fact of the day: The success rate for people from Rwanda applying for protection in the UK is . . . 100%. It's absurd that the UK would turn around and pronounce Rwanda to be a safe country when every single person seeking protection from Rwanda has been found by the UK authorities to be in need of protection. If the UK would "never return an individual to a country where they would face a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment", they wouldn't be making this arrangement with Rwanda. And bear in mind that this is the government that objects vociferously when the UK courts block deportation of people from the UK to countries where they would face a real risk of inhuman and degrading treatment, honks into the void about leftie lawyers, etc, etc. If you believe them when they say they would never do this, you are a fool.

And, in general, treat what UK governments say they intend to do in this area with a high degree of scepticism. Look instead at the powers they take for themselves; look at what they can do. If they are telling you "yes, it's a sweeping power, but trust us to use it responsibly and only in appropriate cases" be very, very sceptical. They have a long history of betraying exactly that kind of trust.

My position is: if life in a camp in Nauru is worse than the 'persecution' you were facing at home, you weren't really being persecuted at all.

You'll find the majority of both Australia and the UK in firm agreement with me, and the more the Geneva convention is abused, the more countries will join them.

Your position disgraces you and you should be ashamed to assert it.

France will still have to allow them back. Same for their home country, where they've destroy or just didn't have documents.

They've their third option now, and migrants can no longer wait out the system with appeals and multiple stories.

If someone has made it to France do they stay there or travel to the UK and hope they're never found as Rwanda awaits if they are.