Button wrote:I didn't intend my 'how so' to be a rhetorical question, I'm just not seeing why a UK asylum assessment facility abroad should eradicate cross-channel people smugglers.
It's not like you to be obtuse, Button, but I'm struggling to see how I can explain it more effectively. There are no safe routes for these people to get to the UK. Instead they rely on the people smugglers, the other 'illegal' routes (stowing away on lorries etc) having been prevented by increased security.
Do you really think they would take such a perilous risk if there were an alternative? Even after Thursday's hideous events, they continue to endanger their lives to get an asylum hearing.
Were that to be permissible in France, there would be no business model for the people traffickers.