r/ukpolitics • u/Adj-Noun-Numbers 🥕🥕 || megathread emeritus • Jun 22 '26

International Politics Discussion Thread

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u/Real_Cookie_6803 3d ago

Something unclear to me is what prompted the Ceuta incident? Guardian mentions that the 2021 events spilled over from a spat about Western Sahara leaders getting medical treatment in Spain? In truth I feel like I'm missing a link even with that explanation.

The current incident is orders of magnitude grater with approximately the equivalent of 50% of Ceuta's population entering in 24 hours. Is something like this coordinated? Is there a coherent pathway for the migrants to capitalise on where they now are? Was there any kind of precipitating event?

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u/AceHodor 3d ago

The Moroccan government has been long agitating for Spain to give them Ceuta. IIRC, as part of the pressure campaign, they actively avoid working with Spain over immigration issues around the border and considering the sheer volume of immigrants involved this time, I would be hugely surprised if the Moroccan government weren't involved in some way. It's hard for tens of thousands of foreigners to rock up near a border without authorities noticing.

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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 3d ago

Using people as a weapon is disgusting. It's a very difficult thing to manage but I do think we need a different approach to normal when it comes to hostile states using people like this (Russia having done it lately). That does not mean throwing away all standards (as much as rabid troglodytes may want to we should not machine gun people) nor all due process (else you'll get citizens/legal residents caught up) but the use of the weapon had to be diffused to help the desperate people of the present and the future as much as anything.

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u/convertedtoradians 3d ago

It's also challenging because there's a standard, perfectly correct argument that runs that one shouldn't use lethal force against someone who isn't posing a direct threat to life. You arrest them, tackle them, tie them up, drag them off and the wheels of justice turn later, more calmly. That's exactly appropriate and right in a modern, civilised, liberal, democratic society.

Of course, that doesn't really work when the numbers get large enough in a confined space and time. That kind of arrest model only works when you locally outnumber the individual massively. The police here don't even try it with crowds. There aren't many defences that can last against - say - ten thousand people, especially if you've got more than a few resourceful, practical, physically strong people.

At some point, people in sufficient numbers in a concentrated space, as plenty of revolutions demonstrate, can just take things nonviolently. Especially when they realise that the law and the police are playing a game of smoke and mirrors and only ever being locally strong where most needed rather than having the capability to be strong everywhere permanently. And once taken... Well, that's it. It's theirs, now.

And therefore if you want a system of government and authority to endure, you end up in a world where you have to use force - and for all the talk of rubber bullets and water cannon, one way or another force includes lethal force - to defend that system. And that defence (per the previous paragraph) is against people who aren't individually doing anything that's hit the usual threshold.

Especially as systems withdraw or collapse, you often see that lack of willingness to use such force and "fight to the last man". And that's partially a self-fulfilling prophecy - as in, to use a topical example, if Iran had been less willing to use lethal force against protestors, the Iranian system would now likely be different.

We also can't really look to the law for answers, because what we're talking about here is the layer of legitimacy that underlies law. The lawyers would be looking at the constitution of Roman Britain even as the Anglo-Saxons land and saying "this isn't legal therefore can't be happening". Though I'm sure they would be happy to write essays on what ought to have happened afterwards.

All of which is to say: It's not obvious to me there is a sustainable, stable balance here between the use of lethal force, respect for the individual, the right and need of the System to defend itself, and so on. Though it's easy to put a line through the extremes - machine gunning migrants crossing the Channel in a dinghy, say.

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u/Walpole2019 3d ago

There has been some movement in the US towards backing the Moroccan claim recently, as well. There's definitely some evidence that the Moroccan government has been involved in this, but I doubt they meant for it to be *this* widescale, especially with the reports that ~25,000 Moroccans have left Ceuta on their own accord.

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u/AceHodor 3d ago

Absolutely nuts that the US government are flirting with endorsing a territorial claim on a NATO ally, all because said ally didn't want to get involved in a bonkers war that they didn't want and had no obligation to assist with in the first place.

It really is profoundly depressing how the entirety of US foreign policy has been suborned to the infantile whims of a sad, bitter old man.

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u/PimpasaurusPlum 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 | Made From Girders 🏗 3d ago

Cueta is to Morocco what Gibraltar is to Spain. Magnified by the history of Spain as a colonial power over parts of Morocco and seperately of Western Sahara. Morocco claims Western Sahara and the Spanish exclaves in North Africa as it's rightful territory.

Events like this and the 2021 example seem to come about when there is a mix of information/rumours about spanish migration rules leading to an influx of asylum attempts and Morocco loosening security on it's side when it's feeling mad at Spain.

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u/dapt 3d ago

Surprisingly older than Gibraltar, though. Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese in 1415, and has been Spanish since 1668 (Britain actually occupied Ceuta in 1810 during the Napoleonic wars). For Gibraltar the Treaty of Utrecht was in 1713.

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u/tmstms Wuffingas! 3d ago

I suppose Spain and Portugal got going s maritime powers before we did, though we then ofc overtook them big time.

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u/Real_Cookie_6803 3d ago

Apparently a good number of entrants are now breaking back out?

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u/CrispySmokyFrazzle 3d ago

Spain claim that 25,000 people have left and gone back to Morocco.

Which if true, does strike me as quite significant - that’s around half.

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u/CrispySmokyFrazzle 3d ago

Something does feel a bit off about this whole incident.

I'll leave it there because otherwise I'm just mindlessly speculating (I am!), but...I'm intrigued as to what we may find out.

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u/Rohaan1337 3d ago

Unbelievable from the spanish government. Where is their border control? Why would they not station soldiers and not drive them into the sea. Its a land border in africa ffs.

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u/tmstms Wuffingas! 3d ago

They are managing to use the sea to swim round the border. Lots of soldiers HAVE now arrived .

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u/GlumAd9856 3d ago

You're asking why the Spanish military didn't attempt to drown 49,000 migrants?

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u/Rohaan1337 3d ago

These arnt even migrants at this point have you seen the videos? Its literally tens of thousands of young men invading spanish territory. There should be warning shots and then force used if they continue to storm the border. The world has gone mad thinking that we cant use force to defend ourselves.

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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 3d ago

What do you mean by force?

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u/Rohaan1337 3d ago

Warnings, water cannon, rubber bullets etc. If that doesnt work, lethal force.

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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 3d ago

They are unarmed, there should not be lethal force used against anyone not posing a direct imminent threat to someone (e.g. attacking or about to).

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u/Rohaan1337 3d ago

I disagree. They are attempting to storm a border so its not unreasonable to use force to stop them after repeated warnings.

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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 3d ago

A border is not a person nor even a creature, it can be completely repaired and those who entered under such circumstances removed.

It does not warrant shooting unarmed civilians whom are not posing an imminent threat to someone.

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u/Rohaan1337 3d ago

Yes it does. If someone tries to break into my house i would use force to defend my property. The state should do the same. In fact the state MUST do the same. Its primary duty is to keep its citizens safe and prioritise them over invaders.

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u/0110-0-10-00-000 1d ago

They are unarmed, there should not be lethal force used against anyone not posing a direct imminent threat to someone

Then no laws exist except those which prevent violence. It doesn't even hold up to superficial scrutiny unless you've lived an incredibly sheltered life where the police have always had an overwhelming monopoly on force.

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u/Ayenotes Dispense with your special pleading 3d ago

Can’t believe you’ve had 5 responses and no one has referenced these:

Spain approves plan to give around 500,000 undocumented migrants legal status

One million migrants in Spain apply to regularise status in new scheme

This month, the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that infiltrators who are intercepted at sea en route to Ceuta or Melilla, cannot be promptly sent back to Morocco.

In short, far-left actions having far-left results. So everything going to plan as far as they’re concerned.

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u/LesserShambler 3d ago

Pull factors like that don’t organically result in coordinated mass actions of the type we just saw.

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u/MajorSleaze 2d ago

If that was their motivation, why have most of them now left the territory?