What depresses me is that it is still all about reducing numbers. Nobody seems prepared to deal with the root problem of the complete Horlicks of the bureaucracy around immigration. It is nineteen years since John Reid described it, correctly, as not fit for purpose yet, aside from a few tweaks, nothing has changed.
What depresses me is that it is still all about reducing numbers. Nobody seems prepared to deal with the root problem of the complete Horlicks of the bureaucracy around immigration. It is nineteen years since John Reid described it, correctly, as not fit for purpose yet, aside from a few tweaks, nothing has changed.
Can you actually point to specifics in terms of continuity of policies over that length of time ?
(For the record, Reid was describing the entire Home Office, not just it's approach to migration, and whether his judgement was more than entirely serving and would have been the same at the end of his tenure there is open to question).
The most recent 'crisis' was entirely self generated, due to the previous government deliberately going slow on processing asylum claims, in order to use the figures for political reasons.
Starmer's rhetoric today is fucking vile. "Island of strangers"? Not if you talk to people and welcome them. I'm not sure which is worse, that he believes this shit or is pouring petrol on the flames of fascism purely for political purposes.
Presumably, he thinks people will stay with Labour and not switch to Reform. Or he is after the Reform and Tory vote. It doesn't work. And it is nasty.
Starmer's rhetoric today is fucking vile. "Island of strangers"? Not if you talk to people and welcome them. I'm not sure which is worse, that he believes this shit or is pouring petrol on the flames of fascism purely for political purposes.
"A one nation experiment in open borders" "The damage this has done to our country is incalculable"
The first is obviously a lie, and the second is presumably true in the sense that you can't actually calculate the damage because it has been a net positive.
But let's see what they implement eh ? Maybe it'll finally be the 'positive case for immigration' he promised when running for leadership in 2020. /s
I hope everyone who decided to vote Green in Runcorn is pleased with their Reform MP.
Blaming people for not voting tactically is the kind of thing I'd expect on social media.
The turnout was 46.24%, down 13.57%. Instead of blaming people who actually voted for the candidate they wanted, how about blaming all the people who didn't vote this time round. Or you could just ask why.
Being cynical about democracy is one thing. But criticising people who actually participate in it doesn't seem very productive.
We have a FPTP electoral system. The consequence of that is that voting for candidates that enjoy only modest support is equivalent to not voting from the point of view of determining which candidate wins. So one could criticize the 2,314 people that voted Green for "letting Reform in", but one could equally criticize the 942 people that voted Lib Dem, the 454 people that voted Liberal, the 164 people that voted for the Workers Party, the 129 Rejoin EU voters, and so on. And, of course, one could criticize the roughly 35,000 registered voters that didn't vote at all.
But given that the Labour party are currently using their unassailable parliamentary majority to try and out-bigot the bigots, I find it hard to care.
@chrisstiles I was referring to the ludicrously protracted bureaucracy around claims for asylum, processing requests for PTR, checking on visa over-stays, etc.
The message seems to be almost explicitly "Those Conservatives only pretend to be xenophobic, Labour really are!"
Why vote for Farage, when with Labour you get real racism.
I would ask how we got here, but then Labour attacks on the notorious 1960s Smethwick by-election rang a bit hollow when it was revealed the local Labour club was operating a colour bar…
Also fascinating to note how long Farage has been lingering around British (mostly English) politics like the smell of a rotting whale carcass.
I wouldn’t be too ‘mostly English’ about it. While waiting to see what happens in Scotland next year, one of the things that really took me aback reading Michael Crick’s biography of Farage* is how it was more their own incompetence that stopped UKIP/BREXIT Party/Reform getting much more traction in Wales much earlier (years earlier) than they did.
*which I commend, by the way, it is about as far from hagiography as you can imagine and has made me think about the Reform/Farage challenge quite differently, tbh
I am half expecting the Labour front bench to be sporting brown shirts at PMQs. I am not prepared to believe that Starmer doesn’t know that he used a phrase from the Rivers of Blood speech.
@chrisstiles I was referring to the ludicrously protracted bureaucracy around claims for asylum, processing requests for PTR, checking on visa over-stays, etc.
To the extent the first two are currently broken; the current issues stem from the actions of the previous government which deliberately underfunding parts of the system in order to generate an artificial crisis (as I mentioned above), the last is not actually a particularly big issue.
As has been said, there isn't a crisis relating to asylum seekers except that created by the pervious government in both underfunding the system to assess claims (in the process creating a massively expensive requirement for temporary housing of claimants) and in removing all the regular routes for refugees and handing criminal gangs a lucrative business providing small boats across the Channel.
Shifting budget from housing claimants to processing claims will speed up the process and move claimants out of hotels as they gain refugee status and can work to earn money to pay for their own accommodation, pay taxes and contribute to the economy rather than be a drain on the economy and public purse. Opening options for asylum seekers to get to the UK without employing criminal gangs, which could be as simple as letting them buy a ticket on a cross-Channel ferry, will stop the boats almost immediately. With no customers the gangs will switch to alternative means of making money.
I'll probably question whether checking on visa over-stays isn't a big issue. Though Reform et.al. focus on small boats, the number of people entering the UK illegally by that route is very small, the vast majority apply for asylum on arrival and hence are entering legally. The far far bigger problem with people being in the country illegally are those who entered legally on a visa and then have broken the terms of that visa (eg: not leaving when they should, working while on a student visa etc) and are still here. The Home Office knows who they are (or, they should anyway), but possibly are not able to locate exactly where they are. The tactics often employed to deport them when they are located have been inhumane and deplorable, and that part of the system needs to be vastly improved, but if the government is serious about reducing the number of people in the country illegally then that's the group of people they need to work on deporting - not the small boats of people who apply for asylum.
Labour is trying to set up return hubs for those who fail the immigration process. Not the same as the Cons flight to Rwanda. If you fail you would get sent to a hub for processing.
Starmer says he is not pandering to Reform but it sure looks like it.
I'm reaching the same conclusion. I'd planned to grit my teeth until Starmer was gone and at least try to influence to next leader, but I'm starting to think it's not worth how dirty I feel every time I see the direct debit go out.
Labour is trying to set up return hubs for those who fail the immigration process. Not the same as the Cons flight to Rwanda. If you fail you would get sent to a hub for processing.
Albania was the country floated as being the site of the return hub. [Albania have since denied this].
Starmer took only one broadcaster with him for his trip to Albania today, and that was, of course, GBNews. He also took the opportunity to repeat his 'island of strangers' line:
I'm reaching the same conclusion. I'd planned to grit my teeth until Starmer was gone and at least try to influence to next leader, but I'm starting to think it's not worth how dirty I feel every time I see the direct debit go out.
You wouldn’t be the only ones. One chart I saw shows Labour leaking members and voter intention to The Greens and the Lib Dem’s. Reform is not near the the top of the list. They still chase Farage though.
This seems to be a way of putting the worst optics on something that is already bad and doing so in a way that pisses off the maximum number of people off while not pleasing anyone:
"The Home Office has announced the arrests of six “illegal” workers in restaurants across Glasgow after an operation by the UK’s own “ICE” (Immigration, Compliance and Enforcement team).
Apparently modelled on the US government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE team, the Labour Government said the force's “illegal working drive” had taken place on Thursday evening"
What's next? A citizen management force with a new uniform in tan and black?
I am not happy about return hubs. But I will point out the difference between this and the Rwanda plan.
The Rwanda plan was deport people and process their asylum claims elsewhere, and only let them have asylum at that location if their claims were found to be genuine.
Return hubs as currently proposed, are deport people who have both failed in their asylum claim and exhausted all avenues of appeal in the UK to an interim facility elsewhere before they return to wherever they are going.
Presumably, if you are going to have a process where you plan not to let people people stay if they make - what you consider to be - false asylum claims: you have to have some plan to deport them.
I am not happy about return hubs. But I will point out the difference between this and the Rwanda plan.
The Rwanda plan was deport people and process their asylum claims elsewhere, and only let them have asylum at that location if their claims were found to be genuine.
Return hubs as currently proposed, are deport people who have both failed in their asylum claim and exhausted all avenues of appeal in the UK to a interim facility elsewhere before they return to wherever they are going.
Presumably, if you are going to have a process where you plan not to let people people stay if they make - what you consider to be - false asylum claims: you have to have some plan to deport them.
I am not happy about return hubs. But I will point out the difference between this and the Rwanda plan.
The Rwanda plan was deport people and process their asylum claims elsewhere, and only let them have asylum at that location if their claims were found to be genuine.
Return hubs as currently proposed, are deport people who have both failed in their asylum claim and exhausted all avenues of appeal in the UK to an interim facility elsewhere before they return to wherever they are going.
Presumably, if you are going to have a process where you plan not to let people people stay if they make - what you consider to be - false asylum claims: you have to have some plan to deport them.
Yes I said that it is for unsuccessful claimants. What did we do before ? We had systems. This is still pandering to the right.
Earlier in the week, the leader of the AfD (the German far right party) was approvingly citing Starmer's actions. Just after Starmer had swathed himself in the mantle of WW2 and VE day...
And then the Hungarian fash had nice words for him too
'Speaking to The Independent, Viktor Orban's state secretary State Secretary Zoltán Kovács said: "We see Sir Keir Starmer saying the exact sentences and words actually we've been talking about for the past 10 years
Now Anas Sarwar is doing 'genuine concerns' racism in Scotland against immigration- trying to take votes from the SNP (which may not be brilliant on other things but which has to its credit stridently opposed this kind of racism).
I'm a huge fan of Séamas O'Reilly who really sums this stuff up -
It's worth saying as loudly as I can that Britain has massively benefited from migrants, by every conceivable metric...
In that same period of time, Britain has also been through the ebbs and flows of stagnation and social decay that accompany any capitalist society. Neoliberal policies have made life tighter, meaner and crueller for people at the bottom of the pile.
In response to these effects, scapegoating immigrants has become a time-honoured ritual among a loose cohort of interdependent parties. From avowed white nativists who despise the idea that their culture is being diluted, to comfortable, news-addicted pensioners living miles away from any migrants at all, to cosmopolitan politicians and press barons - with chalets in Switzerland and wives from France - who know that there will always be utility in attacking foreigners for the problems they themselves have created.
...
Immigrants contribute more to the British economy than they withdraw; they commit crimes at a lower rate than native born Brits; have been at the centre of every academic, industrial and sporting success this century, and their food, language, music and art enrich the lives of millions.
They are not merely our doctors, our teachers, our carers, builders, artists and community leaders, they are our friends, they are our family, they are us.
All such fact-checking is, obviously, pointless. This was not a week of actual policy proposals, so much as a spittle-flecked howl to the far-right voters Starmer believes he can win by appearing tough on foreigners.
He’s wrong.
Firstly, none of this will make any white British person’s life better for the next four years. It will break untold bonds of family and friendship while also hobbling the care system and NHS even further, setting fire to public services, and bringing universities to their knees.
If every dreaded foreigner is removed, the most racist man in England will not be seen quicker by his GP, have more shops on his high street, or send his kids to a more adequately funded school
It's worth reading the whole thing - we are short of voices like his in the British media and few politicians stand up for these truths.
I'm very sorry for decent people here who have voted or campaigned for Labour in the past but that party are now part of the international far-right: enemies to minorities who scapegoat because they're not going to do anything effective to tackle social injustice so they just have to hand out sops of hate instead to distract from the mess and their refusal to do anything to significantly tackle it.
I bang on a lot about scapegoating because it is important- it is never safe to tolerate it and it inevitably leads to a bad place because it's based on lies and propaganda and attacks on human rights. It corrupts utterly and as well as its cruelty, it drives poor and damaging decisions based on its false picture of the world (Brexit is a good example)
The only reason to stay in a scapegoating/persecuting party is believing it's in the early stages and you can stop the rot and quash it, but it's now got the entire Labour leadership and they've nobbled the leadership challenge regulations to keep them there and have run candidate selections to ensure the Parliamentary Labour Party (who are the only people who can mount a leadership challenge) are stuffed with Yes- persons.
I think people in England who don't want fascism basically have to choose another boat and go to it.
I'm very sorry for decent people here who have voted or campaigned for Labour in the past but that party are now part of the international far-right: enemies to minorities who scapegoat because they're not going to do anything I bang on a lot about scapegoating because it is important- it is never safe to tolerate it and it inevitably leads to a bad place because it's based on lies and propaganda
And this is a large part of why I felt writing columns for the Sun and Mail was a dangerous sign - it indicated that many of their principles were likely to be negotiable in practice.
I see that they are continuing the rather Trumpish turn of restricting press coverage to the upcoming UK/EU summit, with major European news outlets frozen out:
I'm very sorry for decent people here who have voted or campaigned for Labour in the past but that party are now part of the international far-right: enemies to minorities who scapegoat because they're not going to do anything I bang on a lot about scapegoating because it is important- it is never safe to tolerate it and it inevitably leads to a bad place because it's based on lies and propaganda
And this is a large part of why I felt writing columns for the Sun and Mail was a dangerous sign - it indicated that many of their principles were likely to be negotiable in practice.
I see that they are continuing the rather Trumpish turn of restricting press coverage to the upcoming UK/EU summit, with major European news outlets frozen out:
Before the election a close friend was mingling with people well- connected to high- ups in Labour and came out with the same sort of stuff - he assured me on the basis of impeccable sources he trusted that they would swing left once they got into government.
I didn't believe him because I could see the economic policy was quackery that couldn't possibly deliver and I knew who people like Kendall and Reeves were.
There's some excuse for it before the election but now we've seen what they are doing?
I'm afraid now we've seen them, this kind of stuff verges into what gamers call 'copium'
And which part of minority groups are being scapegoated right now got missed here?
Is Labour fine for well- off white cis folk because it is just those 'other people' being attacked? Let's take assurances from those who aren't the people currently being attacked who are part of the establishment of the party doing the attacking... Or maybe let's listen to those actually being attacked and remember what this kind of scapegoating is and that there is never justification for it.
It all gets handwaved away and 'don't worry' while other people get immiserated and end up in police cells and by the time they come for nice middle class cis people and scales drop from our eyes it's too bloody late to do anything about it.
Look at the way many American voters fooled themselves that Trump wasn't going to do what he said he'd do or he didn't mean it. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Starmer, Streeting, Kendall, Reeves and Morgan McSweeney have shown us who they are, and sorry but to have seen all this and to cling to assurances that they're not who they obviously are... Just no.
I'm very sorry for decent people here who have voted or campaigned for Labour in the past but that party are now part of the international far-right: enemies to minorities who scapegoat because they're not going to do anything I bang on a lot about scapegoating because it is important- it is never safe to tolerate it and it inevitably leads to a bad place because it's based on lies and propaganda
And this is a large part of why I felt writing columns for the Sun and Mail was a dangerous sign - it indicated that many of their principles were likely to be negotiable in practice.
I see that they are continuing the rather Trumpish turn of restricting press coverage to the upcoming UK/EU summit, with major European news outlets frozen out:
Conversely, the info I have on this from sources I trust (both for integrity and insight) is cautiously positive.
So they are going to allow the European news outlets to have access? What do your sources say about the PMs trip to Albania accompanied by only one broadcast outlet?
I was talking about expert commentary and not insiders. I do think the agreement with the EU will be a genuine step forward. There are parts of your post I don't agree with. Other parts, I wholeheartedly do - as evidenced by my sad resignation of membership.
I was talking about expert commentary and not insiders. I do think the agreement with the EU will be a genuine step forward. There are parts of your post I don't agree with.
Yes, but I struggled to see what your 'conversely' was referring to as I didn't comment on the chances of an agreement.
I think parts of the negotiation will be pushing on an open door (processing UK passport holders through the non-EU procedure is seen as a huge resource sink), whether that adds up to the deal with the background of the right wing print press woofing remains to be seen.
The PM announced that they will be looking again at the Universal Pension cuts. Probably upping the threshold. This is good news. Shame it took such a loss in the recent local and mayoral elections to make it happen
OTOH the Justice Secretary floating chemical castration as a punishment (and as a side effect changing some of the rules around administering medication without consent).
This is really fucking stupid; it's going to ruled illegal by some court, and the right wing will bay about it as it becomes yet another culture war issue on which the far right can outflank Labour.
They are not floating it, they are already doing it - apparently it has been piloted in various prisons since 2007.
Yeah, as a voluntary measure until now (which doesn't make it entire unproblematic anyway for the reasons you point out), she's floating making it mandatory.
Today Tuesday 11 May Rachel Reves, the UK chancellor announces her spending plans to Parliament. Anticipated winners are affordable housing and nuclear power. Cuts expected to government departments who are still not full settlers after the last round of cuts.
Streeting in particular really flags up how vulnerable liberal Christians are to far-right propaganda - having an "inclusive" (Streeting would absolutely think of himself as "inclusive") church won't save you from it anymore than buying fairtrade and going to Greenbelt will.
As someone who's struggled to see a doctor this week and who also lives in an area where most immigrants are academics or Gurkhas, there doesn't seem to be much if any discussion on how to recruit more doctors or indeed allied healthcare workers. Restoring the NHS bursary to eg pharmacists and podiatrists would actually make a tangible difference rather than courting the far-right.
I was recently in hospital. It struck me forcibly that most of the qualified staff were foreign, but that the ancillary staff - porters, care assistants, cleaners etc were local people from the nearby estate.
So social housing, the NHS, nuclear power, education and transport all got a boost. Day to day spending on government departments took a hit. I expected a more Conservative speech but they are acting a bit more Labour than they have. Personally I don’t mind taxes going up a bit later in the cycle if things are better. If taxes go up towards the end of the parliament they could find the next general election tricky. The countries fortunes could turn around by then of course.
If as some reports have it, the economy is starting to strengthen - and the trade deals etc impact that - then the tax take should increase anyway. But like you, I would be happy to pay more tax to increase the provision of public services - especially social care which has been badly underfunded for years. I think over all social care budgets went down by 45% in real terms under Osbourne.
I think those of us in the party telling leadership the way to win back voters from Reform, is not to out bigot them but to deal with the lack of affordable housing and other service deficits, are starting to be heard.
The stats on immigration are surprising. It was about 1 million in 2023, but dropped to 400 000 in 24, and predicted to fall to 200 000, in 26. I'm not sure how this has happened, but presumably this will take the heat off Labour. Or maybe not.
The stats on immigration are surprising. It was about 1 million in 2023, but dropped to 400 000 in 24, and predicted to fall to 200 000, in 26.
The figures for 2023 (and indeed 2022) were higher than the norm due to a number of separate factors; the decision to include students travelling to the UK for further education in the figures and the higher than normal number of students due to suppression effect of Covid, the programmes for Ukranian refugees and - to a lesser extent - Hong Kong residents, and a need for the Johnson government to run things hot to replace workers in sectors like healthcare who had come from the EU and post Brexit had gone back home.
The figure for '24 is a realistic one given the size of the UK economy, the figure for '26 is either unrealistic, assumes some kind of recession or a massive drop of foreign students or a combination of all three (none of which are good).
The stats on immigration are surprising. It was about 1 million in 2023, but dropped to 400 000 in 24, and predicted to fall to 200 000, in 26. I'm not sure how this has happened, but presumably this will take the heat off Labour. Or maybe not.
The heat isn't generated by the rate of immigration, it's generated by propaganda and a gut feeling that there are too many "foreigners" around, which can mean recent immigrants but just as often is code for "brown people". Immigration as a voter "concern" is mostly press driven, outside a handful of areas that have experienced significant recent demographic change.
Comments
Also: "“We do have to ask why some sectors of our economy seem addicted to cheap labour” (via https://bsky.app/profile/paulbrand.bsky.social/post/3loxhmsoxp22u )
Is just channelling Matthew Goodwin.
Can you actually point to specifics in terms of continuity of policies over that length of time ?
(For the record, Reid was describing the entire Home Office, not just it's approach to migration, and whether his judgement was more than entirely serving and would have been the same at the end of his tenure there is open to question).
The most recent 'crisis' was entirely self generated, due to the previous government deliberately going slow on processing asylum claims, in order to use the figures for political reasons.
"A one nation experiment in open borders" "The damage this has done to our country is incalculable"
The first is obviously a lie, and the second is presumably true in the sense that you can't actually calculate the damage because it has been a net positive.
But let's see what they implement eh ? Maybe it'll finally be the 'positive case for immigration' he promised when running for leadership in 2020. /s
We have a FPTP electoral system. The consequence of that is that voting for candidates that enjoy only modest support is equivalent to not voting from the point of view of determining which candidate wins. So one could criticize the 2,314 people that voted Green for "letting Reform in", but one could equally criticize the 942 people that voted Lib Dem, the 454 people that voted Liberal, the 164 people that voted for the Workers Party, the 129 Rejoin EU voters, and so on. And, of course, one could criticize the roughly 35,000 registered voters that didn't vote at all.
But given that the Labour party are currently using their unassailable parliamentary majority to try and out-bigot the bigots, I find it hard to care.
Why vote for Farage, when with Labour you get real racism.
I would ask how we got here, but then Labour attacks on the notorious 1960s Smethwick by-election rang a bit hollow when it was revealed the local Labour club was operating a colour bar…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/britains-most-racist-election-smethwick-50-years-on
Also fascinating to note how long Farage has been lingering around British (mostly English) politics like the smell of a rotting whale carcass.
I wouldn’t be too ‘mostly English’ about it. While waiting to see what happens in Scotland next year, one of the things that really took me aback reading Michael Crick’s biography of Farage* is how it was more their own incompetence that stopped UKIP/BREXIT Party/Reform getting much more traction in Wales much earlier (years earlier) than they did.
*which I commend, by the way, it is about as far from hagiography as you can imagine and has made me think about the Reform/Farage challenge quite differently, tbh
To the extent the first two are currently broken; the current issues stem from the actions of the previous government which deliberately underfunding parts of the system in order to generate an artificial crisis (as I mentioned above), the last is not actually a particularly big issue.
Shifting budget from housing claimants to processing claims will speed up the process and move claimants out of hotels as they gain refugee status and can work to earn money to pay for their own accommodation, pay taxes and contribute to the economy rather than be a drain on the economy and public purse. Opening options for asylum seekers to get to the UK without employing criminal gangs, which could be as simple as letting them buy a ticket on a cross-Channel ferry, will stop the boats almost immediately. With no customers the gangs will switch to alternative means of making money.
I'll probably question whether checking on visa over-stays isn't a big issue. Though Reform et.al. focus on small boats, the number of people entering the UK illegally by that route is very small, the vast majority apply for asylum on arrival and hence are entering legally. The far far bigger problem with people being in the country illegally are those who entered legally on a visa and then have broken the terms of that visa (eg: not leaving when they should, working while on a student visa etc) and are still here. The Home Office knows who they are (or, they should anyway), but possibly are not able to locate exactly where they are. The tactics often employed to deport them when they are located have been inhumane and deplorable, and that part of the system needs to be vastly improved, but if the government is serious about reducing the number of people in the country illegally then that's the group of people they need to work on deporting - not the small boats of people who apply for asylum.
Starmer says he is not pandering to Reform but it sure looks like it.
I'm reaching the same conclusion. I'd planned to grit my teeth until Starmer was gone and at least try to influence to next leader, but I'm starting to think it's not worth how dirty I feel every time I see the direct debit go out.
Albania was the country floated as being the site of the return hub. [Albania have since denied this].
Starmer took only one broadcaster with him for his trip to Albania today, and that was, of course, GBNews. He also took the opportunity to repeat his 'island of strangers' line:
https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1923103076069638610
I suppose at least he didn't use the words 'squalid' or 'incalculable'.
You wouldn’t be the only ones. One chart I saw shows Labour leaking members and voter intention to The Greens and the Lib Dem’s. Reform is not near the the top of the list. They still chase Farage though.
https://labour.org.uk/membership-resignation-form/
https://bsky.app/profile/lauraewebster.bsky.social/post/3lpcf4r34222z
"The Home Office has announced the arrests of six “illegal” workers in restaurants across Glasgow after an operation by the UK’s own “ICE” (Immigration, Compliance and Enforcement team).
Apparently modelled on the US government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE team, the Labour Government said the force's “illegal working drive” had taken place on Thursday evening"
What's next? A citizen management force with a new uniform in tan and black?
The Rwanda plan was deport people and process their asylum claims elsewhere, and only let them have asylum at that location if their claims were found to be genuine.
Return hubs as currently proposed, are deport people who have both failed in their asylum claim and exhausted all avenues of appeal in the UK to an interim facility elsewhere before they return to wherever they are going.
Presumably, if you are going to have a process where you plan not to let people people stay if they make - what you consider to be - false asylum claims: you have to have some plan to deport them.
This is true and important.
However, I am no longer a member.
Yes I said that it is for unsuccessful claimants. What did we do before ? We had systems. This is still pandering to the right.
And then the Hungarian fash had nice words for him too
Now Anas Sarwar is doing 'genuine concerns' racism in Scotland against immigration- trying to take votes from the SNP (which may not be brilliant on other things but which has to its credit stridently opposed this kind of racism).
I'm a huge fan of Séamas O'Reilly who really sums this stuff up -
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-columnists/arid-41633068.html
...
It's worth reading the whole thing - we are short of voices like his in the British media and few politicians stand up for these truths.
I'm very sorry for decent people here who have voted or campaigned for Labour in the past but that party are now part of the international far-right: enemies to minorities who scapegoat because they're not going to do anything effective to tackle social injustice so they just have to hand out sops of hate instead to distract from the mess and their refusal to do anything to significantly tackle it.
I bang on a lot about scapegoating because it is important- it is never safe to tolerate it and it inevitably leads to a bad place because it's based on lies and propaganda and attacks on human rights. It corrupts utterly and as well as its cruelty, it drives poor and damaging decisions based on its false picture of the world (Brexit is a good example)
The only reason to stay in a scapegoating/persecuting party is believing it's in the early stages and you can stop the rot and quash it, but it's now got the entire Labour leadership and they've nobbled the leadership challenge regulations to keep them there and have run candidate selections to ensure the Parliamentary Labour Party (who are the only people who can mount a leadership challenge) are stuffed with Yes- persons.
I think people in England who don't want fascism basically have to choose another boat and go to it.
And this is a large part of why I felt writing columns for the Sun and Mail was a dangerous sign - it indicated that many of their principles were likely to be negotiable in practice.
I see that they are continuing the rather Trumpish turn of restricting press coverage to the upcoming UK/EU summit, with major European news outlets frozen out:
https://bsky.app/profile/fpalondon.bsky.social/post/3lpcrxm3f5k25
Conversely, the info I have on this from sources I trust (both for integrity and insight) is cautiously positive.
Time will tell.
I didn't believe him because I could see the economic policy was quackery that couldn't possibly deliver and I knew who people like Kendall and Reeves were.
There's some excuse for it before the election but now we've seen what they are doing?
I'm afraid now we've seen them, this kind of stuff verges into what gamers call 'copium'
And which part of minority groups are being scapegoated right now got missed here?
Is Labour fine for well- off white cis folk because it is just those 'other people' being attacked? Let's take assurances from those who aren't the people currently being attacked who are part of the establishment of the party doing the attacking... Or maybe let's listen to those actually being attacked and remember what this kind of scapegoating is and that there is never justification for it.
It all gets handwaved away and 'don't worry' while other people get immiserated and end up in police cells and by the time they come for nice middle class cis people and scales drop from our eyes it's too bloody late to do anything about it.
Look at the way many American voters fooled themselves that Trump wasn't going to do what he said he'd do or he didn't mean it. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Starmer, Streeting, Kendall, Reeves and Morgan McSweeney have shown us who they are, and sorry but to have seen all this and to cling to assurances that they're not who they obviously are... Just no.
So they are going to allow the European news outlets to have access? What do your sources say about the PMs trip to Albania accompanied by only one broadcast outlet?
Yes, but I struggled to see what your 'conversely' was referring to as I didn't comment on the chances of an agreement.
I think parts of the negotiation will be pushing on an open door (processing UK passport holders through the non-EU procedure is seen as a huge resource sink), whether that adds up to the deal with the background of the right wing print press woofing remains to be seen.
This is really fucking stupid; it's going to ruled illegal by some court, and the right wing will bay about it as it becomes yet another culture war issue on which the far right can outflank Labour.
It’s dumb because it assumes sexual violence is about libido rather than the control and coercion of the victim.
If a male rapist couldn’t prevent an erection he could just masturbate, it is not why they hurt people.
Yeah, as a voluntary measure until now (which doesn't make it entire unproblematic anyway for the reasons you point out), she's floating making it mandatory.
As someone who's struggled to see a doctor this week and who also lives in an area where most immigrants are academics or Gurkhas, there doesn't seem to be much if any discussion on how to recruit more doctors or indeed allied healthcare workers. Restoring the NHS bursary to eg pharmacists and podiatrists would actually make a tangible difference rather than courting the far-right.
Interesting
The figures for 2023 (and indeed 2022) were higher than the norm due to a number of separate factors; the decision to include students travelling to the UK for further education in the figures and the higher than normal number of students due to suppression effect of Covid, the programmes for Ukranian refugees and - to a lesser extent - Hong Kong residents, and a need for the Johnson government to run things hot to replace workers in sectors like healthcare who had come from the EU and post Brexit had gone back home.
The figure for '24 is a realistic one given the size of the UK economy, the figure for '26 is either unrealistic, assumes some kind of recession or a massive drop of foreign students or a combination of all three (none of which are good).
The heat isn't generated by the rate of immigration, it's generated by propaganda and a gut feeling that there are too many "foreigners" around, which can mean recent immigrants but just as often is code for "brown people". Immigration as a voter "concern" is mostly press driven, outside a handful of areas that have experienced significant recent demographic change.