NPR

Absolutely bonkers
And all because they think it will keep them in power

SaintK wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:19 pm Absolutely bonkers
And all because they think it will keep them in power

Maybe a bit conspiratorially minded, but I don't think they really give a shit about this issue, it's simply a mechanism to get the UK out of the EHCR and allow companies to frollic all over our rights in the absence.

"la loi c'est moi"

Government to introduce emergency legislation - Sunak

Rishi Sunak says the government will be introducing "emergency legislation" to Parliament.

The prime minister says this will enable Parliament to "confirm Rwanda is safe", and aim to stop a stream of legal challenges blocking the policy.

tabascoboy wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm "la loi c'est moi"

Government to introduce emergency legislation - Sunak

Rishi Sunak says the government will be introducing "emergency legislation" to Parliament.

The prime minister says this will enable Parliament to "confirm Rwanda is safe", and aim to stop a stream of legal challenges blocking the policy.

So that's me utterly confused, it doesn't take much to be fair.

How on earth does us introducing emergency legislation change the county of Rwanda? Legislate away Sunak, fill your boots, it's still surely not safe?

tabascoboy wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm "la loi c'est moi"

Government to introduce emergency legislation - Sunak

Rishi Sunak says the government will be introducing "emergency legislation" to Parliament.

The prime minister says this will enable Parliament to "confirm Rwanda is safe", and aim to stop a stream of legal challenges blocking the policy.

"Tide, I command you to stop !"

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm

SaintK wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:19 pm Absolutely bonkers
And all because they think it will keep them in power

Maybe a bit conspiratorially minded, but I don't think they really give a shit about this issue, it's simply a mechanism to get the UK out of the EHCR and allow companies to frollic all over our rights in the absence.

I wouldn't even class that as conspiratorial, they've hardly worried much about optics thus far.

If anything we should be grateful they're making the effort

C T wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:30 pm

tabascoboy wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm "la loi c'est moi"

Government to introduce emergency legislation - Sunak

Rishi Sunak says the government will be introducing "emergency legislation" to Parliament.

The prime minister says this will enable Parliament to "confirm Rwanda is safe", and aim to stop a stream of legal challenges blocking the policy.

So that's me utterly confused, it doesn't take much to be fair.

How on earth does us introducing emergency legislation change the county of Rwanda? Legislate away Sunak, fill your boots, it's still surely not safe?

They make a new treaty with Rwanda where Rwanda promises extra hard not to deport anyone to their unsafe home country. They also make a cut out in new legislation so all the human rights related laws don't apply to asylum. But these are international treaties, so the UK would be in breach if it doesn't follow them regardless of what UK domestic law says.

It would be another Internal Market Bill, where the UK sets about creating legislation as if the UK is paramount and has no overriding responsibilities above or outside the UK. May work in UK domestic law, but the problem is going through with it means repercussions (the UK removed the clauses which would've breached the WA before the Internal Market Bill became an Act). ECHR is baked into the WA/TCA with the EU and the GFA, something like being suspended/expelled from the ECHR would be an issue.

The UK could be somewhat progressive in changing its obligations in all this. At least I cannot think of one country which wants to be on the hook for the millions of refugees already in circulation, still less the many millions more still to come. So some reform/agreement among the richer nations that lessens their requirement to recognise refugees should be something most countries would be interested in discussing.

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 6:17 pm The UK could be somewhat progressive in changing its obligations in all this. At least I cannot think of one country which wants to be on the hook for the millions of refugees already in circulation, still less the many millions more still to come. So some reform/agreement among the richer nations that lessens their requirement to recognise refugees should be something most countries would be interested in discussing.

So a refugee is someone who is fleeing for their lives and in serious danger of being persecuted.

The 1951 Refugee Convention is a key legal document and defines a refugee as: “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”
How do you lesson the requirement?

How about we just accept corpses? Have corpse camps, where we unload the dead refugees (who can only come here dead), into pens .

Still won't be enough for most of the Tory right.

They come over ere...taking our plots...they come over ere...they come over ere...expecting to be unloaded into graves...all stiff.

sockwithaticket wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 4:36 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 12:36 pm There’s no point the right howling at judges. If they want to make these schemes workable they need to legislate for it and repeal other pieces of legislation. Braverman knew this but didn’t care, it seems a lot of people in conservative politics are unaware of why they are called ‘legislators’

If they actually do something about it, they won't be able to whip up outrage amongst their voter base.

Yep

Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

Current international agreements were not designed to deal with migration flows like we are seeing and are stuck with

It’s just so thoroughly disingenuous to keep hearing about the ECHR and it’s noble founding principles, as if great men once stood around trying to prevent rapists from being deported

tabascoboy wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm "la loi c'est moi"

Government to introduce emergency legislation - Sunak

Rishi Sunak says the government will be introducing "emergency legislation" to Parliament.

The prime minister says this will enable Parliament to "confirm Rwanda is safe", and aim to stop a stream of legal challenges blocking the policy.

As I saw it put elsewhere -

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:15 pm

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

Current international agreements were not designed to deal with migration flows like we are seeing and are stuck with

It’s just so thoroughly disingenuous to keep hearing about the ECHR and it’s noble founding principles, as if great men once stood around trying to prevent rapists from being deported

Yeah, because at the end of WW II there weren't any displaced people at all, & WTF did Churchill know about that, or indeed anticipate about the inevitable consequences of the Iron curtain descending .....

fishfoodie wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:11 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:15 pm

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

Current international agreements were not designed to deal with migration flows like we are seeing and are stuck with

It’s just so thoroughly disingenuous to keep hearing about the ECHR and it’s noble founding principles, as if great men once stood around trying to prevent rapists from being deported

Yeah, because at the end of WW II there weren't any displaced people at all, & WTF did Churchill know about that, or indeed anticipate about the inevitable consequences of the Iron curtain descending .....

So your contention is hundreds of thousands of people PA were migrating to Europe in 1950? Or that the drafters anticipated this happening?

Line6 HXFX wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 6:34 pm

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 6:17 pm The UK could be somewhat progressive in changing its obligations in all this. At least I cannot think of one country which wants to be on the hook for the millions of refugees already in circulation, still less the many millions more still to come. So some reform/agreement among the richer nations that lessens their requirement to recognise refugees should be something most countries would be interested in discussing.

So a refugee is someone who is fleeing for their lives and in serious danger of being persecuted.

The 1951 Refugee Convention is a key legal document and defines a refugee as: “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”
How do you lesson the requirement?

How about we just accept corpses? Have corpse camps, where we unload the dead refugees (who can only come here dead), into pens .

Still won't be enough for most of the Tory right.

They come over ere...taking our plots...they come over ere...they come over ere...expecting to be unloaded into graves...all stiff.

Go home and fix your country, and if it's good enough for those people who haven't fled it's good enough for you, and yes you may fail or die trying.

Which isn't to say we should take no refugees, but more we'll make the decision not simply have you rock up and impose

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:30 pm

fishfoodie wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:11 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:15 pm

Current international agreements were not designed to deal with migration flows like we are seeing and are stuck with

It’s just so thoroughly disingenuous to keep hearing about the ECHR and it’s noble founding principles, as if great men once stood around trying to prevent rapists from being deported

Yeah, because at the end of WW II there weren't any displaced people at all, & WTF did Churchill know about that, or indeed anticipate about the inevitable consequences of the Iron curtain descending .....

So your contention is hundreds of thousands of people PA were migrating to Europe in 1950? Or that the drafters anticipated this happening?

The proportion of the global population that became refugees and moved to other countries post WWII was a shitload greater than the numbers we see now.

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

There's broadly two types of democracy, the will of the people type where legislators just do what the electorate tells them, and the delegated type where the electorate select legislators who exercise their own will without much reference to electorate after being elected. The UK has the latter. If it wants the former the mechanisms need to change, Lords axed, PR elections, regular menu of yearly referendums. The strength of a system like the UK's is that if the legislators are not morons they'll be able to get better results from complex interconnected issues, which is another way of saying do politics better.

Back to the issue at hand ...

A big part of the problem is the legislators are now morons (there's many reasons for this, but a big reason is the will of the people idea explaining a lot of how people now understand politics, but the UK system not being designed for that). It's fine for an ordinary person to say stuff like "there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it", but legislators should know how nightmarish that would be, should've listened when they were no doubt told this standoff would be the outcome of their mad plan and therefore avoided this situation entirely by coming up with something that didn't risk blowing up the TCA and GFA. If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have just lost in the supreme court. Many of them didn't understand what the TCA was, some even say they thought they could sign it then ignore it or like Big Dog that they didn't even know what they signing, which is another way of saying they reached nearly the worst Brexit outcome whilst pretending/hoping it was something different and they don't what they're doing.

The other big problem is the concept of sovereignty many of the legislators have, isn't one that exists in the real world for countries which aren't super powers (part of this problem is that many people act as if the UK were the US, they think they're Americans). Cross border issues mean working with other countries, there ends up being trade offs/overarching responsibilities/connections to other policy areas, that aren't captured by single issue politics. This idea of sovereignty in its purest form of nothing existing above the nation is usually found along with will of the people versions of democracy. You could see it in the madness of Truss too, she thought merely saying stuff in parliament meant it became a fact, but the market turned out to be above parliament. The same will be true with Rwanda if happens, they'll discover the UK cannot criticise or turn down a dictatorship in a region of Africa where genocide isn't unknown.

The UK government don't know what they're doing, of course democracy ends up damaged.

For those espousing the Australian solution - it's just been turfed out of court by the highest court in the land.

Lol

fishfoodie wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 11:11 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:15 pm

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

Current international agreements were not designed to deal with migration flows like we are seeing and are stuck with

It’s just so thoroughly disingenuous to keep hearing about the ECHR and it’s noble founding principles, as if great men once stood around trying to prevent rapists from being deported

Yeah, because at the end of WW II there weren't any displaced people at all, & WTF did Churchill know about that, or indeed anticipate about the inevitable consequences of the Iron curtain descending .....

Migration flows at the end of the War were forced, often at gunpoint, to move groups into areas determined by international treaty. They also (in Europe anyway) involved only European peoples. The situations are not in any way comparable and our current obligations are not fit for purpose

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:37 am The situations are not in any way comparable and our current obligations are not fit for purpose

But where did the situation come from? It's a creature of the Tory's harsh immigration measures which have failed combined with leaving the EU on a shit deal, the boats didn't exist before Brexit. The UK failed to negotiate maintaining membership of the Dublin system, it's going to be hard to gain membership now after the fact when simple geography means nearly all asylum seekers that reach the UK other than via plane (which has been made more difficult/impossible hence the boats) have gone through other European countries first. It would really mean paying EU countries to take asylum seekers, EU countries will probably not be interested.

Which then gets to the next problem. Not many safe third countries are going to be keen to take tens of thousands of asylum seekers. The Rwanda scheme had provision for 1k or so, the assumption was that number will stop people going to the UK, but there's no evidence for this. Finding a replacement for Rwanda will be difficult, because anywhere that has their shit together will not be interested, if they are it's not going to be cheap. Rwanda has cost £140m so far, or £140k per potential deportation, at Rwanda prices 30k people would cost £4bn.

Which then gets to the next issue, this would all be easier if the UK was working with other countries. The EU are looking for third country options, Albania is mentioned but they were connected to the UK plans before Rwanda and said they didn't know where the claims were coming from and weren't interested.

It's also probably all besides the point. Total immigration into the UK is the highest in history. This started under Thatcher when the UK switched from a net emigration country to a net immigration country. When people talk about this subject they often make no distinction between general immigration and asylum seekers (any point around "the UK is too full" argues this). There is no plan to curb immigration because that means structural change of the UK economy, which normally means economic losers at the top and bottom of the structure. The clue is New Labour and Blair got blamed and not Thatcher, but the Tories then increased immigration. Asylum seekers have become totemic because those on the right with media clout thought it was an easy win, they thought they could "solve" one small subset of immigration without disturbing anything else. This can be seen in Big Dog not being blamed for the boats in the popular imagination, instead it's something free floating the Tories aren't to blame for. When Labour are in power they'll be back to banging the full immigration drumkit because they want Labour to be blamed, so the Tories can get back into power.

Meanwhile there's a growing number of asylum seekers (currently around 13k) that have arrived since the Illegal Migration Act made them illegal immigrants, but the Act itself has been declared unlawful and there's nowhere to deport them to. If flows remain the same and nothing else changes this number reaches 40k by the time of an election. The asylum system is still broken and underfunded and the immigration system generally is still messy.

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:39 am

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

There's broadly two types of democracy, the will of the people type where legislators just do what the electorate tells them, and the delegated type where the electorate select legislators who exercise their own will without much reference to electorate after being elected. The UK has the latter. If it wants the former the mechanisms need to change, Lords axed, PR elections, regular menu of yearly referendums. The strength of a system like the UK's is that if the legislators are not morons they'll be able to get better results from complex interconnected issues, which is another way of saying do politics better.

Back to the issue at hand ...

A big part of the problem is the legislators are now morons (there's many reasons for this, but a big reason is the will of the people idea explaining a lot of how people now understand politics, but the UK system not being designed for that). It's fine for an ordinary person to say stuff like "there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it", but legislators should know how nightmarish that would be, should've listened when they were no doubt told this standoff would be the outcome of their mad plan and therefore avoided this situation entirely by coming up with something that didn't risk blowing up the TCA and GFA. If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have just lost in the supreme court. Many of them didn't understand what the TCA was, some even say they thought they could sign it then ignore it or like Big Dog that they didn't even know what they signing, which is another way of saying they reached nearly the worst Brexit outcome whilst pretending/hoping it was something different and they don't what they're doing.

The other big problem is the concept of sovereignty many of the legislators have, isn't one that exists in the real world for countries which aren't super powers (part of this problem is that many people act as if the UK were the US, they think they're Americans). Cross border issues mean working with other countries, there ends up being trade offs/overarching responsibilities/connections to other policy areas, that aren't captured by single issue politics. This idea of sovereignty in its purest form of nothing existing above the nation is usually found along with will of the people versions of democracy. You could see it in the madness of Truss too, she thought merely saying stuff in parliament meant it became a fact, but the market turned out to be above parliament. The same will be true with Rwanda if happens, they'll discover the UK cannot criticise or turn down a dictatorship in a region of Africa where genocide isn't unknown.

The UK government don't know what they're doing, of course democracy ends up damaged.

The" will of the people" statement always raises my hackles - at the last election the Tories won an 80 seat majority, which gives them the ability to do whatever the hell they want, this as a result of them gaining almost 14 million votes from an electorate of 46.5 million.

Okay, they won the most votes of any single party and the way the constituencies are carved up it delivered them that whopping great majority, but anyone who uses the term "will of the people" is either remarkably ill-informed or lying. Even discounting the numbers from the electorate who didn't vote, around about 15 million people voted for the other main parties against that 14 million for the Tories.

Our electoral system is fucked up, if we sort that first maybe we will be in a position to tackle the issues at hand. I know there is no appetite for change on this, unfortunately.

It's not that often that a headline on a serious issue genuinely makes me laugh out loud, but this from the Gruaniad did;


James Cleverly fails to deny calling Rwanda deportation policy ‘batshit’ in private

Tichtheid wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:41 am

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:39 am

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

There's broadly two types of democracy, the will of the people type where legislators just do what the electorate tells them, and the delegated type where the electorate select legislators who exercise their own will without much reference to electorate after being elected. The UK has the latter. If it wants the former the mechanisms need to change, Lords axed, PR elections, regular menu of yearly referendums. The strength of a system like the UK's is that if the legislators are not morons they'll be able to get better results from complex interconnected issues, which is another way of saying do politics better.

Back to the issue at hand ...

A big part of the problem is the legislators are now morons (there's many reasons for this, but a big reason is the will of the people idea explaining a lot of how people now understand politics, but the UK system not being designed for that). It's fine for an ordinary person to say stuff like "there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it", but legislators should know how nightmarish that would be, should've listened when they were no doubt told this standoff would be the outcome of their mad plan and therefore avoided this situation entirely by coming up with something that didn't risk blowing up the TCA and GFA. If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have just lost in the supreme court. Many of them didn't understand what the TCA was, some even say they thought they could sign it then ignore it or like Big Dog that they didn't even know what they signing, which is another way of saying they reached nearly the worst Brexit outcome whilst pretending/hoping it was something different and they don't what they're doing.

The other big problem is the concept of sovereignty many of the legislators have, isn't one that exists in the real world for countries which aren't super powers (part of this problem is that many people act as if the UK were the US, they think they're Americans). Cross border issues mean working with other countries, there ends up being trade offs/overarching responsibilities/connections to other policy areas, that aren't captured by single issue politics. This idea of sovereignty in its purest form of nothing existing above the nation is usually found along with will of the people versions of democracy. You could see it in the madness of Truss too, she thought merely saying stuff in parliament meant it became a fact, but the market turned out to be above parliament. The same will be true with Rwanda if happens, they'll discover the UK cannot criticise or turn down a dictatorship in a region of Africa where genocide isn't unknown.

The UK government don't know what they're doing, of course democracy ends up damaged.

The" will of the people" statement always raises my hackles - at the last election the Tories won an 80 seat majority, which gives them the ability to do whatever the hell they want, this as a result of them gaining almost 14 million votes from an electorate of 46.5 million.

Okay, they won the most votes of any single party and the way the constituencies are carved up it delivered them that whopping great majority, but anyone who uses the term "will of the people" is either remarkably ill-informed or lying. Even discounting the numbers from the electorate who didn't vote, around about 15 million people voted for the other main parties against that 14 million for the Tories.

Our electoral system is fucked up, if we sort that first maybe we will be in a position to tackle the issues at hand. I know there is no appetite for change on this, unfortunately.

This applies just as much (more so to the latter years) of, for example, New Labour. And yet we are now told that so many of the institutions created on their less than majority verdict are sacrosanct untouchable elements of our society. The Supreme Court hasn’t been in existence for the whole of Leigh Halfpenny’s international career!

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:39 am

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:37 am The situations are not in any way comparable and our current obligations are not fit for purpose

But where did the situation come from?

Africa, the Middle East and South Asia’s population boom and an era of much easier international travel, social welfare policies being available to non-nationals, and liberal border restrictions. You’re right in the sense that the Conservatives make no real attempt to police the border and prefer the soundbites, they haven’t created the weather though.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:59 am

Tichtheid wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:41 am

The" will of the people" statement always raises my hackles - at the last election the Tories won an 80 seat majority, which gives them the ability to do whatever the hell they want, this as a result of them gaining almost 14 million votes from an electorate of 46.5 million.

Okay, they won the most votes of any single party and the way the constituencies are carved up it delivered them that whopping great majority, but anyone who uses the term "will of the people" is either remarkably ill-informed or lying. Even discounting the numbers from the electorate who didn't vote, around about 15 million people voted for the other main parties against that 14 million for the Tories.

Our electoral system is fucked up, if we sort that first maybe we will be in a position to tackle the issues at hand. I know there is no appetite for change on this, unfortunately.

This applies just as much (more so to the latter years) of, for example, New Labour. And yet we are now told that so many of the institutions created on their less than majority verdict are sacrosanct untouchable elements of our society. The Supreme Court hasn’t been in existence for the whole of Leigh Halfpenny’s international career!

Perhaps I just don't remember, but I don't recall this populist "will of the people" phrase from before the EU referendum, certainly not in the way it is used to beat down any opposing voices now - judges being branded traitors etc

We made a complete cow's arse of the referendum on changing the electoral system, but that does not mean we should stop trying

SaintK wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:19 pm Absolutely bonkers
And all because they think it will keep them in power

This is what I don't really understand. There are obviously the unthinking always Tory voters, like my parents in law, and a few others that will think it's all a wonderful idea. But I do have a fair bit of faith in the majority of the British electorate to see this for what it is and will turn any floating voters away. In saying that, presumably there has been a lot of research into it from the policy teams.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 10:01 am

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:39 am

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:37 am The situations are not in any way comparable and our current obligations are not fit for purpose

But where did the situation come from?

Africa, the Middle East and South Asia’s population boom and an era of much easier international travel, social welfare policies being available to non-nationals, and liberal border restrictions. You’re right in the sense that the Conservatives make no real attempt to police the border and prefer the soundbites, they haven’t created the weather though.

Other than easier travel I'm not buying much of that. There's always been a lot of people in Asia and instability in the ME.

The main issue is the UK economy has a huge desire for low skilled labour, or labour that doesn't require much training, and that all goes back to Thatcher and creating a loose labour market (so that unions had reduced bargaining power and workers could be paid less). How many people in the UK have a real skilled career now? People don't/can't move to somewhere they cannot make a living, it's easy to make a living in the UK and out compete locals. That living is going to be very average for the UK, which is still an upgrade on many countries. Just being a Western European country doesn't automatically mean the levels of immigration the UK has, on net immigration the UK is usually third ahead of even places like Canada which are explicitly trying to get as many immigrants as possible, only the US and Germany beat the UK immigration flow, but when you start looking at the population and economy size it's clear UK immigration is outsized compared to any other large developed country.

The really obvious way the Tories have created this situation is non-European citizens became the dominant feature of UK immigration after the UK was made unappealing to Europeans post-Brexit. EU and non-EU migration was similar pre-Brexit, but now non-EU is massively net immigration whilst EU migration is in net emigration territory. Asylum seekers are a small part of the picture.

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:39 am

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

There's broadly two types of democracy, the will of the people type where legislators just do what the electorate tells them, and the delegated type where the electorate select legislators who exercise their own will without much reference to electorate after being elected. The UK has the latter. If it wants the former the mechanisms need to change, Lords axed, PR elections, regular menu of yearly referendums. The strength of a system like the UK's is that if the legislators are not morons they'll be able to get better results from complex interconnected issues, which is another way of saying do politics better.

Back to the issue at hand ...

A big part of the problem is the legislators are now morons (there's many reasons for this, but a big reason is the will of the people idea explaining a lot of how people now understand politics, but the UK system not being designed for that). It's fine for an ordinary person to say stuff like "there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it", but legislators should know how nightmarish that would be, should've listened when they were no doubt told this standoff would be the outcome of their mad plan and therefore avoided this situation entirely by coming up with something that didn't risk blowing up the TCA and GFA. If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have just lost in the supreme court. Many of them didn't understand what the TCA was, some even say they thought they could sign it then ignore it or like Big Dog that they didn't even know what they signing, which is another way of saying they reached nearly the worst Brexit outcome whilst pretending/hoping it was something different and they don't what they're doing.

The other big problem is the concept of sovereignty many of the legislators have, isn't one that exists in the real world for countries which aren't super powers (part of this problem is that many people act as if the UK were the US, they think they're Americans). Cross border issues mean working with other countries, there ends up being trade offs/overarching responsibilities/connections to other policy areas, that aren't captured by single issue politics. This idea of sovereignty in its purest form of nothing existing above the nation is usually found along with will of the people versions of democracy. You could see it in the madness of Truss too, she thought merely saying stuff in parliament meant it became a fact, but the market turned out to be above parliament. The same will be true with Rwanda if happens, they'll discover the UK cannot criticise or turn down a dictatorship in a region of Africa where genocide isn't unknown.

The UK government don't know what they're doing, of course democracy ends up damaged.

Hi OS.

You reply deserves a fuller response but let me say for now.

Its not viable in the long term to simply tell people the government can't perform one of the basic roles they expect of it because its legislatively difficult. I am not being blaise about the TCA or GFAs entanglements with the ECHR.


I think alot of people who want to keep our defacto very liberal immigration regime or indeed want to make it even looser do not argue in good faith for these as policies. Given our demographic time-bomb theres even a rational economic argument for it.

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:39 am

tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 7:09 pm Every goverment since I have being an adult has promised to secured borders and limit immigration. If the ECHR is makong this impossible then the UKs membership should be considered (there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it).

In a nation of 60 million the boats and the inability to deport foreign criminals should be kept in perspective but the moral effect of the government seeming to be powerless to do anything about it is utterly corrosive for the social compact and democracy.

There's broadly two types of democracy, the will of the people type where legislators just do what the electorate tells them, and the delegated type where the electorate select legislators who exercise their own will without much reference to electorate after being elected. The UK has the latter. If it wants the former the mechanisms need to change, Lords axed, PR elections, regular menu of yearly referendums. The strength of a system like the UK's is that if the legislators are not morons they'll be able to get better results from complex interconnected issues, which is another way of saying do politics better.

Back to the issue at hand ...

A big part of the problem is the legislators are now morons (there's many reasons for this, but a big reason is the will of the people idea explaining a lot of how people now understand politics, but the UK system not being designed for that). It's fine for an ordinary person to say stuff like "there will need to be a legislative and diplomatic solutions to the TCA and GFA being tied to it", but legislators should know how nightmarish that would be, should've listened when they were no doubt told this standoff would be the outcome of their mad plan and therefore avoided this situation entirely by coming up with something that didn't risk blowing up the TCA and GFA. If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't have just lost in the supreme court. Many of them didn't understand what the TCA was, some even say they thought they could sign it then ignore it or like Big Dog that they didn't even know what they signing, which is another way of saying they reached nearly the worst Brexit outcome whilst pretending/hoping it was something different and they don't what they're doing.

The other big problem is the concept of sovereignty many of the legislators have, isn't one that exists in the real world for countries which aren't super powers (part of this problem is that many people act as if the UK were the US, they think they're Americans). Cross border issues mean working with other countries, there ends up being trade offs/overarching responsibilities/connections to other policy areas, that aren't captured by single issue politics. This idea of sovereignty in its purest form of nothing existing above the nation is usually found along with will of the people versions of democracy. You could see it in the madness of Truss too, she thought merely saying stuff in parliament meant it became a fact, but the market turned out to be above parliament. The same will be true with Rwanda if happens, they'll discover the UK cannot criticise or turn down a dictatorship in a region of Africa where genocide isn't unknown.

The UK government don't know what they're doing, of course democracy ends up damaged.

Hi OS.

You reply deserves a fuller response but let me say for now.

Its not viable in the long term to simply tell people the government can't perform one of the basic roles they expect of it because its legislatively difficult. I am not being blaise about the TCA or GFAs entanglements with the ECHR.


I think alot of people who want to keep our defacto very liberal immigration regime or indeed want to make it even looser do not argue in good faith for these as policies. Given our demographic time-bomb theres even a rational economic argument for it.

tc27 wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:28 pm [Hi OS.

You reply deserves a fuller response but let me say for now.

Its not viable in the long term to simply tell people the government can't perform one of the basic roles they expect of it because its legislatively difficult. I am not being blaise about the TCA or GFAs entanglements with the ECHR.

I think alot of people who want to keep our defacto very liberal immigration regime or indeed want to make it even looser do not argue in good faith for these as policies. Given our demographic time-bomb theres even a rational economic argument for it.

The post could've been shorter, but it takes more effort cutting it down.

Most people in the UK understand politics in the "will of the people" sense (MPs elected to carry out what voters want almost like drones), problem is as Tichtheid points out the institutions (electoral system etc) aren't built for that and don't really reflect the "will of the people". The institutions were designed with quite a limited form of democracy in mind where voters have little input in how they're governed, in the UK system the voters are supposed to select who they think is a good man for their constituency and that's about it (MPs dictate a lot to the voters not the other way around).

The problem with the "will of the people" way, is it tends to see issues in isolation, not as interconnected and contingent upon one another. Would it really be worthwhile potentially blowing up the GFA and the TCA to deport 1k or so people to Rwanda? That could easily take up most of a parliament because of how much of it involves other countries. A competent MP/cabinet minister finds a different route that's more realistic to get some results and avoids this entire mess which has now been created. But a lot of the MPs themselves talk about "will of the people" (there's many variations on this "red wall", "blue wall", "what my constituency voted for") not what they think is best. The Rwanda policy comes with a lot of "will of the people" type arguments, without the Tories securing 50%+ in a PR election.

Like Tichtheid I think PR would be a good idea, I'm not opposed to some "will of the people" (if the MPs are rubbish it's much preferable). At the moment it's the worst of both, parliament isn't an accurate reflection of what's supported and the MPs are incompetent. Which means whatever has been thrown at immigration by the Tories hasn't change much, because the issue is connected to a range of pull factors beyond just immigration policy (the Tories brought in the hostile environment and just made more of a mess of the migration system, and net immigration went up), mostly it's about how the UK economy is structured. In simple terms there's an issue when someone can rock up from Afghanistan with basically no education and stand a realistic chance of competing well in the job market.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 10:01 am

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:39 am

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:37 am The situations are not in any way comparable and our current obligations are not fit for purpose

But where did the situation come from?

Africa, the Middle East and South Asia’s population boom and an era of much easier international travel, social welfare policies being available to non-nationals, and liberal border restrictions. You’re right in the sense that the Conservatives make no real attempt to police the border and prefer the soundbites, they haven’t created the weather though.

I find my mind drifting a bit longer term with all of this.

This might be because I attended a talk from Catherine Ashton recently, who I thought was a super impressive individual, but anyway. She was suggesting that everyone (not just the UK) are in a paddling pool of refugees at the moment, and almost have no idea/plan of what's coming when "Climate Refugee" comes into play.

_Os_ wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:55 pm

C T wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:30 pm

tabascoboy wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:23 pm "la loi c'est moi"

So that's me utterly confused, it doesn't take much to be fair.

How on earth does us introducing emergency legislation change the county of Rwanda? Legislate away Sunak, fill your boots, it's still surely not safe?

They make a new treaty with Rwanda where Rwanda promises extra hard not to deport anyone to their unsafe home country. They also make a cut out in new legislation so all the human rights related laws don't apply to asylum. But these are international treaties, so the UK would be in breach if it doesn't follow them regardless of what UK domestic law says.

It would be another Internal Market Bill, where the UK sets about creating legislation as if the UK is paramount and has no overriding responsibilities above or outside the UK. May work in UK domestic law, but the problem is going through with it means repercussions (the UK removed the clauses which would've breached the WA before the Internal Market Bill became an Act). ECHR is baked into the WA/TCA with the EU and the GFA, something like being suspended/expelled from the ECHR would be an issue.

Just wanted to take a second to thank you for this, very informative.

It just all seems like an utter nonsense to me, because it doesn't (in actual terms) make Rwanda any safer.

C T wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 1:59 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 10:01 am

_Os_ wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:39 am
But where did the situation come from?

Africa, the Middle East and South Asia’s population boom and an era of much easier international travel, social welfare policies being available to non-nationals, and liberal border restrictions. You’re right in the sense that the Conservatives make no real attempt to police the border and prefer the soundbites, they haven’t created the weather though.

I find my mind drifting a bit longer term with all of this.

This might be because I attended a talk from Catherine Ashton recently, who I thought was a super impressive individual, but anyway. She was suggesting that everyone (not just the UK) are in a paddling pool of refugees at the moment, and almost have no idea/plan of what's coming when "Climate Refugee" comes into play.

Yes, absolutely. Looking at the populations of the ‘global south’ is astonishing*, both in terms of historical context and average age. It’s unprecedented and truth is no one really knows what to do with it. The potential migrant pool is almost unlimited.

*I know if we had any Turks on here they’d absolutely kick off at being lumped in here, but a book I finished earlier this week mentioned their population at the end of the first world war was 19 million! Stalin’s famous quote about a few English public schoolboys ruling 300 million Indians is another one that sticks out - multiply that by five in 80 years!

C T wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 2:01 pm

_Os_ wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:55 pm

C T wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:30 pm

So that's me utterly confused, it doesn't take much to be fair.

How on earth does us introducing emergency legislation change the county of Rwanda? Legislate away Sunak, fill your boots, it's still surely not safe?

They make a new treaty with Rwanda where Rwanda promises extra hard not to deport anyone to their unsafe home country. They also make a cut out in new legislation so all the human rights related laws don't apply to asylum. But these are international treaties, so the UK would be in breach if it doesn't follow them regardless of what UK domestic law says.

It would be another Internal Market Bill, where the UK sets about creating legislation as if the UK is paramount and has no overriding responsibilities above or outside the UK. May work in UK domestic law, but the problem is going through with it means repercussions (the UK removed the clauses which would've breached the WA before the Internal Market Bill became an Act). ECHR is baked into the WA/TCA with the EU and the GFA, something like being suspended/expelled from the ECHR would be an issue.

Just wanted to take a second to thank you for this, very informative.

It just all seems like an utter nonsense to me, because it doesn't (in actual terms) make Rwanda any safer.

I absolutely agree with you on the coming migration due to climate change, I and others have been saying this on here for a while.

On the Rwanda being more safe , the judgement that was confirmed today wasn't really about Rwanda being safe or not safe, it was about people being deported from Rwanda back to the countries they fled from in the first place because their lives are in danger.

Also, Rwanda currently has capacity for 200 refugees, so far it has cost £120 million to set this up, plus, I think, twelve thousand per person to get them to Rwanda, oh and there is a reciprocal agreement that the UK accepts refugees from Rwanda in return.

As the Daily Express loves to say, you couldn't make this up.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:13 pm

C T wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 1:59 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2023 10:01 am

Africa, the Middle East and South Asia’s population boom and an era of much easier international travel, social welfare policies being available to non-nationals, and liberal border restrictions. You’re right in the sense that the Conservatives make no real attempt to police the border and prefer the soundbites, they haven’t created the weather though.

I find my mind drifting a bit longer term with all of this.

This might be because I attended a talk from Catherine Ashton recently, who I thought was a super impressive individual, but anyway. She was suggesting that everyone (not just the UK) are in a paddling pool of refugees at the moment, and almost have no idea/plan of what's coming when "Climate Refugee" comes into play.

Yes, absolutely. Looking at the populations of the ‘global south’ is astonishing*, both in terms of historical context and average age. It’s unprecedented and truth is no one really knows what to do with it. The potential migrant pool is almost unlimited.

*I know if we had any Turks on here they’d absolutely kick off at being lumped in here, but a book I finished earlier this week mentioned their population at the end of the first world war was 19 million! Stalin’s famous quote about a few English public schoolboys ruling 300 million Indians is another one that sticks out - multiply that by five in 80 years!

A vaguely sensible leader in Russia could make massive play for this, opening up the north coast for shipping routes and living space, but obviously they have a militaristic dictator slash clown in charge so it ain't happening.

Rwanda are now refusing to sign the new treaty, because they're not up for British officials being in their country and British involvement in their legal system. In other words they're protecting their sovereignty.

This issue more than anything else will sink the Tories. The starting point was lying and saying New Labour were to blame for high immigration, it's been well over a decade of them saying immigration is bad whilst immigration increases (now x3 what it was under New Labour). Tories would be better off ignoring the topic entirely, the more they focus on it the more likely it is they'll be wiped out.

1. Tories made hostile environment policies their standard position on immigration from the early 2010s onwards. This disproportionately impacted people in the UK entirely legally as part of the anti-immigrant drive, May as Home Secretary was central to this. This did not change immigration much at all, but did create an institutional racism scandal. It comprehensively fails to reduce immigration to the "tens of thousands" as the Tories promised.

2. Tories closed off European immigration by making the UK uncompetitive compared to other European labour markets through Brexit. Largely Brexit ended up about free movement/immigration, this is what kept the UK out of single market/EEA outcomes, May as PM again being central to that.

3. The Tories now couldn't attempt to reduce immigration from Asia and Africa, which was higher than immigration from Europe pre-Brexit, because these sources of immigrants became even more useful in meeting the needs of the UK labour market post-Brexit. Their own donors would not support such a move.

4. Tories are confronted by Farage and the tabloids getting hysterical about "small boats", Farage rocking up at Dover and looking at the sea etc. Cummings reportedly became obsessed by it when he was advising Big Dog. Rather than telling the far right to fuck off, which is what Cameron should've done when he was PM, Johnson and Patel come up with the Rwanda scheme for the same reason the Tories came up with the hostile environment and the bad Brexit deal, to please the far right. Like everything Big Dog did it was just to get a win in the next news cycle, he didn't care about the details beyond that.

5. Sunak comes in and promises to "stop the boats", he adopts the Rwanda scheme as his policy solution. The small boats and the Rwanda scheme become totemic in the public mind, and linked with immigration generally. The Tories aren't actually promising to cut immigration anymore, but the Tories allow supporters to read things into it which aren't there. Rwanda becomes a lightning rod for immigration concerns generally, in the same way the hostile environment did and Brexit did. Braverman as Home Secretary goes from being incompetent to quite insane.

6. Sometime during points 3 to 5 Immigration into the UK reaches probably the highest number in Britain's entire history, and because of the choices in points 2 and 3 these immigrants were mostly from Africa (Nigeria) and Asia (India). The numbers are multiples higher than under New Labour, who Tories routinely blamed for allowing high immigration. This happens with the hostile environment policies still being in place, and the UK being outside the SM and not part of EU free movement. Tories unhappy with the numbers attack the governments they were part of, seemingly unaware they were in those governments. Braverman criticises the Home Secretary for the numbers, when that person was her for part of that time.

7. UK courts (court of Appeal and Supreme Court) rule the Rwanda scheme is illegal. But it is now a totemic policy Sunak is wedded to, Tories believe if only they can make it work somehow then all their failures on immigration will have no electoral impact. That somehow if the UK has the highest immigration in its history, and this being the case with strong anti-immigrant measures (including leaving the entire EU) because of the structure of the UK's economy, if there's some planes going to Rwanda at immense cost then this will mean those inclined towards some "send them back to where they come from" will vote for ... Rishi Sunak. Tories start making moves against the ECHR, Sunak declares UK courts are in fact foreign courts. Cleverly is now Home Secretary and is reported to say the Rwanda scheme is "batshit", he also publicly says the UK isn't leaving the ECHR.

8. Sunak tries to make a new treaty with Rwanda as a first step to relaunching the Rwanda scheme. What making a treaty means, the sharing of sovereignty, starts to become clearer. For the UK this will mean a close partnership with a dictatorship that's unsafe to deport people to. For Rwanda this will mean British officials in their country and British input into their legal system. Rwanda rejects this.

_Os_ wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:25 am Rwanda are now refusing to sign the new treaty, because they're not up for British officials being in their country and British involvement in their legal system. In other words they're protecting their sovereignty.

tabascoboy wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:32 am

_Os_ wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:25 am Rwanda are now refusing to sign the new treaty, because they're not up for British officials being in their country and British involvement in their legal system. In other words they're protecting their sovereignty.

Starting to wonder if this is real life or if we're all stuck in some sort of sitcom.

I remember seeing the writer of The Thick of It saying that it won't come back again for a new series, at least in part because politics is almost impossible to parody now.

C T wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 12:35 pm

tabascoboy wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:32 am

_Os_ wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:25 am Rwanda are now refusing to sign the new treaty, because they're not up for British officials being in their country and British involvement in their legal system. In other words they're protecting their sovereignty.

Starting to wonder if this is real life or if we're all stuck in some sort of sitcom.

I remember seeing the writer of The Thick of It saying that it won't come back again for a new series, at least in part because politics is almost impossible to parody now.

The madness of it being such a tiny fraction of immigration, and what could have actually been achieved with all the money spaffed