The Brexit Thread

[tabascoboy]

Many a vein, on many a temple must be on the verge of exploding in outrage this morning...

[ia801310]

Gammonaty apoplectic this morning that the Rwanda flight didn't go ahead, because apparently that's what they voted for (hint, they didn't). While also spewing mass ignorance of what the EHCR is (It's not an EU court), why it was setup & by his party, their esteemed leaders hero (Churchill) and that his grandfather (James Fawcett, lefty lawyer) was the president(for 9 years) of said org.

Meanwhile is 2016....
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/b ... on-8033527

Passionate Boris Johnson defends European Convention on Human Rights

One prediction for the future

If the ECHR ultimately stops the Rwanda flights policy permanently the UK will cease to be a member of the ECHR within the next 5 years.



"If there is one lesson from British public opinion over the last decade, it is that people don’t like it when others tell Britain what it can and can’t do — even if people have more nuanced opinions about the particular thing in question."

[fishfoodie]

One prediction for the future

If the ECHR ultimately stops the Rwanda flights policy permanently the UK will cease to be a member of the ECHR within the next 5 years.



"If there is one lesson from British public opinion over the last decade, it is that people don’t like it when others tell Britain what it can and can’t do — even if people have more nuanced opinions about the particular thing in question."

Ben Youngs owes his career to this particular obstinate stupidity

[ia801310]

One prediction for the future

If the ECHR ultimately stops the Rwanda flights policy permanently the UK will cease to be a member of the ECHR within the next 5 years.



"If there is one lesson from British public opinion over the last decade, it is that people don’t like it when others tell Britain what it can and can’t do — even if people have more nuanced opinions about the particular thing in question."

Ben Youngs owes his career to this particular obstinate stupidity

Reason why I mentioned the ECHR is that I can see exactly the same thing happening with the ECHR as what happened with the EU.

Progressives will misjudge the electorate and forget that the electorate is not made up of 60million human rights lawyers and then in 6 years time when we have left the ECHR be left wondering how the hell it happened as everyone they knew were in favour of staying in the ECHR

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bo ... 01609.html

"Don’t blame Boris Johnson for the mess over Rwanda – it’s what the public wants
Blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections

In politics, it tends to help if you can win an argument. So it is with the government’s Rwanda plan. It may be depressing, indeed appalling, to send vulnerable people to Rwanda to be settled, with many having a valid claim to asylum in the UK. It’s certainly illiberal. Our own bishops say it’s immoral. I happen to think it’s unspeakably cruel. But none of those arguments has much traction with the Great British Public.

The polling shows that most of them support the policy. I’ll repeat that: the polling shows that a significant proportion support the policy. I have the uneasy feeling that Ukrainians only get more sympathy because they’re white; the abandoned Afghans certainly don’t. Polling by Savanta ComRes indicates that 40 per cent plus of the population support the Rwanda policy, and more than half of 2019 Conservative voters.

However, despite the overall, albeit slim, net support, the polling also tells us that the public see faults in the Rwanda scheme: 67 per cent say that it’s likely that most of the migrants who end up in Rwanda will attempt to leave and return to Europe, and a significant 42 per cent say it’s unlikely the plan will drastically reduce the numbers of migrants arriving in the UK.

So even if these voters don’t think the policy will even work, they still back it. What they really want is a policy to stop people coming in that does work; not to have an unlimited right to asylum. It is just as the Conservative ministers say to Labour: “What would you do? Got any better ideas?”

It deserves an answer. When Amol Rajan asked David Lammy if Labour would repeal the removal of the right to asylum from British domestic law he said he couldn’t answer that because he’s not Yvette Cooper. This is not winning the argument.

A very significant chunk of the British electorate voted Conservative precisely because of things like Brexit, cutting benefits and the Rwanda policy, not despite them. These voters are not moved by being called cruel, immoral, appalling, fascistic, racist, evil or any other (justifiable) label you can stick on them. They’re not, in truth, that bothered about whether the deportees have been tortured. They don’t want them here because they believe, variously, that they’re economic migrants, they can happily live freely in France or Greece, and if they’re not and are genuine refugees they are anyway scroungers, criminals, and the rest, who’ll end up in overcrowded housing, overwhelming public services, undercutting wages and generally degrading the quality of life of what is termed the “indigenous” population.

These are precisely the same kinds of false arguments that have been used by the racist right for decades, and for a reason – they find a ready audience with people prepared to believe in scapegoating myths and propaganda. Some of those very same people – Patel, Johnson, Raab, Farage – may well have refugees back in their own family histories, but no matter to them. The Jews and Ugandan Asians were once demonised, but now it’s supposed to be different. It’s not, obviously. Yet the myths about migration won’t die while left unchallenged.

By merely asserting that these policies, and by implication the people supporting them, are immoral and so on isn’t going to kill those myths, and is probably counterproductive. It’s how the Brexit referendum was lost. What you need are some arguments about why migration is good for Britain, in the national interest, and makes the country better off.

An awful lot of people aren’t bothered about what the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations, the European Union or anyone else thinks about the Rwanda plan, Brexit or anything else for that matter. They would cheerfully quit the lot if it meant lower migration into the UK. You increasingly hear people wanting “food security”, “energy security”, self-sufficiency, and cutting ourselves off from trade and investment with the rest of the world. Nigel Farage and like-minded figures in the Tory party think that getting out of the European convention is part of Brexit.

No one seems to be explaining why being signed up to the Convention helps protect people in this country, rather than the ones who want to come here. Again, the argument is lost by default.

“Global Britain” is really about becoming a hermit English kingdom, the ultimate gaslighting exercise. Don’t blame the Tories or Johnson, though – blame the voters. Or more to the point, blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections. The Conservatives may be the nasty party, but Britain is a nasty country. Or at least until it’s persuaded there’s a better way.

Britain, or at least England, is drifting into becoming what you might call a Millwall nation – with apologies to today’s football club. You may be familiar with the old Millwall chant – “no one likes us, we don’t care” – sung to the tune of “Cwm Rhondda”. Millwall’s iconography – snarling lions and angry bulldogs – suits nasty Britain, and so does the bloody-minded sentiment in their fans’ song.

Understand that and you’re some way into thinking about how tough it is going to be to win the arguments about why there is a housing shortage, why public services are under pressure, and why Britain actually needs migrants to keep its economy and its hospitals running.

Our problems do not exist because of immigrants. Why isn’t anyone explaining why? Legal challenges and marches and protests are easier to organise than winning hearts and minds. That’s why we’re in the state we’re in."

[_Os_]

Reason why I mentioned the ECHR is that I can see exactly the same thing happening with the ECHR as what happened with the EU.

Progressives will misjudge the electorate and forget that the electorate is not made up of 60million human rights lawyers and then in 6 years time when we have left the ECHR be left wondering how the hell it happened as everyone they knew were in favour of staying in the ECHR

If people want to vote to make their lives worse, then they should do so, it's on them alone and ignorance isn't an excuse. This quote is the core of the article you posted, and a view you seem to share:

A very significant chunk of the British electorate voted Conservative precisely because of things like Brexit, cutting benefits and the Rwanda policy, not despite them. These voters are not moved by being called cruel, immoral, appalling, fascistic, racist, evil or any other (justifiable) label you can stick on them. They’re not, in truth, that bothered about whether the deportees have been tortured. They don’t want them here because they believe, variously, that they’re economic migrants, they can happily live freely in France or Greece, and if they’re not and are genuine refugees they are anyway scroungers, criminals, and the rest, who’ll end up in overcrowded housing, overwhelming public services, undercutting wages and generally degrading the quality of life of what is termed the “indigenous” population.

“Global Britain” is really about becoming a hermit English kingdom, the ultimate gaslighting exercise. Don’t blame the Tories or Johnson, though – blame the voters. Or more to the point, blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections. The Conservatives may be the nasty party, but Britain is a nasty country. Or at least until it’s persuaded there’s a better way.

Your argument is there's a large group of unreachable people who are racists, and the people to blame for this isn't them themselves, or the politicians playing into their fears and bigotry ... it's instead the people that oppose this? The racists have no agency, only those opposing them have any responsibility for their actions?

It's a bit of an understatement to say this is all a massive overestimation of what rational debate with fundamentally irrational people can achieve. The fact the UK has a housing crisis simply because it hasn't built enough houses, since 1970 France has built about 17m houses and the UK 7m, France correspondingly has had about half the house price inflation. Not many care about any of this and many other facts. As the article says, many people supporting the Rwanda policy don't even care if it works they just want the cruelty to be inflicted on people. "Blaming the progressive politicians" is massively missing the point here.

This stuff about "the indigenous population" I've seen being repeated on the right (racists that write for the Spectator). If that type of thinking catches on, then it's the quickest way to ruin a multi racial country like the UK. It's an expansion of the anti-migrant rhetoric to any person who isn't white. This type of thinking that says "the indigenous" deserve more rights, has a very bleak history in Africa and Europe during the 20th century.

[Insane_Homer]

[Biffer]

One prediction for the future

If the ECHR ultimately stops the Rwanda flights policy permanently the UK will cease to be a member of the ECHR within the next 5 years.



"If there is one lesson from British public opinion over the last decade, it is that people don’t like it when others tell Britain what it can and can’t do — even if people have more nuanced opinions about the particular thing in question."

Ben Youngs owes his career to this particular obstinate stupidity

Reason why I mentioned the ECHR is that I can see exactly the same thing happening with the ECHR as what happened with the EU.

Progressives will misjudge the electorate and forget that the electorate is not made up of 60million human rights lawyers and then in 6 years time when we have left the ECHR be left wondering how the hell it happened as everyone they knew were in favour of staying in the ECHR

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bo ... 01609.html

"Don’t blame Boris Johnson for the mess over Rwanda – it’s what the public wants
Blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections

In politics, it tends to help if you can win an argument. So it is with the government’s Rwanda plan. It may be depressing, indeed appalling, to send vulnerable people to Rwanda to be settled, with many having a valid claim to asylum in the UK. It’s certainly illiberal. Our own bishops say it’s immoral. I happen to think it’s unspeakably cruel. But none of those arguments has much traction with the Great British Public.

The polling shows that most of them support the policy. I’ll repeat that: the polling shows that a significant proportion support the policy. I have the uneasy feeling that Ukrainians only get more sympathy because they’re white; the abandoned Afghans certainly don’t. Polling by Savanta ComRes indicates that 40 per cent plus of the population support the Rwanda policy, and more than half of 2019 Conservative voters.

However, despite the overall, albeit slim, net support, the polling also tells us that the public see faults in the Rwanda scheme: 67 per cent say that it’s likely that most of the migrants who end up in Rwanda will attempt to leave and return to Europe, and a significant 42 per cent say it’s unlikely the plan will drastically reduce the numbers of migrants arriving in the UK.

So even if these voters don’t think the policy will even work, they still back it. What they really want is a policy to stop people coming in that does work; not to have an unlimited right to asylum. It is just as the Conservative ministers say to Labour: “What would you do? Got any better ideas?”

It deserves an answer. When Amol Rajan asked David Lammy if Labour would repeal the removal of the right to asylum from British domestic law he said he couldn’t answer that because he’s not Yvette Cooper. This is not winning the argument.

A very significant chunk of the British electorate voted Conservative precisely because of things like Brexit, cutting benefits and the Rwanda policy, not despite them. These voters are not moved by being called cruel, immoral, appalling, fascistic, racist, evil or any other (justifiable) label you can stick on them. They’re not, in truth, that bothered about whether the deportees have been tortured. They don’t want them here because they believe, variously, that they’re economic migrants, they can happily live freely in France or Greece, and if they’re not and are genuine refugees they are anyway scroungers, criminals, and the rest, who’ll end up in overcrowded housing, overwhelming public services, undercutting wages and generally degrading the quality of life of what is termed the “indigenous” population.

These are precisely the same kinds of false arguments that have been used by the racist right for decades, and for a reason – they find a ready audience with people prepared to believe in scapegoating myths and propaganda. Some of those very same people – Patel, Johnson, Raab, Farage – may well have refugees back in their own family histories, but no matter to them. The Jews and Ugandan Asians were once demonised, but now it’s supposed to be different. It’s not, obviously. Yet the myths about migration won’t die while left unchallenged.

By merely asserting that these policies, and by implication the people supporting them, are immoral and so on isn’t going to kill those myths, and is probably counterproductive. It’s how the Brexit referendum was lost. What you need are some arguments about why migration is good for Britain, in the national interest, and makes the country better off.

An awful lot of people aren’t bothered about what the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations, the European Union or anyone else thinks about the Rwanda plan, Brexit or anything else for that matter. They would cheerfully quit the lot if it meant lower migration into the UK. You increasingly hear people wanting “food security”, “energy security”, self-sufficiency, and cutting ourselves off from trade and investment with the rest of the world. Nigel Farage and like-minded figures in the Tory party think that getting out of the European convention is part of Brexit.

No one seems to be explaining why being signed up to the Convention helps protect people in this country, rather than the ones who want to come here. Again, the argument is lost by default.

“Global Britain” is really about becoming a hermit English kingdom, the ultimate gaslighting exercise. Don’t blame the Tories or Johnson, though – blame the voters. Or more to the point, blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections. The Conservatives may be the nasty party, but Britain is a nasty country. Or at least until it’s persuaded there’s a better way.

Britain, or at least England, is drifting into becoming what you might call a Millwall nation – with apologies to today’s football club. You may be familiar with the old Millwall chant – “no one likes us, we don’t care” – sung to the tune of “Cwm Rhondda”. Millwall’s iconography – snarling lions and angry bulldogs – suits nasty Britain, and so does the bloody-minded sentiment in their fans’ song.

Understand that and you’re some way into thinking about how tough it is going to be to win the arguments about why there is a housing shortage, why public services are under pressure, and why Britain actually needs migrants to keep its economy and its hospitals running.

Our problems do not exist because of immigrants. Why isn’t anyone explaining why? Legal challenges and marches and protests are easier to organise than winning hearts and minds. That’s why we’re in the state we’re in."

The way to tackle folk who have those attitudes is to concentrate on it not being English / British to behave that way. You can present that in many different ways depending on your audience, from an intellectual argument about the protection of other people's rights being an old philosophical English / British thing going back to John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith etc whereas the rule of the majority is more of the French tradition of Rousseau and Descartes (and that's what led to the tyranny of the majority and the terror after the revolution) or from a patriotic angle of sacrifice against fascism in WWII or from many other positions.

(yes, you can argue the finer points of those in an intellectually pedantic way but the majority of people couldn't give a shit about that so the headline of it not being British is the key).

[derriz]

"Don’t blame Boris Johnson for the mess over Rwanda – it’s what the public wants
Blame the progressive politicians for not taking the battle of ideas to the enemy and winning elections

That's bollox. It's like blaming a bystander for the crime because they didn't intervene enough and absolving the actual perpetrator of blame.

Why not blame f*cking Boris? He's the PM, he okayed this idea, is backing it and like lots of his actions is watching as it turns to shit.

The reasons a large segment of the public support a policy like this is not because Labour politicians performed poorly on political talk shows or have written unconvincing articles for the Guardian. The idea is just stupid.

A more likely culprit is the incessant anti-immigrant anti-refugee front page imagery dished out by the Tory supporting press going back decades. Or Boris and the Tory party for exploiting, pandering to and justifying this nastiness for political reasons instead of challenging it on principle.

[fishfoodie]

It looks like JRM is intent on continuing with causing chaos & disruption; & yesterday it was quietly announced that HMRC was cancelling a major new customs inspection post in Kent.

But a HMRC spokesman said: “A new proposed site at Dover was part of this review, and after looking into the amount of cross channel traffic and the necessary associated checks, a decision has been made not to progress with the site.

“The review showed that the existing facilities have enough capacity to deal with the flow of traffic and therefore a new site was not necessary.

“This decision will see a saving of around £120 million – the anticipated cost of developing and running Dover IBF for the intended duration – and allow the funds to be utilised elsewhere.”

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/news/natio ... hed-61367/

Sounds like the UK is never going to introduce proper controls in Dover, & as a result you can look forward to pulmeting food standards, & conflict with the rest of the WTO.

[Hal Jordan]

As long as he's making money and confessing to a priest about his sinful thoughts of tying up the poor and whipping them, he would set fire to the earth's very atmosphere.

[ia801310]

It's a real mystery why Remain lost in 2016 and Corbyn lost in 2019

[_Os_]

It's a real mystery why Remain lost in 2016 and Corbyn lost in 2019

So Leave and the Tories didn't win then, the other side lost?

No reply from you about how people who don't support something are actually really the ones to blame for it? The school of logic that says there's a "Remainer's Brexit", or "those who oppose the Rwanda policy, are actually those most responsible for it"?

The real mystery is how bad shit keeps happening in the UK and the people with total and complete responsibility for all of it, keep blaming those with no responsibility for any of it, and there's enough people in the UK that think this is all credible enough (time and time again) to keep Tory polling at 30%+.

[ia801310]

It's a real mystery why Remain lost in 2016 and Corbyn lost in 2019

So Leave and the Tories didn't win then, the other side lost?

No reply from you about how people who don't support something are actually really the ones to blame for it? The school of logic that says there's a "Remainer's Brexit", or "those who oppose the Rwanda policy, are actually those most responsible for it"?

The real mystery is how bad shit keeps happening in the UK and the people with total and complete responsibility for all of it, keep blaming those with no responsibility for any of it, and there's enough people in the UK that think this is all credible enough (time and time again) to keep Tory polling at 30%+.

It was a mixture of both. Leave and the Tories won, but they were helped on their way by the pitiful Remain and Corbyn campaigns.

By the way I subscribe 100% to Dan Hodge's and Paul Embery''s view about the left and immigration

[_Os_]

It's a real mystery why Remain lost in 2016 and Corbyn lost in 2019

So Leave and the Tories didn't win then, the other side lost?

No reply from you about how people who don't support something are actually really the ones to blame for it? The school of logic that says there's a "Remainer's Brexit", or "those who oppose the Rwanda policy, are actually those most responsible for it"?

The real mystery is how bad shit keeps happening in the UK and the people with total and complete responsibility for all of it, keep blaming those with no responsibility for any of it, and there's enough people in the UK that think this is all credible enough (time and time again) to keep Tory polling at 30%+.

It was a mixture of both. Leave and the Tories won, but they were helped on their way by the pitiful Remain and Corbyn campaigns.

By the way I subscribe 100% to Dan Hodge's and Paul Embery''s view about the left and immigration

I think a post listing all the times Brexiters have blamed Remainers for Brexit (relevant to the thread title) could be worthwhile. The "Remainer's Brexit" gambit you seem convinced by, which is now being applied to the immigration debate.

On immigration it should be patently obvious by now, that immigration is extremely difficult to control. The Tories have now implemented an often completely irrational "hostile environment" and Brexit, both motivated by wishing to reduce immigration numbers (May explicitly stated this was her goal both times), over a decade of that effort has made no difference at all.

It should also be obvious by now, that the immigration debate in the UK is really about playing into the base fears of racists for electoral gain, the Tories do not really care about your concerns they only want your vote. It's therefore a completely irrational debate, which is why no rational argument makes any difference. Plenty of entirely rational arguments never feature in this debate, for example where the migrants to the UK are disproportionately from. Migrants to the UK are disproportionately from the UK's former empire, places the UK imposed itself on (how else did they end up speaking English?), places that were poor then and remain poor, places with large and growing populations, places where only a tiny fraction of the population has to have any interest in migrating to the UK to produce a huge amount of migrants to the UK (no matter what migration system the UK uses). The Commonwealth has a population of 2.6 billion, if almost no one wants to migrate to the UK, that's still millions.

People like Embery and Hodges are lying to you. The impact the UK had on a lot of very poor high population areas of the world was so profound - a language isn't nothing - that the UK's connection to those places is basically going to last forever. The UK's destiny is to look like its former empire. Things like the "points based immigration" (beloved by the right/tabloids/Tories) will just speed up the process, black and brown people aren't dumb they can get points too. Same for the "citizenship test" it turns out Indians can speak English, understand cricket, drink tea, and know what a parliament is.

The liars aren't going to tell you this. Douglas Murray's book Strange Death of Europe, pretends the migrants come from nowhere and are distributed equally. Odd how Finland has no large established populations of Irish/Indians/Pakistanis/Bengalis/Nigerians/Kenyans/West Indians, but the UK does for some reason that's never explained.

You think Brexit and the Tories are giving you "no migration" and you're winning, when what's actually happening is "more migration than ever in the UK's history" and what you're really fighting isn't "the left" but a combination of reality and inevitability. And I'm the stupid one?

[Insane_Homer]

[Paddington Bear]

So Leave and the Tories didn't win then, the other side lost?

No reply from you about how people who don't support something are actually really the ones to blame for it? The school of logic that says there's a "Remainer's Brexit", or "those who oppose the Rwanda policy, are actually those most responsible for it"?

The real mystery is how bad shit keeps happening in the UK and the people with total and complete responsibility for all of it, keep blaming those with no responsibility for any of it, and there's enough people in the UK that think this is all credible enough (time and time again) to keep Tory polling at 30%+.

It was a mixture of both. Leave and the Tories won, but they were helped on their way by the pitiful Remain and Corbyn campaigns.

By the way I subscribe 100% to Dan Hodge's and Paul Embery''s view about the left and immigration

I think a post listing all the times Brexiters have blamed Remainers for Brexit (relevant to the thread title) could be worthwhile. The "Remainer's Brexit" gambit you seem convinced by, which is now being applied to the immigration debate.

On immigration it should be patently obvious by now, that immigration is extremely difficult to control. The Tories have now implemented an often completely irrational "hostile environment" and Brexit, both motivated by wishing to reduce immigration numbers (May explicitly stated this was her goal both times), over a decade of that effort has made no difference at all.

It should also be obvious by now, that the immigration debate in the UK is really about playing into the base fears of racists for electoral gain, the Tories do not really care about your concerns they only want your vote. It's therefore a completely irrational debate, which is why no rational argument makes any difference. Plenty of entirely rational arguments never feature in this debate, for example where the migrants to the UK are disproportionately from. Migrants to the UK are disproportionately from the UK's former empire, places the UK imposed itself on (how else did they end up speaking English?), places that were poor then and remain poor, places with large and growing populations, places where only a tiny fraction of the population has to have any interest in migrating to the UK to produce a huge amount of migrants to the UK (no matter what migration system the UK uses). The Commonwealth has a population of 2.6 billion, if almost no one wants to migrate to the UK, that's still millions.

People like Embery and Hodges are lying to you. The impact the UK had on a lot of very poor high population areas of the world was so profound - a language isn't nothing - that the UK's connection to those places is basically going to last forever. The UK's destiny is to look like its former empire. Things like the "points based immigration" (beloved by the right/tabloids/Tories) will just speed up the process, black and brown people aren't dumb they can get points too. Same for the "citizenship test" it turns out Indians can speak English, understand cricket, drink tea, and know what a parliament is.

The liars aren't going to tell you this. Douglas Murray's book Strange Death of Europe, pretends the migrants come from nowhere and are distributed equally. Odd how Finland has no large established populations of Irish/Indians/Pakistanis/Bengalis/Nigerians/Kenyans/West Indians, but the UK does for some reason that's never explained.

You think Brexit and the Tories are giving you "no migration" and you're winning, when what's actually happening is "more migration than ever in the UK's history" and what you're really fighting isn't "the left" but a combination of reality and inevitability. And I'm the stupid one?

Leaving aside a debate about the merits - there is nothing inevitable about net migration running at a million people a year - it is a very deliberate policy choice. Other worlds, whether better or worse, are possible.
Would suggest if you think there are no Indians in Finland you should try travelling to Finland.

[yermum]

Mmmm schadenfreude flavoured sausages my personal favourite.

[_Os_]

Leaving aside a debate about the merits - there is nothing inevitable about net migration running at a million people a year - it is a very deliberate policy choice. Other worlds, whether better or worse, are possible.
Would suggest if you think there are no Indians in Finland you should try travelling to Finland.

I've been to Finland. I didn't say "no Indians in Finland", the Indian born population in Finland is about 10k, the Indian born population in the UK is 1m. The UK's total south Asian origin population probably matches Finland's entire population. There's no comparison.

Isn't it total immigrants that reached 1 million, the stat was 1 million visas granted in a year. Net migration is immigrants minus emigrants.

The claim I was replying to was that the "lefty liberals" in the UK are to blame for migration. My reply was that doesn't seem to be true, and the UK's impact on the world is a much more significant factor. There's basically 3 types of European country when it comes to migration. Those who had empires (the big ones being UK/France/Spain/Portugal), all their migration flows disproportionately reflect those former empires, this is the case even with those who had much smaller empires (in the Netherlands, Surinamese and Indonesian are two of the largest immigrant committees, there's much more South Africans there than is typical outside of the UK in Europe too). The second group had a very small or no empire, but have chosen to opt for high migration, the poster boys for that would be Sweden and Germany (not Finland). The third group have no history of empire and are culturally very alien to any outsider (there's nothing naturally pulling anyone there from outside Europe) and have not opted for high migration (Finland), some of these are economically not great also so there's no economic pull factor either (not Finland).

I don't think the UK has chosen a high migration model, but I think any migration system the UK uses will be high migration. By popular demand the UK has implemented an "Australian points based immigration system", a system which had a similar result in Australia as its had in the UK, just on a smaller scale (Australian's Indian population is significantly larger than Finland's).

This chart isn't screaming "lefty liberals are to blame" to me. What there is a gradual increase from the mid 1980s to 2004 when a plateau is reached in net and total immigration that remained since. The peaks in net migration were in 2014 and 2015, the peak in total immigration happening now.

[Paddington Bear]

Leaving aside a debate about the merits - there is nothing inevitable about net migration running at a million people a year - it is a very deliberate policy choice. Other worlds, whether better or worse, are possible.
Would suggest if you think there are no Indians in Finland you should try travelling to Finland.

I've been to Finland. I didn't say "no Indians in Finland", the Indian born population in Finland is about 10k, the Indian born population in the UK is 1m. The UK's total south Asian origin population probably matches Finland's entire population. There's no comparison.

Isn't it total immigrants that reached 1 million, the stat was 1 million visas granted in a year. Net migration is immigrants minus emigrants.

The claim I was replying to was that the "lefty liberals" in the UK are to blame for migration. My reply was that doesn't seem to be true, and the UK's impact on the world is a much more significant factor. There's basically 3 types of European country when it comes to migration. Those who had empires (the big ones being UK/France/Spain/Portugal), all their migration flows disproportionately reflect those former empires, this is the case even with those who had much smaller empires (in the Netherlands, Surinamese and Indonesian are two of the largest immigrant committees, there's much more South Africans there than is typical outside of the UK in Europe too). The second group had a very small or no empire, but have chosen to opt for high migration, the poster boys for that would be Sweden and Germany (not Finland). The third group have no history of empire and are culturally very alien to any outsider (there's nothing naturally pulling anyone there from outside Europe) and have not opted for high migration (Finland), some of these are economically not great also so there's no economic pull factor either (not Finland).

I don't think the UK has chosen a high migration model, but I think any migration system the UK uses will be high migration. By popular demand the UK has implemented an "Australian points based immigration system", a system which had a similar result in Australia as its had in the UK, just on a smaller scale (Australian's Indian population is significantly larger than Finland's).

This chart isn't screaming "lefty liberals are to blame" to me. What there is a gradual increase from the mid 1980s to 2004 when a plateau is reached in net and total immigration that remains for a decade and a half. The peaks in net migration were in 2014 and 2015, the peak in total immigration happening now.

Britain has an established and well integrated Indian population, as well as an established and somewhat less well integrated Pakistani population as a result of cultural and economic ties as a result of the Empire. Clearly.

This does not explain what is happening currently. India has a burgeoning population who have ambitions in life that cannot be satisfied at home, and the populations of the West are ageing. Therefore one thing you will have noticed going to any city in Europe, particularly those with higher incomes, is that the Indian population is exploding. You would have had to look quite hard for a curryhouse in Paris 20 years ago. Britain happens to be easier than some of these others to get into for reasons primarily connected to our visa system and the ease of 'setting yourself up'.

None of this is really inevitable as you suggest. Successive governments have talked tough on immigration to win votes, but have deferred to the Treasury on implementation of any measures that would actually restrict immigration. A government that explicitly wanted to change this could very easily do so (albeit not overnight) - it is a deliberate policy choice throughout all levels of government not to. I.e. we have a shortage of nurses to which immigration is the preferred solution. We also reject a pretty significant number of British people from nursing degrees who we could accept, or we could have non-degree routes into the field etc. If Cameron had wanted to go that way we'd see quite a different NHS by now.

The plural of anecdote is not data but I imagine that I am reasonably unusual on this bored in interacting with a fair amount of recent immigrants to Britain from India, and most are very open about why they have come here over, say, Germany. Because it's easier to do so because of government policy.

[_Os_]

Britain has an established and well integrated Indian population, as well as an established and somewhat less well integrated Pakistani population as a result of cultural and economic ties as a result of the Empire. Clearly.

This does not explain what is happening currently. India has a burgeoning population who have ambitions in life that cannot be satisfied at home, and the populations of the West are ageing. Therefore one thing you will have noticed going to any city in Europe, particularly those with higher incomes, is that the Indian population is exploding. You would have had to look quite hard for a curryhouse in Paris 20 years ago. Britain happens to be easier than some of these others to get into for reasons primarily connected to our visa system and the ease of 'setting yourself up'.

None of this is really inevitable as you suggest. Successive governments have talked tough on immigration to win votes, but have deferred to the Treasury on implementation of any measures that would actually restrict immigration. A government that explicitly wanted to change this could very easily do so (albeit not overnight) - it is a deliberate policy choice throughout all levels of government not to. I.e. we have a shortage of nurses to which immigration is the preferred solution. We also reject a pretty significant number of British people from nursing degrees who we could accept, or we could have non-degree routes into the field etc. If Cameron had wanted to go that way we'd see quite a different NHS by now.

The plural of anecdote is not data but I imagine that I am reasonably unusual on this bored in interacting with a fair amount of recent immigrants to Britain from India, and most are very open about why they have come here over, say, Germany. Because it's easier to do so because of government policy.

It seems you're agreeing with elements of what I'm saying, but you think the weight of the UK's history isn't the primary factor. Whatever the case we seem to agree "lefty liberals" aren't particularly to blame and this is wider spanning politics and different governments.

"Setting yourself up" is easier for many moving to the UK, because they go and live with their aunties/uncles/cousins and already speak the language. The "explosion" in Indians living in "any city in Europe", would go totally unnoticed in the UK, the entire Indian populations of places like Hungary or Finland or Austria, are below that of many medium/small English towns. The main reason for this difference is empire, it's the same reason Portugal's biggest immigrant group is from Brazil, Spain's is Morocco (which is an "all of the above", geographically very close to Spain, less economic opportunity than Spain, colonial history with Spain/France) and a list of Spanish speaking South American countries, France's is Algeria followed by Morocco.

India is different as you say, it's a globally significant civilization much like China. It would be strange if Indian migration was only and singularly to the UK, the UK still far outweighs other European destinations though. I'm not buying the UK's visa system creates the difference, there's 1.5 million Turks in Germany and 1m Algerians in France. If Indians really had been as interested in other European destinations over decades as they've been in the UK, that would show in the numbers, instead Germany and France have about 150k-200k Indians each a fraction of the UK. We would need to Google for comparisons of visa regimes for more data. But my original point wasn't restricted to India, it's the entire Commonwealth of 2.6 billion, the UK is significantly over represented as a destination country for all those countries. Many young Malawians dream of going to SA when they're old enough, it would be surprising if a small number weren't dreaming of the UK, I doubt any dream of Helsinki.

I agree that training should be connected to the immigration debate. But vested interests prevent that debate ever happening, any serious debate about education/training would immediately challenge those who benefit from the UK's unequal education system (tough sell), and raise the issue of tax payer funding (another tough sell). With hard jobs like nursing there's a high attrition rate, so more need to be trained than strictly needed (part of a serious debate would recognise that spending on education/training will include a lot of waste, another tough sell). Easier for many to just rant about immigrants and blame "lefty liberals".

As far as anecdotes go. I don't live in a ghetto, it's top 10% easily and probably top 5%. One next door neighbour is from Pakistan and his wife is British Pakistani, I think all their kids were born in the UK, I know him quite well he wouldn't dream of even going on holiday to Europe ("it's more anti-Muslim than here"), he runs a business and his family are quite devout. The other next door neighbour is a British Indian and white British couple, he says his parents came to the UK because "it was the centre of the world then". Over the road there's Sikh house comprising three generations, they saw me wearing a Springbok jersey and immediately started sledging about cricket scores (I have no interest in cricket, but I now know when India is beating SA), I've been invited to some of their huge gatherings, it's just standard chain migration and every male running multiple businesses. The other house over the road is an Indian Hindu family, they're very private. That's all the houses directly next to and opposite me, they all moved in over the last few years. Funny how as soon as South Asian families started moving in the sale signs started going up (not sure where they're moving to, when 58% of UK births are white British combined with immigration).

UK government policy is a factor in all this (education/training as you say), but for most of the last decade the UK government had a policy to cap migration and an immigration minister in cabinet and an often irrational "hostile environment" programme ... all that added up to not much change. I look at it all and conclude "inevitable the UK will look like its former empire".

[ia801310]

Britain has an established and well integrated Indian population, as well as an established and somewhat less well integrated Pakistani population as a result of cultural and economic ties as a result of the Empire. Clearly.

This does not explain what is happening currently. India has a burgeoning population who have ambitions in life that cannot be satisfied at home, and the populations of the West are ageing. Therefore one thing you will have noticed going to any city in Europe, particularly those with higher incomes, is that the Indian population is exploding. You would have had to look quite hard for a curryhouse in Paris 20 years ago. Britain happens to be easier than some of these others to get into for reasons primarily connected to our visa system and the ease of 'setting yourself up'.

None of this is really inevitable as you suggest. Successive governments have talked tough on immigration to win votes, but have deferred to the Treasury on implementation of any measures that would actually restrict immigration. A government that explicitly wanted to change this could very easily do so (albeit not overnight) - it is a deliberate policy choice throughout all levels of government not to. I.e. we have a shortage of nurses to which immigration is the preferred solution. We also reject a pretty significant number of British people from nursing degrees who we could accept, or we could have non-degree routes into the field etc. If Cameron had wanted to go that way we'd see quite a different NHS by now.

The plural of anecdote is not data but I imagine that I am reasonably unusual on this bored in interacting with a fair amount of recent immigrants to Britain from India, and most are very open about why they have come here over, say, Germany. Because it's easier to do so because of government policy.

It seems you're agreeing with elements of what I'm saying, but you think the weight of the UK's history isn't the primary factor. Whatever the case we seem to agree "lefty liberals" aren't particularly to blame and this is wider spanning politics and different governments.

"Setting yourself up" is easier for many moving to the UK, because they go and live with their aunties/uncles/cousins and already speak the language. The "explosion" in Indians living in "any city in Europe", would go totally unnoticed in the UK, the entire Indian populations of places like Hungary or Finland or Austria, are below that of many medium/small English towns. The main reason for this difference is empire, it's the same reason Portugal's biggest immigrant group is from Brazil, Spain's is Morocco (which is an "all of the above", geographically very close to Spain, less economic opportunity than Spain, colonial history with Spain/France) and a list of Spanish speaking South American countries, France's is Algeria followed by Morocco.

India is different as you say, it's a globally significant civilization much like China. It would be strange if Indian migration was only and singularly to the UK, the UK still far outweighs other European destinations though. I'm not buying the UK's visa system creates the difference, there's 1.5 million Turks in Germany and 1m Algerians in France. If Indians really had been as interested in other European destinations over decades as they've been in the UK, that would show in the numbers, instead Germany and France have about 150k-200k Indians each a fraction of the UK. We would need to Google for comparisons of visa regimes for more data. But my original point wasn't restricted to India, it's the entire Commonwealth of 2.6 billion, the UK is significantly over represented as a destination country for all those countries. Many young Malawians dream of going to SA when they're old enough, it would be surprising if a small number weren't dreaming of the UK, I doubt any dream of Helsinki.

I agree that training should be connected to the immigration debate. But vested interests prevent that debate ever happening, any serious debate about education/training would immediately challenge those who benefit from the UK's unequal education system (tough sell), and raise the issue of tax payer funding (another tough sell). With hard jobs like nursing there's a high attrition rate, so more need to be trained than strictly needed (part of a serious debate would recognise that spending on education/training will include a lot of waste, another tough sell). Easier for many to just rant about immigrants and blame "lefty liberals".

As far as anecdotes go. I don't live in a ghetto, it's top 10% easily and probably top 5%. One next door neighbour is from Pakistan and his wife is British Pakistani, I think all their kids were born in the UK, I know him quite well he wouldn't dream of even going on holiday to Europe ("it's more anti-Muslim than here"), he runs a business and his family are quite devout. The other next door neighbour is a British Indian and white British couple, he says his parents came to the UK because "it was the centre of the world then". Over the road there's Sikh house comprising three generations, they saw me wearing a Springbok jersey and immediately started sledging about cricket scores (I have no interest in cricket, but I now know when India is beating SA), I've been invited to some of their huge gatherings, it's just standard chain migration and every male running multiple businesses. The other house over the road is an Indian Hindu family, they're very private. That's all the houses directly next to and opposite me, they all moved in over the last few years. Funny how as soon as South Asian families started moving in the sale signs started going up (not sure where they're moving to, when 58% of UK births are white British combined with immigration).

UK government policy is a factor in all this (education/training as you say), but for most of the last decade the UK government had a policy to cap migration and an immigration minister in cabinet and an often irrational "hostile environment" programme ... all that added up to not much change. I look at it all and conclude "inevitable the UK will look like its former empire".

I think this is just Liberal Metropolitan Elite wishful thinking

The UK has had mass immigration from the former empire for about 50 years and still 87.7% of the UK population is White of which 80% white British, That is after 50 years of immigration. The Metropolitan Liberal Elite seem to think that London and the other large cites are representative of the rest of the UK. Outside of a few major cities and certain areas the population is well over 90% white. This is another example of how out of touch the Metropolitan Liberal Elite are with the UK as a whole. Maybe another reason why they keep losing elections?.

I have no doubt that the % of ethnic minorities will increase but they will never in the next 100 or 200 years catch up with the white population.

with the exception of the Irish border the UK is surrounded by 20 miles of water. That is a natural border meaning the UK can easily control immigration providing it has the Will.

Interesting to see Trevor Noah criticising those who are opposed to the Rwanda plan. I wonder if those opposed would be as opposed if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

[I like neeps]

Trevor Noah's video is good but I think it doesn't answer the key point of how this breaks the smuggling business model because a potentially deadly journey with very little chance of successful integration is already on the table and the problem with Rwanda isn't that it's in Africa, it's that Kagame is a dictator with a questionable human rights record.

[fishfoodie]

Trevor Noah's video is good but I think it doesn't answer the key point of how this breaks the smuggling business model because a potentially deadly journey with very little chance of successful integration is already on the table and the problem with Rwanda isn't that it's in Africa, it's that Kagame is a dictator with a questionable human rights record.

Rwanda is the, Bridge between Scotland & the DUP, of immigration policies.

It won't work, it's stupid, it's a waste of money, & it's solely there to appease a bunch of bigots, & distract from the utterly horrendous waste of oxygen that is this Government.

[_Os_]

I think this is just Liberal Metropolitan Elite wishful thinking

The UK has had mass immigration from the former empire for about 50 years and still 87.7% of the UK population is White of which 80% white British, That is after 50 years of immigration. The Metropolitan Liberal Elite seem to think that London and the other large cites are representative of the rest of the UK. Outside of a few major cities and certain areas the population is well over 90% white. This is another example of how out of touch the Metropolitan Liberal Elite are with the UK as a whole. Maybe another reason why they keep losing elections?.

I have no doubt that the % of ethnic minorities will increase but they will never in the next 100 or 200 years catch up with the white population.

with the exception of the Irish border the UK is surrounded by 20 miles of water. That is a natural border meaning the UK can easily control immigration providing it has the Will.

Interesting to see Trevor Noah criticising those who are opposed to the Rwanda plan. I wonder if those opposed would be as opposed if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

You're taking the piss aren't you?

"The Metropolitan Liberal Elite", if it makes you feel any better Ian Dunt and James O'Brien and the few other surviving English liberals aren't the elites running the UK, suspiciously they do live in London though. The actual elites aren't liberal, and how "metropolitan" they are depends on which of their £5m+ homes you're looking at.

I've already posted the data on UK migration in chart form so it's easier to follow. The UK has had net immigration at the current rate for the last 20 years or so. Before the mid-1980s the UK had net emigration (more people were leaving the UK than entering he UK). In the 1970s total immigration was a quarter or a fifth of the current rate. There's many changes since the 1980s that have made the world smaller and led to this happening now, and not immediately after nations became independent from the UK: Higher levels of education, TV becoming widespread, the end of the Cold War, reduced travel costs, the internet.

The demographic numbers you're posting are from the 2011 UK census. There's no way of telling the momentum behind each demographic from a snapshot like that (birth rates? age structures? emigration rates?). There's been some work done projecting the UK population under different Brexit scenarios. This one assumed a hard Brexit means less immigration which isn't proving to be true, by 2061 it came out with 42% not white modelling the same level of immigration ("no Brexit"), and 35.6% modelling for significantly reduced migration ("hard Brexit"), both show the UK generally becomes more racially diverse (blue less diverse, red more diverse).


https://theconversation.com/what-the-uk ... ios-117475

If you're serious, and I'm having my doubts. Lets say hypothetically I'm right and you're wrong, and the Tories have conned you into supporting them because of the immigration issue surrounding Brexit, and you realise they don't give a fuck about any of this. What would you do then?

[ia801310]

I think this is just Liberal Metropolitan Elite wishful thinking

The UK has had mass immigration from the former empire for about 50 years and still 87.7% of the UK population is White of which 80% white British, That is after 50 years of immigration. The Metropolitan Liberal Elite seem to think that London and the other large cites are representative of the rest of the UK. Outside of a few major cities and certain areas the population is well over 90% white. This is another example of how out of touch the Metropolitan Liberal Elite are with the UK as a whole. Maybe another reason why they keep losing elections?.

I have no doubt that the % of ethnic minorities will increase but they will never in the next 100 or 200 years catch up with the white population.

with the exception of the Irish border the UK is surrounded by 20 miles of water. That is a natural border meaning the UK can easily control immigration providing it has the Will.

Interesting to see Trevor Noah criticising those who are opposed to the Rwanda plan. I wonder if those opposed would be as opposed if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

You're taking the piss aren't you?

"The Metropolitan Liberal Elite", if it makes you feel any better Ian Dunt and James O'Brien and the few other surviving English liberals aren't the elites running the UK, suspiciously they do live in London though. The actual elites aren't liberal, and how "metropolitan" they are depends on which of their £5m+ homes you're looking at.

I've already posted the data on UK migration in chart form so it's easier to follow. The UK has had net immigration at the current rate for the last 20 years or so. Before the mid-1980s the UK had net emigration (more people were leaving the UK than entering he UK). In the 1970s total immigration was a quarter or a fifth of the current rate. There's many changes since the 1980s that have made the world smaller and led to this happening now, and not immediately after nations became independent from the UK: Higher levels of education, TV becoming widespread, the end of the Cold War, reduced travel costs, the internet.

The demographic numbers you're posting are from the 2011 UK census. There's no way of telling the momentum behind each demographic from a snapshot like that (birth rates? age structures? emigration rates?). There's been some work done projecting the UK population under different Brexit scenarios. This one assumed a hard Brexit means less immigration which isn't proving to be true, by 2061 it came out with 42% not white modelling the same level of immigration ("no Brexit"), and 35.6% modelling for significantly reduced migration ("hard Brexit"), both show the UK generally becomes more racially diverse (blue less diverse, red more diverse).


https://theconversation.com/what-the-uk ... ios-117475

If you're serious, and I'm having my doubts. Lets say hypothetically I'm right and you're wrong, and the Tories have conned you into supporting them because of the immigration issue surrounding Brexit, and you realise they don't give a fuck about any of this. What would you do then?

I guess only time will tell if you are right or not. I suspect that you are wrong. Even if you are right, it doesn't exactly square with the idea that Brexit Britain is a racist hell-hole. Free electoral tip to the Metropolitan Liberal Elite, constantly branding the electorate racist and thick is not a winning strategy.

One of the beauties of Brexit is that if we think the govt are lying to us we can elect a new one with a new immigration policy. You don't end with a situation whereby a whole community uses another EU country to piggy back into the UK, google "Dutch Somali's in the UK"

2 articles to help you

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/br ... 89841.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n-citizens

I wonder you would be as opposed if to the Rwanda plan if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

[Tichtheid]

This thread isn't old enough to have this posted when it was first published, but it's just as relevant now as it was in 2016

[SaintK]

Bloody "lefty remoaners" at it again!!!!!

This report finds that the expected large relative decline in UK-EU exports haven’t occurred and instead Brexit appears to be weighing on both UK openness and competitiveness across both EU and non-EU markets.

It will take many years for the economy to full adjust and this report provide the most detailed assessment to date of the long-run impacts of the final deal agreed with the EU. It finds that the long-run impacts will mean significant change for some sectors of our economy –for example, fishing – but the aggregate effect will be to reduce household incomes as a result of a weaker pound, and lower investment and trade. This adjustment will be substantial, but we should not expect it to fundamentally alter the nature of our economy, including the UK’s overall services focus and export specialisation. Understanding the scale and nature of this change, and the extent of progress so far, is crucial for policy makers looking to reset the country’s economic strategy. That is the focus of this report, part of the Economy 2030 Inquiry.

https://economy2030.resolutionfoundati ... brexit/
https://economy2030.resolutionfoundati ... exit.pdf

[petej]

I think this is just Liberal Metropolitan Elite wishful thinking

The UK has had mass immigration from the former empire for about 50 years and still 87.7% of the UK population is White of which 80% white British, That is after 50 years of immigration. The Metropolitan Liberal Elite seem to think that London and the other large cites are representative of the rest of the UK. Outside of a few major cities and certain areas the population is well over 90% white. This is another example of how out of touch the Metropolitan Liberal Elite are with the UK as a whole. Maybe another reason why they keep losing elections?.

I have no doubt that the % of ethnic minorities will increase but they will never in the next 100 or 200 years catch up with the white population.

with the exception of the Irish border the UK is surrounded by 20 miles of water. That is a natural border meaning the UK can easily control immigration providing it has the Will.

Interesting to see Trevor Noah criticising those who are opposed to the Rwanda plan. I wonder if those opposed would be as opposed if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

You're taking the piss aren't you?

"The Metropolitan Liberal Elite", if it makes you feel any better Ian Dunt and James O'Brien and the few other surviving English liberals aren't the elites running the UK, suspiciously they do live in London though. The actual elites aren't liberal, and how "metropolitan" they are depends on which of their £5m+ homes you're looking at.

I've already posted the data on UK migration in chart form so it's easier to follow. The UK has had net immigration at the current rate for the last 20 years or so. Before the mid-1980s the UK had net emigration (more people were leaving the UK than entering he UK). In the 1970s total immigration was a quarter or a fifth of the current rate. There's many changes since the 1980s that have made the world smaller and led to this happening now, and not immediately after nations became independent from the UK: Higher levels of education, TV becoming widespread, the end of the Cold War, reduced travel costs, the internet.

The demographic numbers you're posting are from the 2011 UK census. There's no way of telling the momentum behind each demographic from a snapshot like that (birth rates? age structures? emigration rates?). There's been some work done projecting the UK population under different Brexit scenarios. This one assumed a hard Brexit means less immigration which isn't proving to be true, by 2061 it came out with 42% not white modelling the same level of immigration ("no Brexit"), and 35.6% modelling for significantly reduced migration ("hard Brexit"), both show the UK generally becomes more racially diverse (blue less diverse, red more diverse).


https://theconversation.com/what-the-uk ... ios-117475

If you're serious, and I'm having my doubts. Lets say hypothetically I'm right and you're wrong, and the Tories have conned you into supporting them because of the immigration issue surrounding Brexit, and you realise they don't give a fuck about any of this. What would you do then?

I guess only time will tell if you are right or not. I suspect that you are wrong. Even if you are right, it doesn't exactly square with the idea that Brexit Britain is a racist hell-hole. Free electoral tip to the Metropolitan Liberal Elite, constantly branding the electorate racist and thick is not a winning strategy.

One of the beauties of Brexit is that if we think the govt are lying to us we can elect a new one with a new immigration policy. You don't end with a situation whereby a whole community uses another EU country to piggy back into the UK, google "Dutch Somali's in the UK"

2 articles to help you

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/br ... 89841.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n-citizens

I wonder you would be as opposed if to the Rwanda plan if the immigrants were being offshored to Canada, or Finland or Ireland?

The electorate is conned. This government gaslights constantly. This policy isn't about controlling immigration because they have no interest in doing so. They need economic growth and they need house prices to go up. They aren't going to get growth from productivity increases and the birth rate isn't high enough for population growth. They have no interest in training the native population for critical occupations.

[Tichtheid]

but the aggregate effect will be to reduce household incomes as a result of a weaker pound,

I tried to find something the other day, but I ran out of time.

Does anyone know what the price of a barrel of oil was in early 2016 and what it costs now? I don't mean the price in dollars, I mean what the UK had to pay in pounds (before converting to dollars) and what we pay now?

Fuck, that's a complicated way to ask a question, how about; are we paying more for oil now due to a weakened pound against dollar than we did before the Brexit vote?

[JM2K6]

Os, I don't understand how you are so good at good faith arguments on everything except rugby and a pain in the arse when it comes to rugby

Seriously though, I really appreciate the effort you put into your posts. I learn something new every time I read one. Your knowledge and understanding of my country's politics and society put mine to shame.

[Insane_Homer]

best description so far, see on Twitter yesterday.

"We're in a cost of leaving crisis"

[petej]

but the aggregate effect will be to reduce household incomes as a result of a weaker pound,

I tried to find something the other day, but I ran out of time.

Does anyone know what the price of a barrel of oil was in early 2016 and what it costs now? I don't mean the price in dollars, I mean what the UK had to pay in pounds (before converting to dollars) and what we pay now?

Fuck, that's a complicated way to ask a question, how about; are we paying more for oil now due to a weakened pound against dollar than we did before the Brexit vote?

Yes we are but be wary of the time scale picked to compare. I've seen an example on twitter where the high price of oil coincided with a strong pound and weak dollar (2008 2 dollars to the pound) used as an example of brexit being bad which wasn't near the avg pre brexit exchange rate for £$. I would use 1.6 pre-brexit and 1.3 post brexit.

Screenshot_20220622-105814.png (136.9 KiB) Viewed 2562 times

[Tichtheid]

but the aggregate effect will be to reduce household incomes as a result of a weaker pound,

I tried to find something the other day, but I ran out of time.

Does anyone know what the price of a barrel of oil was in early 2016 and what it costs now? I don't mean the price in dollars, I mean what the UK had to pay in pounds (before converting to dollars) and what we pay now?

Fuck, that's a complicated way to ask a question, how about; are we paying more for oil now due to a weakened pound against dollar than we did before the Brexit vote?

Yes we are but be wary of the time scale picked to compare. I've seen an example on twitter where the high price of oil coincided with a strong pound and weak dollar (2008 2 dollars to the pound) used as an example of brexit being bad which wasn't near the avg pre brexit exchange rate for £$. I would use 1.6 pre-brexit and 1.3 post brexit.
Screenshot_20220622-105814.png

Cheers.

[ia801310]

This thread isn't old enough to have this posted when it was first published, but it's just as relevant now as it was in 2016

Canada, Australia and New Zealand aren't in the ECHR either.

[Tichtheid]

This thread isn't old enough to have this posted when it was first published, but it's just as relevant now as it was in 2016

Canada, Australia and New Zealand aren't in the ECHR either.

I'm not entirely sure what relevance that statement has on the European Convention on Human Rights. The point in that sketch is reached at 2:27, that far from it being foisted on Britain, Britain was instrumental in setting up the ECHR with Churchill as a prime motivator for it and David Maxwell Fyfe as the chair of the committee that set it up.

[ia801310]

This thread isn't old enough to have this posted when it was first published, but it's just as relevant now as it was in 2016

Canada, Australia and New Zealand aren't in the ECHR either.

I'm not entirely sure what relevance that statement has on the European Convention on Human Rights. The point in that sketch is reached at 2:27, that far from it being foisted on Britain, Britain was instrumental in setting up the ECHR with Churchill as a prime motivator for it and David Maxwell Fyfe as the chair of the committee that set it up.

To Counter the implication that without the ECHR the UK would turn into a Nazi state. The UK wasn't a Nazi state before the ECHR. In fact your post proves the point. Before the ECHR the UK politicians were perfectly able to promote human rights in the UK.

if the UK left the ECHR it would still be a democracy. Being in the ECHR is not a pre-requisite that an open and democratic society. Canada, New Zealand and Australia aren't Nazi states and have never been in the ECHR.

[Tichtheid]

Canada, Australia and New Zealand aren't in the ECHR either.

I'm not entirely sure what relevance that statement has on the European Convention on Human Rights. The point in that sketch is reached at 2:27, that far from it being foisted on Britain, Britain was instrumental in setting up the ECHR with Churchill as a prime motivator for it and David Maxwell Fyfe as the chair of the committee that set it up.

To Counter the implication that without the ECHR the UK would turn into a Nazi state. The UK wasn't a Nazi state before the ECHR. In fact your post proves the point. Before the ECHR the UK politicians were perfectly able to promote human rights in the UK.

if the UK left the ECHR it would still be a democracy. Being in the ECHR is not a pre-requisite that an open and democratic society. Canada, New Zealand and Australia aren't Nazi states and have never been in the ECHR.

The ECHR was brought in around 1950, any gains before that in the UK were brought in by way of pressure by Rowntree and the Quakers in terms of
health and poverty, then by organisation in the workplace, ie Unions and the growth of the Labour movement. These gains were fought tooth and nail by the forbearers of the current government, they opposed the setting up of the NHS and welfare state at every opportunity.

The media in this country attack anyone who opposes this government and calls them traitors - remember the judges who found that the Tories were acting illegally re proroguing parliament?

The reason this government wants to replace the ECHR with a UK Bill of Rights is so that they can overturn or ignore any decision it doesn't like - no one can think they do not intend to do this, Shirley?

What do you call a government which uses the media for its own propaganda, withdraws from international treaties because it doesn't suit their purposes and over turns domestic court rulings where those courts have found against them, all whilst whipping up jingoistic and xenophobic fervour?

[ia801310]

I'm not entirely sure what relevance that statement has on the European Convention on Human Rights. The point in that sketch is reached at 2:27, that far from it being foisted on Britain, Britain was instrumental in setting up the ECHR with Churchill as a prime motivator for it and David Maxwell Fyfe as the chair of the committee that set it up.

To Counter the implication that without the ECHR the UK would turn into a Nazi state. The UK wasn't a Nazi state before the ECHR. In fact your post proves the point. Before the ECHR the UK politicians were perfectly able to promote human rights in the UK.

if the UK left the ECHR it would still be a democracy. Being in the ECHR is not a pre-requisite that an open and democratic society. Canada, New Zealand and Australia aren't Nazi states and have never been in the ECHR.

The ECHR was brought in around 1950, any gains before that in the UK were brought in by way of pressure by Rowntree and the Quakers in terms of
health and poverty, then by organisation in the workplace, ie Unions and the growth of the Labour movement. These gains were fought tooth and nail by the forbearers of the current government, they opposed the setting up of the NHS and welfare state at every opportunity.

The media in this country attack anyone who opposes this government and calls them traitors - remember the judges who found that the Tories were acting illegally re proroguing parliament?

The reason this government wants to replace the ECHR with a UK Bill of Rights is so that they can overturn or ignore any decision it doesn't like - no one can think they do not intend to do this, Shirley?

What do you call a government which uses the media for its own propaganda, withdraws from international treaties because it doesn't suit their purposes and over turns domestic court rulings where those courts have found against them, all whilst whipping up jingoistic and xenophobic fervour?

Unless they are also planning on gassing 6 million Jews then they aren't Nazis

Also parliament has always been able to overturn court judgements. If the Courts make a ruling that Parliament does not like then Parliament can legislate to change the law.

it is not Fascism either. This word gets thrown around so much. It seems to be the new go-to word now that calling someone sexist or racist doesn't work anymore.

What Fascism really means when used by progressives is "I don't agree with this"

[Tichtheid]

To Counter the implication that without the ECHR the UK would turn into a Nazi state. The UK wasn't a Nazi state before the ECHR. In fact your post proves the point. Before the ECHR the UK politicians were perfectly able to promote human rights in the UK.

if the UK left the ECHR it would still be a democracy. Being in the ECHR is not a pre-requisite that an open and democratic society. Canada, New Zealand and Australia aren't Nazi states and have never been in the ECHR.

The ECHR was brought in around 1950, any gains before that in the UK were brought in by way of pressure by Rowntree and the Quakers in terms of
health and poverty, then by organisation in the workplace, ie Unions and the growth of the Labour movement. These gains were fought tooth and nail by the forbearers of the current government, they opposed the setting up of the NHS and welfare state at every opportunity.

The media in this country attack anyone who opposes this government and calls them traitors - remember the judges who found that the Tories were acting illegally re proroguing parliament?

The reason this government wants to replace the ECHR with a UK Bill of Rights is so that they can overturn or ignore any decision it doesn't like - no one can think they do not intend to do this, Shirley?

What do you call a government which uses the media for its own propaganda, withdraws from international treaties because it doesn't suit their purposes and over turns domestic court rulings where those courts have found against them, all whilst whipping up jingoistic and xenophobic fervour?

Unless they are also planning on gassing 6 million Jews then they aren't Nazis

Also parliament has always been able to overturn court judgements. If the Courts make a ruling that Parliament does not like then Parliament can legislate to change the law.

it is not Fascism either. This word gets thrown around so much. It seems to be the new go-to word now that calling someone sexist or racist doesn't work anymore.

What Fascism really means when used by progressives is "I don't agree with this"

I deliberately did not use the word Nazi as I reserve that for one meaning only, the Nazi Party of Adolph Hitler. Neo Nazis are another thing, but I would not use that term for the current government.

I didn't use the word Fascist, though its definition from the OED is
1 an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. 2 (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.

I asked how you'd describe this increasingly authoritarian and nationalistic government which has not only used the measures I mentioned, but they are also criminalising protest and basing refugee policy on skin colour - Ukraine v Syria for example.

Please feel free to answer how you'd describe this current government.

Fascism doesn't arrive wearing jackboots, it creeps in on the back of populism.

[Tichtheid]

Also parliament has always been able to overturn court judgements. If the Courts make a ruling that Parliament does not like then Parliament can legislate to change the law.

Yes, but this current government didn't do that, it didn't go through the rigmarole of changing the laws through parliamentary process, it just ignored the court ruling and blundered on regardless.

This authoritarian lack of respect for the law and parliamentary process is without honour, fairness and any regard for democracy.