Best Of

Labour's ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal is tonight being challenged in the courts by a migrant who claims he will be ‘destitute’ if the Home Office sends him back to France.

The human rights claim – the first challenge to reach court over the UK-France deal - will place the Government under renewed pressure after two removals flights failed to go ahead.

The 25-year-old Eritrean man, who was granted anonymity by the court, is due to be aboard the Home Office’s next flight to France at 9am tomorrow.

He has told the Home Office he and his mother travelled to Ethiopia when he was a young child, and that he was trafficked from there to Libya in 2023. He then made his way via Italy to France, and arrived in Britain by small boat across the Channel on August 12 after his mother paid £1,000 to smugglers, court papers said.

Lawyers for the Eritrean migrant claim there is a ‘real risk of destitution’ if he is deported to France under the deal agreed in July by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with president Emmanuel Macron.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15104337/Labours-flailing-one-one-migrant-deal-challenged-High-Court-Eritrean-man-25-claims-destitute-sent-France.html

Give him £1,000 and put him on a flight back to home with his mum and ban him from claiming asylum in the UK. He won’t be destitute and it will be cheaper than putting him in a hotel here. Give him £5,000 if necessary.

Makes a lot of sense and would be humane too, because there probably is an actual risk of destitution.

A grand per return and you could return 50,000 migrants per year and pay only 50 million, a drop in the ocean in fiscal terms.

Why is there no risk of destitution if he stays in the UK?

OT Michael Portillo has not one but two programmes about trains on BBC2 tonight. A repeat at 6.30 and a new series at 8pm.

Railway enthusiast Michael Portillo follows the route of the pioneering Stockton and Darlington Railway in north east England - the world’s first public railway to carry fee-paying passengers using steam locomotives. He learns how the Stockton and Darlington proved that railways could work - sparking a transport revolution across Britain and beyond.

He visits key locations in the story of this pioneering railway, including the town of Shildon, from where the train hauled by Locomotion No.1 set off in 1825; Bishop Auckland, where he joins thousands at a spectacular outdoor show to launch the 200th anniversary and drives a replica of the original train; and the Tyne and Wear Metro, where he discovers a new fleet transforming travel in north east England.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002jmrc/michael-portillos-200-years-of-the-railways-series-1-1-the-day-that-changed-the-world

The phrasing " the world’s first public railway to carry fee-paying passengers using steam locomotives." gets around many of the arguments about "what was the first railway?"

A flattering portrayal of Nick Lowles, the chief dude at Hope Not Hate, focused on the risk of political violence from the extreme right

It casually mentions half way through that he was a student Trotskyist, like it’s no problem, because of course political violence of the extreme LEFT is just fine

The double standards are so howlingly blatant I can only presume the Guardian doesn’t even see them

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/basic-decency-british-people-hope-not-hate-nick-lowles-how-to-defeat-far-right

Is that so ?
It acknowledges it, but does it condone ?
.. “When I first got involved in anti-fascism – this was late 80s – it was all about the street. I’m not saying it was right, but that’s how it was. You didn’t have cameras.” So, wait, he doesn’t mean handing out leaflets in the street? “No, you would have groups of Nazis and groups of anti-fascists, and they would battle it out, down sidestreets, and sometimes it got quite violent. I mean, look at me, I’m not built for that. I never got involved in that. But that was the world it was.”..

Oh give over. What if someone said “yes I was in the national front as a teenager” - would she simply have passed by that without mention and interrogation? Of course not. And the NF didn’t want to overthrow liberal capitalism - unlike the Trots

It’s fuxking ludicrous. This guy is held up an an exemplary opponent of right wing political violence yet it turns out he was a revolutionary activist in his youth, desiring to end parliamentary democracy, and she doesn’t even note that this is somewhat jarring

Yeah the NF just wanted to round up my wife's family and millions like them and throw them out of the country. Harmless stuff.

Whereas communists are all sweetness and light and hardly ever engage in mass murder?

In the postwar UK the comparison is ludicrous and could only be made by a heterosexual white person. Anyone who is a member of a minority group knows that the far right pose a physical threat to their safety. I know people who had to literally fight the far right in order to remain in their homes in the 1970s/80s. Anyone who experienced the same kind of physical threat from the socialist workers party please feel free to share your experiences.

When Derek Beackon won a council seat in the early 1990s, I regularly saw signs saying "Kill the Nazi scum" from some organisation. I think it was the ANL or somesuch. Which amused me, as I was unconvinced that 'kill them' made the much different from the Nazis...

The 'ANL' in the early 1990s were a bunch of violent thugs looking for a fight that often never materialised.

They'd arrange 'counter attacks' to events that weren't even taking place as an excuse to get together and 'take to the streets'. Sometimes they'd do battle with football hooligans, for whom politics was unimportant at best. As long as the ANL side had the opposition outnumbered, obviously...

All this rubbish about 'fighting the Neo-Nazis' stuck to every lamppost in South London - only the actual Nazis barely existed. Who were they picking a fight with? Derek Beackon and his minder? A couple of old boys who'd been at NF rallies 20 years earlier?

The 'far right' a) aren't actually right wing, and b) barely exist. The actual far left are a far bigger threat/issue - and continue to justify their own hatred by manufacturing opponents out of thin air.

As a society/media/narrative we've got it badly arse-over-tit as usual.

I think you are historically some way off there. The 80s - early 90s were the BNP in their "street" phase, and Combat 18, amongst others. Both left and right political violence died down in the 2000s. And I think football hooligan "firms" had an involvement, but that is a personal view.

One of the interesting things about the current crop of extreme right groups, in addition to how fissiparous they are, is how much if the organisational scaffolding is provided by BNP retreads.

I think that eventually this is one of the things that will seriously damage Reform UK.

Prevent Programme numbers suggest that Far RIght is a much greater risk of violence than Far Left over recent years.

Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.

That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?

Labour's ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal is tonight being challenged in the courts by a migrant who claims he will be ‘destitute’ if the Home Office sends him back to France.

The human rights claim – the first challenge to reach court over the UK-France deal - will place the Government under renewed pressure after two removals flights failed to go ahead.

The 25-year-old Eritrean man, who was granted anonymity by the court, is due to be aboard the Home Office’s next flight to France at 9am tomorrow.

He has told the Home Office he and his mother travelled to Ethiopia when he was a young child, and that he was trafficked from there to Libya in 2023. He then made his way via Italy to France, and arrived in Britain by small boat across the Channel on August 12 after his mother paid £1,000 to smugglers, court papers said.

Lawyers for the Eritrean migrant claim there is a ‘real risk of destitution’ if he is deported to France under the deal agreed in July by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with president Emmanuel Macron.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15104337/Labours-flailing-one-one-migrant-deal-challenged-High-Court-Eritrean-man-25-claims-destitute-sent-France.html

Is "destitution" a legal reason deportation can not be carried out ?

If so primary legislation needs amending so it is not considered as a reason to not deport someone. Our legislation is preposterous if it can be used to prevent deportation to France. Primary legislation needs to make it very clear that we can return people to France and anywhere else the gov't chooses for any reason whatsoever, it is the only way we are going to get round this.

A flattering portrayal of Nick Lowles, the chief dude at Hope Not Hate, focused on the risk of political violence from the extreme right

It casually mentions half way through that he was a student Trotskyist, like it’s no problem, because of course political violence of the extreme LEFT is just fine

The double standards are so howlingly blatant I can only presume the Guardian doesn’t even see them

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/16/basic-decency-british-people-hope-not-hate-nick-lowles-how-to-defeat-far-right

Is that so ?
It acknowledges it, but does it condone ?
.. “When I first got involved in anti-fascism – this was late 80s – it was all about the street. I’m not saying it was right, but that’s how it was. You didn’t have cameras.” So, wait, he doesn’t mean handing out leaflets in the street? “No, you would have groups of Nazis and groups of anti-fascists, and they would battle it out, down sidestreets, and sometimes it got quite violent. I mean, look at me, I’m not built for that. I never got involved in that. But that was the world it was.”..

Oh give over. What if someone said “yes I was in the national front as a teenager” - would she simply have passed by that without mention and interrogation? Of course not. And the NF didn’t want to overthrow liberal capitalism - unlike the Trots

It’s fuxking ludicrous. This guy is held up an an exemplary opponent of right wing political violence yet it turns out he was a revolutionary activist in his youth, desiring to end parliamentary democracy, and she doesn’t even note that this is somewhat jarring

I don't get why we give communism such a free pass. Most of the most horrible regimes of modern history have been communist. Saying "I'm a communist" is tantamount to saying "I favour overthrowing liberal democracy and replacing it with a totalitarian system (which whenever it has been tried has led to tyranny)". Yet apparently we are unconcerned about having people who are members of the communist party as advisors to government (I'm thinking in particular of Susan Michie, during Covid). I'm content to allow people to take their own view on what society should be, but surely being a member of the communist party should ring some alarm bells? I'm pretty sure being a member of the National Front or whatever its equivalent is this year would raise the odd eyebrow.

The right-wing press and right-wong commentators are always going on about people with connections to the Communist party (or -ies). Where does this "apparently we are unconcerned" come from?

Easy. If you went to most parties and said: "I am a Nazi" or "I am a fascist", you will get thrown out, or worse. If you say "I am a Communist", you might get a roll of the eyes, but little else.

Communism is *much* more acceptable, despite its blood-drenched history.

They were both terrible ideologies.

And because - to take the advantage of Susan Michie - members of the communist party are able to work for and advise government.

Lots of people advise government. The government doesn't vet most of them for whether they are a member of a political party. Unless someone is a member of a proscribed group, they are able to work for and advise government.

Can I just clarify what your point is here? Do you think the government should vet everyone who advises them for undesirable political beliefs? What happened to free speech?

My point is that, rightly, government would be wary of inviting in or taking advice from anyone who was a member of the National Front, or modern equivalent, but seems unconcerned about doing so with communists, which seems equivalent. I gave the example of Susan Michie - I was very wary of a member of the communist party being allowed to guide policy with major societal implications - but OLB quite rightly also gave the example of Claire Fox, which I think is also valid.
I'm not against these people's views being expressed - it seems right to me that they should be - but it seems daft that you solicit the views of these people. If you're trying to build a better society, you probably don't want to take advice from those who want to smash it apart.

It's a great point @Cookie.

And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs. Fascism, by contrast, usually involves belief in racial superiority.

Personally, I think when one defends and glorifies terrorism, as Claire Fox did, then that should be a disqualifying factor.

And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...

Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.

Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.

And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.

Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.

Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.