Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson has told Dagens Nyheter, the leading broadsheet, that a Swedish NATO membership application in current circumstances would lead to further instability in Europe. She said: “In a situation like this, my judgment is that the best thing for Sweden’s security is that we are predictable, clear and hold a steady course.”
Opinion polling shows the large number of Don’t Knows breaking to the No side. However, if Finland joins that’s a game changer.
It is fascinating to see Sweden following Finnish affairs so closely. The country that was formerly simply eastern Sweden does not usually figure highly in modern Swedes’ consciousness. Mumins, party boats and homely tv shows in.quaint archaic dialects are about the sum of Finnish contribution to Swedish popular culture.
I can understand reversion to status quo and a much cherished position, but it is hard at this present moment to see how Sweden joining could lead to greater instability.
Hard to see how more nuclear weapons in the Baltic is in Sweden’s interest. Or anybody’s interest.
The only thing Putin understands is force. He'll exploit any kind of weakness. The trouble for Sweden is do they want to send weapons to Ukraine? They are perfectly entitled to but that will 'provoke' Moscow.
Huh? What on earth are you talking about? We already do.
So Putin may well threaten Sweden whether it is inside Nato or not.
We need to stop indulging this drivel about Putin seeing Nato as a direct threat to Russia. What sort of country with the biggest military alliance in the world on its doorstep would choose to commit its entire military capability to fighting a non-Nato with no likelihood of joining it? Russia has left itself completely exposed to a conventional attack from Nato - as general HR McMaster pointed out (in jest?) the Lithuanian army could probably march on St Petersburg right now.
So how can Putin AFFORD to be going all in on Ukraine? Because he clearly doesn't see Nato as a directly military threat to Russia at all. It is a completely bogus argument made as an excuse whereas in reality he knows that Nato membership stops him exerting his sphere of influence over eastern Europe. Given his entire modus operandi is one of fear and submission I think we know what that would mean in practice.
As to nuclear weapons, Kaliningrad is already listing to one side with the weight of Russian weapons there. Which already are in breach of treaties.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Sending a junior SPAD out to Tesco to buy enough bottles to fill a suitcase is also not the sort of thing likely to be done 'at work'.
I knew a bloke whose first job was with IDV, and his first job there was to visit London pubs and order a whisky [unspecified] to verify that their default whisky was Haig or whatever the IDV brand was. Nice work if you can get it
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
I never claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Sending a junior SPAD out to Tesco to buy enough bottles to fill a suitcase is also not the sort of thing likely to be done 'at work'.
I knew a bloke whose first job was with IDV, and his first job there was to visit London pubs and order a whisky [unspecified] to verify that their default whisky was Haig or whatever the IDV brand was. Nice work if you can get it
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
It worked in Australia because they had Christmas Island where the refugees could be interned outside the Australian Migration Zone and thus unable to lodge asylum claims or access the legal system. There is no such facility available to the UK.
The Australian government also had the fortitude to do tow backs as a further deterrent. There is no such fortitude available to Johnson.
The key difference between the Rwanda gambit and Nauru is that the refugee is already in the UK when the policy kicks in. No-one will risk being deported to Rwanda when they can enter the informal UK economy instead. The net effect might be that the resettlement of genuine refugees falls away while having no effect on people smuggling to the UK.
That would be a result for the UKG. They can trumpet reduced asylum settlement. Illegal immigration doesn't matter. What isn't measured doesn't count.
Should add. The undeclared policy of the UKG is to make asylum claims impossible, as we have seen with Ukraine. This would be a further tightening of that policy.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Sending a junior SPAD out to Tesco to buy enough bottles to fill a suitcase is also not the sort of thing likely to be done 'at work'.
Wrong.
Never been the case anywhere I've worked, although the boss used to bring a bottle in on Christmas Eve at a couple of places. Didn't happen after about 1980, though.
On drinking at the place of work, I had the pleasure of doing some work for Diageo when their HQ was off Oxford Street. They had a magnificent bar to which one would retire at the end of the working day; that was until a very unpleasant incident curtailed the drinking culture somewhat and the new HQ at Park Royal never, in my opinion, had the same vibe.
At the old place every meeting room was drink themed including my favourite, the Pimms room which was Wimbledon themed completed with artificial turf on the floor.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
Separate point. You don't get fined for breaches of your coe.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Sending a junior SPAD out to Tesco to buy enough bottles to fill a suitcase is also not the sort of thing likely to be done 'at work'.
Wrong.
Correct - I have been in the office drinking bottles of Heineken for an after work birthday party.
Here is the point of difference. At 5pm we went from working at the office to holding a social event in the office. Some people stayed, others went home - it was not work.
So yes, junior spads absolutely do get sent out to buy booze. But they could not do so legally during Covid rules banning social events.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
I am creating the employee handbook for the company I will be running for my client. Have gone back to the HR contractor to object to the drugs and alcohol policy proposal. If nothing else the office we will be based in has "pour your own" beer pumps downstairs in the atrium...
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
Separate point. You don't get fined for breaches of your coe.
Though if you are doing something that is sackable, under your contract, isn’t that the point when the non-insane go “hang on a moment….”?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
The human traffickers here are quite literally the UK Government. They are supplying people to the Rwandan government for money for them to use or abuse as they wish. At least the people smugglers provide a service and the chattels get a choice over what happens to them.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
I am creating the employee handbook for the company I will be running for my client. Have gone back to the HR contractor to object to the drugs and alcohol policy proposal. If nothing else the office we will be based in has "pour your own" beer pumps downstairs in the atrium...
A WeWork hosted office?
A friend worked in games industry, way back.
His boss was famously known as a mean knut through a chunk of the industry - when he (the boss) rolled a joint, he closed his office door and didn’t share….
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
YES IT IS
Alcohol is permitted, indeed encouraged, at all times in my house. The presence of more than half a dozen people consuming it simultaneously, and not doing anything else, is still evidence of a party
Try thinking about zoos and elephants. An elephant is not proof that you are in a zoo but it certainly puts the hypothesis front and centre. Especially when you have just passed a strict no zoo law.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
Drinking on the premises of my Civil Service department is absolutely fine (Christmas party etc.).
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
The human traffickers here are quite literally the UK Government. They are supplying people to the Rwandan government for money for them to use or abuse as they wish. At least the people smugglers provide a service and the chattels get a choice over what happens to them.
Your presumption that the Rwandan government will “abuse” these people is quite something.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
YES IT IS
Alcohol is permitted, indeed encouraged, at all times in my house. The presence of more than half a dozen people consuming it simultaneously, and not doing anything else, is still evidence of a party
Try thinking about zoos and elephants. An elephant is not proof that you are in a zoo but it certainly puts the hypothesis front and centre. Especially when you have just passed a strict no zoo law.
NO IT IS NOT.
You are operating from a perspective that alcohol isn't normal at work, but we already know it was normal there and always was even pre-pandemic.
If you normally had an elephant at your work which is not a zoo, and that elephant continued to be there after the no zoo law was passed, then I would say that elephant which was already at your work would not be evidence you were in a zoo, since it wasn't a zoo before the law was placed and the elephant was already there.
Caught up with wider family over the weekend. Was surprised by the stench of feelings against Boris over this from those who had voted for him.
And did they think he wasn't a liar when they voted for him? Or did they just not care about his lies then?
Up to about 2019, Boris was getting one over on The Man- whether that Man was TMay, Brussels or Corbyn. There were voices, here and elsewhere, who chortled in joy at his dishonesty, because they thought it was in support of a cause they genuinely believed in.
It's taken a while for it to become clear that Boris's getting one over is an end in itself; it's what he does to anyone and anything that gets in his way.
Everyone loves the idea of Boris on first encounter, but he inevitably loses that love, one betrayal at a time. Like drips of water on a rock formation, nothing will happen, then it will visibly erode (where I think we are now), then it will suddenly collapse.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
These are the options the voters will accept.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
Its plausible he didn't realise the rules were broken because he had a different interpretation of the rules.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Except for the fact I've said that the socialising was wrong and that Boris should resign.
However some people are claiming alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying. That chain of though is fundamentally broken by the fact that as you say alcohol was not an offence. It was never an offence to drink alcohol.
It was the socialising that was the offence, not the alcohol, on that we are agreed.
I equally do not accept that birthday cakes, singing etc are a breach either. If people are required to be at work for essential purposes, then I do not accept that people singing or having cake while at work for work reasons is a breach of the rules.
If you cast your mind back how many videos went viral of doctors/nurses etc doing dances or other things while in uniform at work? It kept morale up and people were positive about that at the time, I don't recall a single person ever saying "dancing is non-essential, this is socialising and it is against the law" - did you?
Do you think if a nurse took a birthday cake in for a colleague, or a nurse sang happy birthday to a colleague on the ward, or to a patient on a ward, that it was a breach of the law?
Who today in this thread has made the argument that alcohol = broken rules = must be known about = must be lying? Who are you arguing with?
In every employment contract I’ve signed or given out since 2000, possession of an open alcohol container on company premises was a sackable offence. Anyone know what civil service contracts say on this?
Drinking on the premises of my Civil Service department is absolutely fine (Christmas party etc.).
I think there were some exceptions for a formal work sponsored do - but generally they have been held off premises.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
The human traffickers here are quite literally the UK Government. They are supplying people to the Rwandan government for money for them to use or abuse as they wish. At least the people smugglers provide a service and the chattels get a choice over what happens to them.
Your presumption that the Rwandan government will “abuse” these people is quite something.
Not my presumption. But now you mention it, clearly a presumption of both the UK government and the putative chattels. The Rwanda policy will only "work" if no-one is actually shipped because people are scared off from applying for asylum in the UK.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
These are the options the voters will accept.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
These are the options that a *small proportion* of the voters will accept. If we had a decent political choice in this country the big parties would have gone back to facing down the bigots. If people genuinely want children to drown - any many have posted to that effect on social media - then lets have Farage lead that party and let people vote for it.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
No. If you go to Rwanda you will not have your asylum processed at all. Thats the whole point in this press release. Nobody going to Rwanda will come back to the UK legally. They are being deported and thats the official end of the process. Which is why your opinion poll wasn't a reliable witness - its wrongly says what you said.
The policy is the 21st century equivalent of being sent to Botany Bay. Its a one-way trip.
Yes you will, you will be treated as seeking asylum in Rwanda (i.e. applying in Rwanda for permission to stay in Rwanda). God knows what happens if Rwanda reject you.
The Memorandum signed with Rwanda states:
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
The human traffickers here are quite literally the UK Government. They are supplying people to the Rwandan government for money for them to use or abuse as they wish. At least the people smugglers provide a service and the chattels get a choice over what happens to them.
Your presumption that the Rwandan government will “abuse” these people is quite something.
To be fair - The EU scheme in Libya has resulted in a heavily armed militia in boats (The Libyan “Coastguard”) who hunt down those attempting to cross.
They are then imprisoned in barrack in appealing conditions, and only let out to have their labour sold to local farmers. Sometimes auctioned at the local marketplace.
Yes, Africans (largely) being rented out for unpaid work.
Perhaps we should put up a statue to the officials who created this program?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
These are the options the voters will accept.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
These are the options that a *small proportion* of the voters will accept. If we had a decent political choice in this country the big parties would have gone back to facing down the bigots. If people genuinely want children to drown - any many have posted to that effect on social media - then lets have Farage lead that party and let people vote for it.
You implicitly want people to drown.
The English Channel is too dangerous to safely and illegally cross in a dinghy so people are regularly drowning today and you're against the action taken to prevent it.
Unless the boat crossings stop, the drownings will continue, and you've not come up with another solution to stop the crossings besides doubling down on the hostile environment your Labour Party you supported back then introduced decades ago.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
You rival HYUFD for wrong headed literal minded monomania. You would have a point if everyone were sitting at a workstation editing spreadsheets or talking on phones, and had a glass of wine rather than cup of coffee next to the mouse. Literally nobody thinks that was happening. What was happening, was socialising. The presence of alcohol is not an offence in itself, but a strong indicator that what was happening, was not work but socialising. As are toasts, singing, birthday cakes and the damaging of outdoor toys.
Sending a junior SPAD out to Tesco to buy enough bottles to fill a suitcase is also not the sort of thing likely to be done 'at work'.
I knew a bloke whose first job was with IDV, and his first job there was to visit London pubs and order a whisky [unspecified] to verify that their default whisky was Haig or whatever the IDV brand was. Nice work if you can get it
Did he take the samples back to the lab, or just use his trained palate?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It's a great deal further from even the nearest bit of Indonesia to the nearest bit of Australia than across the Channel. What's the situation with 'illegal' immigration into Papua New Guinea?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
To bel clear the Rwanda policy has nothing to do with clandestine migration across the Channel. It only kicks in after they have entered the country and applied for asylum in the UK. Most of those are genuine refugees today. If you are an economic migrant with a poor claim to asylum, you won't take the risk of applying for asylum but will enter the informal economy instead. Rwanda just means genuine refugees will no longer apply for asylum. Nothing else changes.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
Not so much all rules were not followed as the rules were flagrantly flouted on several occasions, including by the PM himself.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It's a great deal further from even the nearest bit of Indonesia to the nearest bit of Australia than across the Channel. What's the situation with 'illegal' immigration into Papua New Guinea?
The longer distance didn't prevent people from attempting the crossing (and many dying in the attempt) prior to Australia introducing its policies with Nauru and others.
The English Channel may not be as far a distance but its conditions make it an incredibly deadly and dangerous stretch of water to attempt in a dinghy.
If the UK were to reach an agreement that everyone who crosses into the UK was to be sent to Rwanda, no ifs, no buts, then the crossings would stop almost overnight. Nobody would pay thousands to people smugglers to end up in Rwanda.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
Its plausible he didn't realise the rules were broken because he had a different interpretation of the rules.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
I'm glad we agree that Johnson should resign.
We await further news from the police and the actual Sue Gray report as to exactly what Boris did when, what others did when and what Boris knew when. However, I would note the events on 16 April 2021 (before the funeral of Prince Philip): there were two leaving events in different parts of Downing Street that later merged into one, with about 30 people present. Both parties took place and featured alcohol and one of them featured loud music. The Daily Telegraph said they went on until 1am. There was reportedly damage to Wilfred's slide. This clearly broke rules. Johnson was not present, but it seems implausible that he was entirely ignorant of what happened. Did he think the damage to Wilfred's slide was foxes?
There was the 20 May 2020 "socially distanced drinks" that Johnson attended. Cummings and others warned this was a clear breach of rules, yet it went ahead. This wasn't a bit of cake before a meeting. This was a lengthy event, gathering people together and clearly of a social nature.
Johnson said to Parliament that no rules were broken. Were it one event and there was some margin of uncertainty about how to interpret the rules, then a claim that "he had a different interpretation of the rules" might fly. But it was multiple events, including clear and egregious rule-breaking.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
These are the options the voters will accept.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
These are the options that a *small proportion* of the voters will accept. If we had a decent political choice in this country the big parties would have gone back to facing down the bigots. If people genuinely want children to drown - any many have posted to that effect on social media - then lets have Farage lead that party and let people vote for it.
IDK, I'd like that to be true but I'm not convinced. Most voters don't like having a lot of refugees, that's true pretty much everywhere regardless of their political system. They don't want them to drown, but they also don't want to have a system that makes it easy, or even if they do want that system, they don't want the result. Even on the occasions when they do want this it's temporary, for instance the voters thought the government should be letting in more Afghan refugees for a couple of weeks, but they wouldn't be thanking them for doing that a couple of years down the road.
If you imagine we had a Lib-Lab government with or without PR, they wouldn't be doing trolly things like announcing half-baked plans to send people to Rwanda, but I also doubt they'd be doing things that would help refugees while having the effect of attracting more of them, like letting people file asylum applications outside the UK.
A good test is to look at what Biden did: He's smoothed off some of the cruelest parts of the Trump system and he's restored DACA which helps people who seem to Americans like Americans, but he's still trying to stop refugees making it to the US from Central America, and he hasn't even yet implemented the end of Title 42 expulsions which were supposed to be about covid, and may not ever have been legal in the first place.
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
On drinking at the place of work, I had the pleasure of doing some work for Diageo when their HQ was off Oxford Street. They had a magnificent bar to which one would retire at the end of the working day; that was until a very unpleasant incident curtailed the drinking culture somewhat and the new HQ at Park Royal never, in my opinion, had the same vibe.
At the old place every meeting room was drink themed including my favourite, the Pimms room which was Wimbledon themed completed with artificial turf on the floor.
Edited for typo.
A vast amount of filter tow was made at the Courtaulds (ex. British Celenese) site outside Derby. (Filter tow is the stuff used to make cigarette filters). Smoking was rather strictly banned on site.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
These are the options the voters will accept.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
These are the options that a *small proportion* of the voters will accept. If we had a decent political choice in this country the big parties would have gone back to facing down the bigots. If people genuinely want children to drown - any many have posted to that effect on social media - then lets have Farage lead that party and let people vote for it.
IDK, I'd like that to be true but I'm not convinced. Most voters don't like having a lot of refugees, that's true pretty much everywhere regardless of their political system. They don't want them to drown, but they also don't want to have a system that makes it easy, or even if they do want that system, they don't want the result. Even on the occasions when they do want this it's temporary, for instance the voters thought the government should be letting in more Afghan refugees for a couple of weeks, but they wouldn't be thanking them for doing that a couple of years down the road.
If you imagine we had a Lib-Lab government with or without PR, they wouldn't be doing trolly things like announcing half-baked plans to send people to Rwanda, but I also doubt they'd be doing things that would help refugees while having the effect of attracting more of them, like letting people file asylum applications outside the UK.
A good test is to look at what Biden did: He's smoothed off some of the cruelest parts of the Trump system and he's restored DACA which helps people who seem to Americans like Americans, but he's still trying to stop refugees making it to the US from Central America, and he hasn't even yet implemented the end of Title 42 expulsions which were supposed to be about covid, and may not ever have been legal in the first place.
Look at the Australian Labor Party who first shut down then reintroduced the policy of offshoring people who travel via boats. The policy worked but they objected to it, so the problem came back and the drownings resumed, so they reintroduced the policy turned a blind eye to their prior objections.
If the Rwandan thing is done properly, the drownings in the English Channel will stop and a Lab/Lib government would continue with the policy just as the Australian Labor Party did I expect.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
That’s an Excellent Jonathan Haidt article in The Atlantic on the toxicity of social media
I note this paragraph
“Now, however, artificial intelligence is close to enabling the limitless spread of highly believable disinformation. The AI program GPT-3 is already so good that you can give it a topic and a tone and it will spit out as many essays as you like, typically with perfect grammar and a surprising level of coherence. In a year or two, when the program is upgraded to GPT-4, it will become far more capable…”
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
Its plausible he didn't realise the rules were broken because he had a different interpretation of the rules.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
I'm glad we agree that Johnson should resign.
We await further news from the police and the actual Sue Gray report as to exactly what Boris did when, what others did when and what Boris knew when. However, I would note the events on 16 April 2021 (before the funeral of Prince Philip): there were two leaving events in different parts of Downing Street that later merged into one, with about 30 people present. Both parties took place and featured alcohol and one of them featured loud music. The Daily Telegraph said they went on until 1am. There was reportedly damage to Wilfred's slide. This clearly broke rules. Johnson was not present, but it seems implausible that he was entirely ignorant of what happened. Did he think the damage to Wilfred's slide was foxes?
There was the 20 May 2020 "socially distanced drinks" that Johnson attended. Cummings and others warned this was a clear breach of rules, yet it went ahead. This wasn't a bit of cake before a meeting. This was a lengthy event, gathering people together and clearly of a social nature.
Johnson said to Parliament that no rules were broken. Were it one event and there was some margin of uncertainty about how to interpret the rules, then a claim that "he had a different interpretation of the rules" might fly. But it was multiple events, including clear and egregious rule-breaking.
Did he say in parliament that the rules were not broken.....or that he had been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken.....
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
Its plausible he didn't realise the rules were broken because he had a different interpretation of the rules.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
I'm glad we agree that Johnson should resign.
We await further news from the police and the actual Sue Gray report as to exactly what Boris did when, what others did when and what Boris knew when. However, I would note the events on 16 April 2021 (before the funeral of Prince Philip): there were two leaving events in different parts of Downing Street that later merged into one, with about 30 people present. Both parties took place and featured alcohol and one of them featured loud music. The Daily Telegraph said they went on until 1am. There was reportedly damage to Wilfred's slide. This clearly broke rules. Johnson was not present, but it seems implausible that he was entirely ignorant of what happened. Did he think the damage to Wilfred's slide was foxes?
There was the 20 May 2020 "socially distanced drinks" that Johnson attended. Cummings and others warned this was a clear breach of rules, yet it went ahead. This wasn't a bit of cake before a meeting. This was a lengthy event, gathering people together and clearly of a social nature.
Johnson said to Parliament that no rules were broken. Were it one event and there was some margin of uncertainty about how to interpret the rules, then a claim that "he had a different interpretation of the rules" might fly. But it was multiple events, including clear and egregious rule-breaking.
Did he say in parliament that the rules were not broken.....or that he had been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken.....
Boris has run out of road. His brand has been Ratnered. Does he really want to take the party down with him? No, would be my assessment - but he wants a way out with some dignity on what looks like his terms. May 2023 should suit everybody. Party can have an extended beauty contest. We can have a year of kissing toads...
I was persuaded by Tony Blair saying at a PLP meeting that people would accept a reasonably generous asylum policy if they felt it was organised and had clear rules, but chaos (people hanging onto the underside of Eurostar, crowding into lorries, etc.) freaked them out, since they felt the government had lost control and the whole world could just turn up.
At present, if you really want to get to Britain as a refugee (whether because of language or relatives or job prospects or whatever - some people just do), and you can't readily get a tourist visa, you don't have a realistic way to do it except boat smuggling. Offering an established way to apply via embassies and consulates, even if it's designed to be difficult, will reduce the pressure - people will at least try that first if they think they've got a chance of acceptance.
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all.
The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The law was not against parties but non essential work gatherings. Whether anyone believed or believes it to be a party is irrelevant to the law, or whether the PM was lying when he said he followed the rules.
The questions are was it a gathering (yes) and was it essential work (no). On this particular party there is a grey area because they were already gathered. I think this one could have been let go on that basis.
But the leaving drinks ones, and the email to make the most of the lovely weather with drinks are definitely clear breaches of the rules, regardless of whether one thinks of them as parties or not.
Agreed, that the leaving drinks was definitely a party by any definition of the word - although was attended only by civil servants rather than politicians.
Inviting a group of people who had been working together indoors all day, to sit in the garden outdoors for half an hour, may have been a technical breach of the letter of the rules, but doesn’t meet most people’s definition of a party - except in the minds of those who start with wanting the PM to resign and work backwards from there.
Johnson (a politician) is reported to have attended at least one leaving drinks.
The COVID regulations didn’t ban parties. It is irrelevant whether something was or was not a party. They banned non-essential gatherings.
You’re correct about the regulations. The issue with ‘parties’ is that opponents of the PM are using his comments on ‘parties’ to Parliament, to accuse him of lying. The ‘lie’ only exists, if one accepts that the PM being delivered a cake on his birthday amounts to a ‘party’, when he was asked about it more than a year later.
Not true. He said to Parliament that all rules were followed. They were not. That they were not should’ve been palpably obvious to him.
Not true. People can have different interpretations of what the rules are and can justify to themselves that they're not breaking them even if others think they are.
Many people seem to forget that this is a workplace that allows alcohol to be consumed in the workplace. There are many, many bars in Parliament etc - the idea that work + alcohol = broken rules is simply not true.
Whether its a good or bad idea to be drinking alcohol at work is an entirely different matter.
The events concerned did not take place in Parliament but in a government office, where there are no bars whatsoever.
And no people who work in Downing Street work in Parliament?
Alcohol has been allowed in Downing Street all along. Suitcases of wine have been a tradition for many, many years as part of the working culture there including under previous Prime Ministers it is nothing new.
So if that's your normal working day pre-pandemic, then no people won't automatically think "oh there's alcohol here, that's not work" during it.
I'm sure the people who work in Downing Street who are also sometimes in Parliament know that they are different places. All civil servants in Downing Street will have been made well aware of their constitutional position. Let's consider a similar situation: I work in a university. There are student bars on campus. My office is closer to the nearest student bar than No. 10 is to Parliament. I am aware that my office is different from a student bar and the behaviour that goes on in student bars is not appropriate behaviour in my office.
So, anyway, we're agreed that the presence of bars in Parliament is a red herring. Good. Where have you moved to the goal posts to next? Oh, it's the "there was a drinking culture" defence...
Has there been a long-standing drinking culture in No. 10? Perhaps. There were lots of things we all used to do in offices before lockdown. Lockdown changed everything for most people. They knew we were in a different situation. People working on pandemic work knew that more than most in my experience. So the idea that everyone was just carrying on pre-pandemic habits unthinkingly is ridiculous.
Maybe there were some individuals who were stupid enough to think that lockdown hadn't changed anything. That's where leadership comes in. There should have been clear guidance from the senior civil servants and the political leadership, i.e. Boris Johnson. Johnson was going on TV regularly laying out the rules. He must have known what they were, or does he just move his lips without listening to what he's actually saying?
That doesn't address a single point that I made.
If you at university are allowed to have wine while working, then you're allowed to drink while working and the fact that you're drinking wine does not preclude you from being at work.
The pandemic meant that people who weren't needed in the building shouldn't be there, but the law never said a single thing about alcohol. If people who needed to be in the building for work reasons were drinking while working, then that was not against the law - and if they were entitled to drink while working, that's not against their employment either.
There was never any guidance about alcohol at work. The key question was "did you need to leave your house for this", if no (because non-essential work) then you were supposed to be at home, but there was nothing preventing those who were essential workers from having refreshments, and there was nothing preventing those refreshments from being alcoholic.
Hold on... sorry... I'm a bit out of breath... I've been running to keep up with your goal post shifting...
OK... breathe...
Right, over 50 people at No. 10 have received FPNs for breaking COVID rules. They were not fined for drinking alcohol at work. The complaint is not that they were drinking at work. The complaint is that there was widespread breaking of the COVID rules that they imposed on all on us, including by the Prime Minister, his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I noted that the PM said all rules were followed. You then started talking about drinking. That's a sozzled red herring. The PM said all rules were followed. The PM and multiple others have now admitted that all rules were not followed.
That the PM said the rules were followed does not mean that he was lying.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Oh FFS
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules parties are non-work gatherings The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
Your claim falls down on the 4th point. The presence of alcohol is not evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, if consumption of alcohol is tolerated at work.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
BR, you continue arguing some minor point that changes nothing.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
Its plausible he didn't realise the rules were broken because he had a different interpretation of the rules.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
I'm glad we agree that Johnson should resign.
We await further news from the police and the actual Sue Gray report as to exactly what Boris did when, what others did when and what Boris knew when. However, I would note the events on 16 April 2021 (before the funeral of Prince Philip): there were two leaving events in different parts of Downing Street that later merged into one, with about 30 people present. Both parties took place and featured alcohol and one of them featured loud music. The Daily Telegraph said they went on until 1am. There was reportedly damage to Wilfred's slide. This clearly broke rules. Johnson was not present, but it seems implausible that he was entirely ignorant of what happened. Did he think the damage to Wilfred's slide was foxes?
There was the 20 May 2020 "socially distanced drinks" that Johnson attended. Cummings and others warned this was a clear breach of rules, yet it went ahead. This wasn't a bit of cake before a meeting. This was a lengthy event, gathering people together and clearly of a social nature.
Johnson said to Parliament that no rules were broken. Were it one event and there was some margin of uncertainty about how to interpret the rules, then a claim that "he had a different interpretation of the rules" might fly. But it was multiple events, including clear and egregious rule-breaking.
Did he say in parliament that the rules were not broken.....or that he had been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken.....
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
I thought you had previously said that there were no boats coming now [edit: in a previous thread], but the boats are still coming. The chance of drownings remains.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Taking everyone on the planet who wants to come to the UK isn't an "obligation" the UK has.
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Not a new thing. Vagrants were rounded up and sent off into (effective, and allegedly temporary) slavery in the good old days of Empire. For instance, in Bristol
Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
I thought you had previously said that there were no boats coming now, but the boats are still coming. The chance of drownings remains.
There are next-to-no boats crossing now. Effectively none compared to what there was and literally none when it comes to deaths.
There were thousands, but then the boats fell to measurable in the single digits afterwards in the data @TOPPING shared the other day that showed the huge success of this policy.
If the number of dinghies attempting the crossing falls to single digits and nobody dying then that would be the policy working perfectly in my eyes.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Which is funny as the way to ensure they're gone is to ensure they're stopped. Its a bit of a Catch-22.
Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
Perhaps they are trying to create an encirclement/cut Ukrainian supply lines?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
The crossings would also dwindle if a safe and legal route was provided. To the UK, I mean, not to Rwanda. Indeed it's unclear to me why Rwanda features in the question of the UK meeting its obligations on refugees.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
Good idea. I just emailed them to see if they would take our politicians for a few quid. From their reply I now know the Kinyarwandian for "piss off, we are not that stupid".
I’ve said before that I think Johnson believes it when he says he didn’t lie. They convinced themselves that all the things they did were within the rules for working during the lockdowns. Now everyone else can believe that’s bollocks, but I think it is germane to the charge of lying to the house. No PM should have to resign over. FPN. Other mps have had them, for instance, and they are trivial. The weapon people are wielding is the lying to parliament. But Johnson, in his eyes, didn’t lie, they just got it wrong. Ultimately it will make little difference. I suspect the 80% of the public who scrupulously followed the rules will be waiting for the election, daggers raised. And I doubt anyone else on here will agree with my view.
Looking on from afar, most of my social group can’t understand this story at all. The only fine the PM has been given so far, was for turning up to a work meeting on his birthday, where everyone present was meeting anyway, then his wife and a colleague turned up with a cake those present sang happy birthday to him. No cake was eaten, and only the PM’s wife was not going to be there anyway.
The alleged lying to Parliament, is based on whether the above event is described as ‘a party’ or not, when asked more than a year later if there were ‘any more parties’.
On the basis of this, numerous people are calling for the PM to resign.
The use of the word parties is toxic, yet from what has been reported so farthese were pathetic gatherings of work collegues at work. There is a lot of anger about a lot of things, and it’s being focussed on the wrong thing. Right now the nhs needs help. At a minimum I’d like to see hepa filter units in every ward of the nhs. I’d like a nightingale style plan for how to empty the hospitals of those who are ready for discharge but have nowhere to go without social care. I’d like substantial bonuses paid to nhs staff who are still working incredibly hard. I think the government needs to show how it will deal with the CoL crisis if prices don’t come down for power. I don’t give a fig for partygate. I know many of you see scrupulous in your observance of the rules. I tried my best but I was not perfect. A coffee at a colleagues house when dropping stuff off. My parents bubble including everyone from the family. I think people want Johnson gone and they see this as the way to do it.
Isn't that the point, though?
It isn't about reality and what happened, it's about narratives and creating media impressions and throwing mud and demonising. That's how the "no such thing as society" myth was created around Thatcher; the next generation of activists will treat any narratives as settled fact.
Inside all the gubbing, it is correct than BJ's conduct was not acceptable.
That currently is about 90% of Opposition (all of them) politics, which imo is a weakness. I can't recall when I last saw an Ed Davey did not call for someone to resign; I reckon he has it on a stamp.
And, yes, I'm sure it happens the other way too, and that BJ is still a supine arse-sitter with no ability to run a Government.
(Though I find the over-reporting on France 24 about "BJ has broken the law", whilst they are notably silent about startlingly regular corruption amongst the most senior French politicians in the 10s of millions of Euro.)
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
How do you deport the people you haven't caught because you don't have the resources to catch the boats???
Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
Perhaps they are trying to create an encirclement/cut Ukrainian supply lines?
Rather than just grind forward on a broad front?
That feels rather ambitious in the current circumstances I would have thought.
The owner of this Ukrainian tyre service shop should be kind of proud: Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't .
This is pointless as constabulary action can only be taken once the boats are in British waters and then only things the British can do is either a) watch them finish the crossing or b) take them off the small boat and give them a lift.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
No matter who is in Paris, the crossings will not be stopped.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Which is funny as the way to ensure they're gone is to ensure they're stopped. Its a bit of a Catch-22.
For local politicians in Calais, such a policy would require “holding the line” for several years. And doing something with the refugees already there. It would also mean trusting Paris to hold to the agreements, to do this.
Letting them get on boats to irritate the British or drown is a much more popular , short term policy.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
Top quality Leon-ising
Rwanda seems rather more humane than Mutti Merkel's policy of inviting 500k or 1m refugees / migrants to come to Germany in 2014/15, then providing no transport so they all had to come via people-traffickers. I wonder how many kids Merkel 'murdered'?
Or for that matter the recent policy of funding a Libyan militia to catch asylum seekers on the Med and put them in prison camps in Libya.
The UK policy at that time was *very* heavy funding to support refugees in region. Merkel ended up budgeting about 100 billion Euro on integration.
We may hear a little more after the French Election, when Macron is passed his tantrum season and there may be some Europe-wide focus.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
Top quality Leon-ising
It must be admitted that BR's avatar pic and username are unfortunate in this context.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
No it hasn't. He said "very hard". What you get in practice is a tiny fine in no way commensurate with the savings from minimum wage not being paid, and the business re-open the next day with the same economic model. What's more, enforcement has been cut to next to nothing since Labour were in power. It's almost as if the government aren't interested.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
Are you happy implicitly MURDERING children? Do you want people to DIE? Are you TUMESCENT watching migrants suffocate in lorries? Do you ORGASM when inflatables sink? Are you a NECROPHILE Bart? Do you want to FUCK the corpses as they wash up on the GARDEN OF ENGLAND?
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
Top quality Leon-ising
Rwanda seems rather more humane than Mutti Merkel's policy of inviting 500k or 1m refugees / migrants to come to Germany in 2014/15, then providing no transport so they all had to come via people-traffickers. I wonder how many kids Merkel 'murdered'?
Or for that matter the recent policy of funding a Libyan militia to catch asylum seekers on the Med and put them in prison camps in Libya.
We may hear a little more after the French Election, when Macron is passed his tantrum season and there may be some Europe-wide focus.
I'm still reflecting on the Rwanda idea.
Contractual PB EUrophobe obligation fulfilled to whinge about Merkel, Macron and the EU before even referring to the subject at hand. Take the rest of the day off.
Good news story. I'm in London for the Easter weekend and something miraculous has happened to London drivers.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
You dont even need a zebra crossing in the areas with the slowest traffic. Just step in to the road, preferably give the driver a wave of thanks. Central London traffic is on average, literally slower than a horse and cart.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Even better. Treat the lost NI and tax as an equivalent to how it would be treated if it were benefit fraud. That is. Repayment in full with interest, with jail time on top.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
Make directors and persons of significant control personally liable.
Though Partygate seems to be getting the attention the real long term damage to the Conservative Party could come from the Rwanda Experiment. For some voters a louche Prime Minister comes way down their list of concerns. The Rwanda episode is of a diferent order. This has legs and has the capacity to change the perception of the Party itself
The more that people hear about the Rwanda plans, the more they are in favour of them. The British want to see a sense a fair play, and jumping the immigration queue by paying thousands to people traffickers to come from France, just isn’t cricket.
Brits where you are may be saying that. Brits in Britain appear to be saying the opposite. At least thats what polls are saying. Increasing numbers of Tory MPs and ministers giving off-the-record comments to that effect too.
Perhaps - and its only a theory - you need to live here to say with confidence what people who live here think. I wouldn't do an HY and presume to tell you what your local residents think having never been there.
I was going by the polling reported over the weekend, which suggested the policy was popular.
What's your understanding of the policy being proposed?
Because the polling I've seen is about a different policy, which is significantly less drastic than the actual plan.
If you arrive on an irregular boat, you go to Rwanda and will be processed for asylum there.
Some of the polling suggested that people would be assessed in Rwanda for immigration to the UK, which will likely be even less popular.
If you’re genuinely fleeing persecution, you shouldn’t be too worried about where you end up settled so long as it’s safe. For people who are primarily economic migrants trying to jump the queue, on the other hand…
Close, but no cigar.
Most won't go to Rwanda, because that scheme has fairly low capacity, and the Rwandans haven't agreed to take everyone the UK wants to send. Even a 90% cut in small boat migrant numbers would overwhelm the system.
And we don't know the overall view of "process in Rwanda/bring to UK" vs. "process in Rwanda/stay in Rwanda", because that polling hasn't been done. (The ambiguity in the question bothers me. People are often ambiguous when their conscience bothers them.)
In my mind, not taking all the boat arrivals makes it a less popular policy. It will only be effective, if it is very clear to those in Calais that irregular UK arrivals will never be settled there.
The primary aim needs to be to remove the pull factors, which currently leads to deaths at sea and enrichment of traffickers.
The scheme will only work if everyone who arrives in a boat is guaranteed to go to Rwanda.
That is what worked in Australia. Everyone who arrived in a boat was guaranteed to go to Nauru. So they stopped coming at all via boat and the tiny few that still attempted it turned around because they didn't want to go to Nauru.
Yup. And since that's not on the agenda, this scheme isn't going to work, and Rwanda aren't going to be mad enough to sign up for a scheme with enough capacity to work like that.
So how about we cut to the chase, and look for things that might work? That's (for example) clamping down on the irregular economy, and recognising that we need to co-operate with the French, ghastly though they are?
Because otherwise, we're in the "this was worse than immoral, it was a mistake" territory.
There's absolutely no reason why Rwanda shouldn't sign up to a scheme with sufficient capacity as if they did sign up with unlimited capacity and a guarantee that 100% would end up in Rwanda then the capacity required would rapidly approach zero.
Since Autumn 2013 there has been a guarantee in place that 100% of boat travellers to Australia would end up in Nauru if they didn't turn around. Since 2014 Australia has to the best of my knowledge deported a grand total of zero people to Nauru. Why? Because they stopped coming and the extremely few that attempted the crossing voluntarily turned back when faced with the choice of Nauru or turning around.
If there was a guarantee everyone who came via a boat would end up in Rwanda, rather than the UK, then within a year approximately zero people per annum is my expectation as to how many people would end up in Rwanda.
Since 2014 not only has not a single person needed to be sent to Nauru, there hasn't been a single reported drowning from boat travellers to Australia in the same time either. How many have drowned in the Channel in the same time period?
The policy needs to be ruthless to work. Like others, I doubt HMG has the cullions to see it through
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
What is truly entertaining is the either / or that our two options are:
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
We've spent 2 decades of the hostile environment introduced first by Labour were scum employers and landlords have been targeted and its achieved sod all besides creating a hostile environment for people who are legally here too.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
If "this Rwanda thing" was a solution then it would be a discussion to have. But it isn't: 1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation. 2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing 3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do: 1. Open legal routes to claim asylum 2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't 3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time. 4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
The Rwanda thing is a solution, if done properly. A harsh solution, but still a solution. It worked in Australia perfectly, there hasn't been a single drowning by Australia due to illegal migration in nearly a decade while there's lots of them in the Channel.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
It has worked perfectly, there's been a grand total of zero drownings in Australian waters since 2014. Zero is perfection for me, I'm not sure what you consider perfect to be?
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
Another 100% end would be bringing them over on Ferries and processing them here
So are you advocating that everybody who wants to come to the UK should be brought over here legally? Unlimited, literally everybody in the world who wants to come?
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hand wringers are pathetic
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
There are other ways to solve the problem.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in. Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
The former has been official policy since Labour introduced the hostile environment policy, so do you want to just double down on the hostile environment?
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Make the fine £100k and the employer will claim bankruptcy and it will reopen the next day in a cousins name doing the same thing. As already happens today.
There are laws against such arrangements. Perhaps we could enforce them better?
Is anyone else surprised at the Russians trying to attack the Donbass from the north by going past Kharkiv? Wouldn't it make more sense to re-enforce from inside Russia and push out from the bits of Donetsk/Lukansk they already hold? Aren't they in danger of having another massive convoy getting stuck and looking like a sitting duck?
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
You and I may be complete amateurs but that puts us on a par, if not slightly ahead, of Russian Military Intelligence.
Comments
10.4 For those Relocated Individuals who are neither recognised as refugees nor to have a protection need or other basis upon which to remain in Rwanda, Rwanda will only remove such a person to a country in which they have a right to reside. If there is no prospect of such removal occurring for any reason Rwanda will regularise that person’s immigration status in Rwanda.
Which sounds reasonable but the Memorandum explicitly does not create any rights for individuals and is not enforceable so I’m not sure it’s anything more than fine words:
2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the commitments set out in this Memorandum are made by the United Kingdom to Rwanda and vice versa and do not create or confer any right on any individual, nor shall compliance with this Arrangement be justiciable in any court of law by third-parties or individuals.
If you think that something is within the rules, then others later say its not, then it does not follow that you knew it was against the rules when you previously said they were followed.
You claimed he must have known the rules were not followed due to the alcohol, but the alcohol was never a breach of the rules, so that does not follow.
Alcohol was not a breach of the rules
Non-work gatherings were a breach of the rules
parties are non-work gatherings
The presence of alcohol is evidence that something is a party, therefore a non-work gathering, therefore a breach of the rules
Same as there is probably no rule against turning up to work dressed as Marie Antoinette, but doing so could still be evidence that a fancy dress party was afoot
The government is, however, quite right to try. No one has yet offered a coherent alternative, even as fuckwits like the Archbishop of Canterbury chunter on about the ungodliness of the policy.
What’s “godly” about letting children drown in the channel? And is it just and godly to UK citizens to simply shrug and allow tens of thousands to come here, illegally, by boat? A number that is doubling every year?
With every successful crossing, we are encouraging ten more.
https://deadline.com/2022/04/elizabeth-harris-aitken-dies-aged-85-wife-richard-harris-rex-harrison-jonathan-aitken-1235004802/
That would be a result for the UKG. They can trumpet reduced asylum settlement. Illegal immigration doesn't matter. What isn't measured doesn't count.
Should add. The undeclared policy of the UKG is to make asylum claims impossible, as we have seen with Ukraine. This would be a further tightening of that policy.
At the old place every meeting room was drink themed including my favourite, the Pimms room which was Wimbledon themed completed with artificial turf on the floor.
Edited for typo.
Here is the point of difference. At 5pm we went from working at the office to holding a social event in the office. Some people stayed, others went home - it was not work.
So yes, junior spads absolutely do get sent out to buy booze. But they could not do so legally during Covid rules banning social events.
If people are drinking alcohol at work, then the presence of alcohol is entirely consistent with work, therefore not evidence of a non-work gathering, therefore not evidence of a breach of the rules.
Russia has just spent $6.5 million to launch just one Kaliber missile to target the obscure garage outside Lviv.
https://twitter.com/Nat_Vasilyeva/status/1515988199356645381
Deport people to Rwanda with no legal means of return
or
Let children drown in the channel.
Ideally we should do this Rwanda thing and drop all the hostile environment bollocks.
Any scum should still be prosecuted but the people living here shouldn't be doing so in fear of a deliberately hostile environment.
The law passed by this Government empowers the police to make a judgement as to whether the law was broken. The police are examining multiple events and have decided, apparently with additional consultation with the CPS, that on over 50 occasions, someone did break the law. Multiple people, including the PM, who have received the consequent FPNs accept that the rules were broken. We are all, I think, in agreement that the laws were broken.
The rules to be followed were promulgated by the Prime Minister most days. He knew what they were. Yet the rules were repeatedly broken around him and by him. Why is it plausible that he didn't realise he broke the rules?
A friend worked in games industry, way back.
His boss was famously known as a mean knut through a chunk of the industry - when he (the boss) rolled a joint, he closed his office door and didn’t share….
Alcohol is permitted, indeed encouraged, at all times in my house. The presence of more than half a dozen people consuming it simultaneously, and not doing anything else, is still evidence of a party
Try thinking about zoos and elephants. An elephant is not proof that you are in a zoo but it certainly puts the hypothesis front and centre. Especially when you have just passed a strict no zoo law.
You are operating from a perspective that alcohol isn't normal at work, but we already know it was normal there and always was even pre-pandemic.
If you normally had an elephant at your work which is not a zoo, and that elephant continued to be there after the no zoo law was passed, then I would say that elephant which was already at your work would not be evidence you were in a zoo, since it wasn't a zoo before the law was placed and the elephant was already there.
It's taken a while for it to become clear that Boris's getting one over is an end in itself; it's what he does to anyone and anything that gets in his way.
Everyone loves the idea of Boris on first encounter, but he inevitably loses that love, one betrayal at a time. Like drips of water on a rock formation, nothing will happen, then it will visibly erode (where I think we are now), then it will suddenly collapse.
There's a simple solution which is to allow applications to be made in Calais instead of first requiring applicants to cross the Channel in a dinghy, but that would mean more refugees, which the voters wouldn't like.
What the voters really want are more *photogenic* refugees and fewer non-photogenic ones, but if you made that the stated policy they also wouldn't like it. Maybe the trick is have to a pre-screening run by an AI system. That allows you to hide your biases between a computer program that nobody understands.
Ignorance is no excuse so the rules were still broken, and that is sufficient for me to say he should go (despite the fact that its not been in the past eg in both Blair and Brown's governments) but that is not a proof of lying.
1. We do not have the resources to catch small boats. The latest re-announcement of "send in the Navy" has immediately been met by criticism the Navy doesn't have suitable boats and personnel for this operation.
2. Because small boats will continue to cross the channel unimpeded we will not deter people crossing
3. Our own Home Office is so clear about why the policy is objectively stupid (on cost/legal/practical grounds) that the Permanent Secretary required instructions in writing to proceed so that his arse is covered
I am up for solutions to stop the flow. Like Leon I do not want to see children drown in the channel. So here's what we can do:
1. Open legal routes to claim asylum
2. Resource up the police and the coast guard and the home office and the border force. Lets actually try to stop boats and go after the people who traffic and employ them - rather than just saying we do when we don't
3. Face down the bigots who just want the forrin gone. Tell them to go vote for Farage if they want. Even if they do it won't have any real impact on the result next time.
4. Work with international partners rather than just shouting at them. France doesn't want these camps in Pas de Calais any more than we want them here. The solution is to work with France and the UNHCR and the EU on how we collectively manage the global refugee crisis. We only take a small fraction of people seeking asylum anyway.
To be done properly though the numbers need to not be capped and it needs to be done with everybody who crosses, whether they're intercepted in the water or after they step on soil, without exceptions.
If that happened, then the crossings would suddenly dwindle to about zero, which is what happened in Australia.
They are then imprisoned in barrack in appealing conditions, and only let out to have their labour sold to local farmers. Sometimes auctioned at the local marketplace.
Yes, Africans (largely) being rented out for unpaid work.
Perhaps we should put up a statue to the officials who created this program?
The English Channel is too dangerous to safely and illegally cross in a dinghy so people are regularly drowning today and you're against the action taken to prevent it.
Unless the boat crossings stop, the drownings will continue, and you've not come up with another solution to stop the crossings besides doubling down on the hostile environment your Labour Party you supported back then introduced decades ago.
What's the situation with 'illegal' immigration into Papua New Guinea?
The English Channel may not be as far a distance but its conditions make it an incredibly deadly and dangerous stretch of water to attempt in a dinghy.
If the UK were to reach an agreement that everyone who crosses into the UK was to be sent to Rwanda, no ifs, no buts, then the crossings would stop almost overnight. Nobody would pay thousands to people smugglers to end up in Rwanda.
We await further news from the police and the actual Sue Gray report as to exactly what Boris did when, what others did when and what Boris knew when. However, I would note the events on 16 April 2021 (before the funeral of Prince Philip): there were two leaving events in different parts of Downing Street that later merged into one, with about 30 people present. Both parties took place and featured alcohol and one of them featured loud music. The Daily Telegraph said they went on until 1am. There was reportedly damage to Wilfred's slide. This clearly broke rules. Johnson was not present, but it seems implausible that he was entirely ignorant of what happened. Did he think the damage to Wilfred's slide was foxes?
There was the 20 May 2020 "socially distanced drinks" that Johnson attended. Cummings and others warned this was a clear breach of rules, yet it went ahead. This wasn't a bit of cake before a meeting. This was a lengthy event, gathering people together and clearly of a social nature.
Johnson said to Parliament that no rules were broken. Were it one event and there was some margin of uncertainty about how to interpret the rules, then a claim that "he had a different interpretation of the rules" might fly. But it was multiple events, including clear and egregious rule-breaking.
If you imagine we had a Lib-Lab government with or without PR, they wouldn't be doing trolly things like announcing half-baked plans to send people to Rwanda, but I also doubt they'd be doing things that would help refugees while having the effect of attracting more of them, like letting people file asylum applications outside the UK.
A good test is to look at what Biden did: He's smoothed off some of the cruelest parts of the Trump system and he's restored DACA which helps people who seem to Americans like Americans, but he's still trying to stop refugees making it to the US from Central America, and he hasn't even yet implemented the end of Title 42 expulsions which were supposed to be about covid, and may not ever have been legal in the first place.
If the Rwandan thing is done properly, the drownings in the English Channel will stop and a Lab/Lib government would continue with the policy just as the Australian Labor Party did I expect.
The only people who can stop crossings are the French Navy or Maritime Gendarmerie so the only way to fix this is to improve relations with France. This is impossible with the current cast of characters in London and Paris.
I note this paragraph
“Now, however, artificial intelligence is close to enabling the limitless spread of highly believable disinformation. The AI program GPT-3 is already so good that you can give it a topic and a tone and it will spit out as many essays as you like, typically with perfect grammar and a surprising level of coherence. In a year or two, when the program is upgraded to GPT-4, it will become far more capable…”
Ahem
The number of people attempting the crossing has gone from tens of thousands in 2012 which was leading to many deaths etc and led to the reintroduction of the policy to the tens (Figure 2) from 2015 onwards and not a single death in that entire time.
I consider a 100% end to deaths in crossings to be it working perfectly in my eyes.
At present, if you really want to get to Britain as a refugee (whether because of language or relatives or job prospects or whatever - some people just do), and you can't readily get a tourist visa, you don't have a realistic way to do it except boat smuggling. Offering an established way to apply via embassies and consulates, even if it's designed to be difficult, will reduce the pressure - people will at least try that first if they think they've got a chance of acceptance.
The missile that broke my windows landed on a school, but the school was 100m away from the regional administraton’s town hall.
Still, ok, let's go with it. So are there any other chores we can offload to Rwanda (or some other impoverished African nation) while we're thinking outside the box like this? How about we throw them a few quid for taking our homeless?
That's a win/win. Get them off the streets and into a warm climate, plus the deterrent effect - if people know sleeping rough will lead to them being deported to Rwanda it's a pound to a penny that rough sleeping will all of a sudden lose its appeal.
"What I can tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman is that all guidance was followed completely in No. 10."
There are safe and legal routes the UK provides for asylum seekers to come to the UK, David Cameron was very good at that and we should be even more generous in my view on that.
But unless we make it unlimited to anyone who wants to come here then those who are declining the safe and legal routes already open will continue to decline them in the future, so we still need another solution.
http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/bhr/Main/white_labour/servants.htm
I am a complete amateur but I'm trying to follow what the experts are saying.
There were thousands, but then the boats fell to measurable in the single digits afterwards in the data @TOPPING shared the other day that showed the huge success of this policy.
If the number of dinghies attempting the crossing falls to single digits and nobody dying then that would be the policy working perfectly in my eyes.
And are you bringing them over just from Calais or from wherever they live originally? Because if just Calais then many will die on the way to Calais if no safe and legal transport there is offered.
The hatred towards the refugees in that part of France is palpable. A politician who stoped the crossings would be reviled - the locals want them gone.
So you would need a politician prepared to piss off a large section of the population around Calais, to help the British. There are no such politicians in France.
Radio 4 has just given a programme series to Devi Sridhar.
I won't be listening given Sridhar's record, but I'd be interested in a report If anyone else does.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016h08
Rather than just grind forward on a broad front?
It’s pointless arguing with them as they don’t have a coherent argument: just a moral position. Which in the end boils down to “I want to appear humane unlike horrible Priti Patel” - and every practical solution they offer ends up as “let them all in”
eg take the idea posited above that we make it “easier for people to claim UK asylum in France”. What do they expect to happen to those whose requests are refused? Are they going to go all the way back to Somalia?
No, they will go to Calais and climb on a boat. As they do now. Because they know they can’t be stopped and if they make it to the UK they will stay. So you’ve solved precisely nothing, just spent more money on asylum processing
The only way to solve this is deportation. Which is brutal but fair and will stop the crossings, if we do it seriously
WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE COPULATING WITH THE DEAD BART?
It was quite interesting.
It isn't about reality and what happened, it's about narratives and creating media impressions and throwing mud and demonising. That's how the "no such thing as society" myth was created around Thatcher; the next generation of activists will treat any narratives as settled fact.
Inside all the gubbing, it is correct than BJ's conduct was not acceptable.
That currently is about 90% of Opposition (all of them) politics, which imo is a weakness. I can't recall when I last saw an Ed Davey did not call for someone to resign; I reckon he has it on a stamp.
And, yes, I'm sure it happens the other way too, and that BJ is still a supine arse-sitter with no ability to run a Government.
(Though I find the over-reporting on France 24 about "BJ has broken the law", whilst they are notably silent about startlingly regular corruption amongst the most senior French politicians in the 10s of millions of Euro.)
Letting them get on boats to irritate the British or drown is a much more popular , short term policy.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/alex-jones-infowars-files-bankruptcy-us-court-2022-04-18/
Some good news out there.
Hit employers in the illegal economy very hard and reward employees who dob them in.
Fund the courts and simplify the rules to allow 90%+ of hearings and appeals to be concluded within 3 months of arrival.
Or for that matter the recent policy of funding a Libyan militia to catch asylum seekers on the Med and put them in prison camps in Libya.
The UK policy at that time was *very* heavy funding to support refugees in region. Merkel ended up budgeting about 100 billion Euro on integration.
We may hear a little more after the French Election, when Macron is passed his tantrum season and there may be some Europe-wide focus.
I'm still reflecting on the Rwanda idea.
I grew up in London and returned regularly to visit family. I knew London drivers as people who couldn't be guaranteed to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing. They were aggressive and dangerous.
That's now changed. Every single time I've reached a road junction shortly ahead of a car, and paused to let it pass, the driver has stopped and ushered me across. I haven't got my head around it. It's a happy surprise punctuating a walk around the city at intervals of a few minutes.
Things sometimes do change for the better.
What you get in practice is a tiny fine in no way commensurate with the savings from minimum wage not being paid, and the business re-open the next day with the same economic model.
What's more, enforcement has been cut to next to nothing since Labour were in power.
It's almost as if the government aren't interested.
Looking at that it seems the average fine is around £10k per employee. Factor in the low chances of getting caught and the odds heavily favour the criminal employers.
Make the average fine £100k, give half to the employee if they help the prosecution, and the odds will favour the government.
Take the rest of the day off.
https://twitter.com/paulmainwood/status/1515987034913058816
That is. Repayment in full with interest, with jail time on top.