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A Corrections Column – politicalbetting.com
A Corrections Column – politicalbetting.com
There are some well-worn memes doing the rounds following the ECHR decision yesterday on deportation flights to Rwanda. Many contain a number of factual errors and so, like the very busy editor of the Guardian’s Corrections section, let’s shed some light on these.
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Hes gonna cut n run if he survives tiverton etc
No watch in awe as the massed ranks of the PB usual suspects ignore every word.
We know a lot of posters on here as bright, so it’s surprising the penny has not dropped for them yet on this killer fact.
St Bart I know as very clued in and intelligent, so a surprise to me he went rushing towards comparisons with Oz scheme, when Patel herself distanced herself from that discredited scheme.
https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/national/20069548.deal-rwanda-not-comparable-australias-offshore-policy-says-patel/
Let’s deal with that killer fact, and open our friends on here to exactly why Charles and the Church so instinctively know this to be wrong.
With “deport individuals seeking asylum to seek asylum in a third country” the UK government, in our name, are seeking to use Asylum seekers who have reached this country, for investing in Rwanda. They are very open about that. They believe that’s the right thing to do, on the economic development side, but also on the migration partnership - exploiting these asylum seekers in the same way as those chained in cargo holds during the slave trade.
IT - IS - COLONIALISM.
And Just go there for processing? At what point are they processed? At the point Patel’s government decides who is and who isn’t put on the plane, thats the moment of processing. Like choosing between slaves in a trade market.
I’m no wishywashy lefty - and I am proud to stand with Prince Charles and the Church of England on this one.
We need more facts and fewer opinions from the media class, when discussing these issues.
While the Convention is good and proper in general, I do not respect the Council of Europe or the European Court and we should not be afraid, if we deem it appropriate democratically, to leave the institution and have our own Supreme Court as the supreme arbiter of UK law.
Plenty of civilised nations around the world, the likes of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan etc, are not members of the ECHR or the Council of Europe and have their rights maintained by a domestic legal system. There is no reason or principle that the UK can't do the same.
While the Council of Europe suspended Russia's voting rights after the invasion of Crimea, Russia threatened to pull funding so they reinstated Russia's voting rights and Russia was a full member of the Council of Europe and the ECHR until earlier this year and the full scale invasion of Ukraine. Was Putin's Russia, a full member of the ECHR for nearly a quarter of a century under Putin, the embodiment of "the 20th century’s version of Magna Carta" as you call the ECHR in your point 2?
The ECHR has failed to live up to its responsibilities and so did the Council of Europe. If we wish to preserve our liberties, then we need to hold our own Parliament and our own courts to good standards not offshore that responsibility to others who fail to do the job for us.
Biblical, Greek, Chinese and other precedents
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_before_the_law
Boris seemed under briefed and short of new material for this one.
Ed Davey was the star turn.
Starmer was brilliantly on message again, Rome wasn’t built in a day, stone by stone this country needs a change of government because of the governments economic record. That’s all he needs to do now in these PMQs. And that is the strategy Labour seem set on. His jokes were naff “the force is no longer with him and his Jedi mind tricks” who actually pays attention to all that Star Wars rubbish to understand that? Like Starmer watches Love Island. 😤 but he was clear and firm on Rail Strikes rebuttal.
Was Ed Davey in election mode or what!!! Ed Davey was brilliant. And the fact Boris didn’t even dive to keep the shot out and conceded on Davey’s point showed he was ignorant to what Davey raised. If it was as tight in the campaign as next goal wins, A telling score in the by election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2022
As a country we do our bit round the world, but on asylum we are seemingly trying to stop anyone claiming asylum in the UK at - blocking all routes. If we do that, we surely should be offering asylum much closer to the trouble zones, as we have done in the past. Otherwise its pretty hard to defend our countries actions.
How about 'underground economy' or 'hidden economy' or 'illicit economy'?
If you have any proof, rather than gut instinct, what my brother say is hogwash, by all means share 😉
So the boats across the channel will continue and Priti will continue to look useless while given whatever Farage's next version of UKIP is a starting point to attack Bozo and co from the right flank...
Australia does offshore people who land on Australian soil (though next to nobody does now, because of the policy). And if they're genuine refugees they're aided to get refugee status elsewhere, eg Nauru or even the USA, but not as a general rule Australia.
Do you actually think its a case of if people land on Australian soil then its all fine and dandy and they're granted asylum? No, that's not the policy.
Pensions secretary Therese Coffey: "I don’t think that’s even a question that, I’m aware, is on the table at all."
PM's spokesman: "We're keeping all options on the table."
Maybe they're talking about a different table.
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1537049847643131906
I used to bow to no one in my dislike of the EU court but this isn’t that.
Disagree on this. So the finest minds of lawyers in this country get a free pass to suck air through teeth and simply say "I wouldn't do it like that..." do they?
If they offer no alternatives, it is fair game to assume they have no alternatives. Which considerably undermines their outrage in a Government that is doing "something". If it is not the right thing, then it is incumbent on them to say what their workable alternative would be. Otherwise, voters will draw the conclusion that they are happy for thousands of people to make a terrible journey with serious risk of death to profit a small number of people traffickers. Now, I'm sure that is not what they want. So tell us that workable way forward you would support the Home Office in implementing.
Instead we have a Home Office that for pretty much my whole lifetime has existed as the PR wing of the government of the time and has become more and more incompetent and half-arsed. The reason the flights are delayed is because the drafting of the law is crap and the Home Office is unable to make it work (a joint effort of poor culture and bad legislation). Quite beyond the moral aspect, it’s embarrassing that the government is unable to follow its own bloody laws.
It's still an improvement avant la lettre on the Hotel Jobbie.
They have bloody loads - they're just not headline grabbers. They are boring, sensible plans.
I imagine the same is likely true for the Lib Dems.
"On how to respond to the ongoing small boats crisis, Lammy said: “The first thing you do is you negotiate with your French, your Belgian, your Europol partners. You invest in police, you invest in intelligence, you deal with supply chain issues that can come as far from China, to deal with the criminal gangs.
“The second thing you need is a deal with Europe, now that we’re out of the European Convention, there is no Dublin Convention that means that we can send people back to the European Union who are not entitled to remain in our country.”
“And of course, the other thing you’ve gotta do is deal with the asylum backlog. People are waiting up to five years. It’s costing taxpayers money to put people up in hotels,” he added."
https://labourlist.org/2022/06/government-creating-manufactured-row-over-rwanda-flight-lammy-says/
A not impossible course of events over the next couple of years...
Trump runs.
The actual result doesn't really matter as he'll claim victory in all circumstances.
Wide scale civil strife in the US.
China does its own SMO while the feds exchange small arms fire with the militias.
Fizzy Lizzy is powerless to alter the tide of history in geopolitics.
I see no problem with negotiating with others to try and update the ECHR to reflect modern life but very much doubt the current lot in power have any interest in the hard work that involves or the patience to make such a tactic work. A serious govt should be doing that and using UK soft power to progress it, whilst accepting and understanding it might take several years for the right international conditions for progress to be met.
Far easier to abdicate responsibility by deliberately creating laws they know will get struck down so the reason the problems are seen to get worse over time lies with the courts rather than government. So I expect we will continue to talk about leaving the ECHR, perhaps a little more loudly over time, but not actually leave it or do anything constructive to reform it.
Heathrow Terminal 4 has opened, a few weeks earlier than expected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61794676
I don't object to any of the Convention itself.
What I object to is the Court. The rights should be enshrined by Parliament and determined and upheld by British courts, not foreign courts.
1 and 2 Agree
3 and 4 Not quite. Notice that we attack the USA for enshrining in constitution and the courts (notably the SC) things we think ought to be a matter for elected bodies - notably abortion and gun owning.
The problem with ECHR is that it replaces too greatly the discretion and powers of elected bodies. But countries vary.
From a secular Martian perspective it may seem obvious for example that no parliament with powers should include any non elected element, or any appointments purely on a religious basis, and that to do so contravenes basic human rights. And therefore conclude with the Economist that the UK is no better than Tehran-on-Thames.
I think this would be too unsubtle.
Or a ECHR-like body could conclude that human rights entail either that abortion should always be allowed or never be allowed - both conclusions follow effortlessly from the basic concept of fundamental and universal human rights.
It is national parliaments, of the sort that can be elected and chucked out, supported by an independent judiciary and legal profession, and with a free media, that is the best defence and interpreter of human rights.
I just don't believe that the ECHR is in a better position than our Court of Appeal to decide whether the discretion to grant an interlocutory injunction should be exercised on a particular set of facts.
If the ECHR needs to be updated to reflect modern life then we should do that via Parliament, not negotiations.
Doesn't compute with me, so was wondering what the thought process was behind that expectation? Can't seem to find any explanation of why that would be so?
Fund the courts (essentially his third point, but should be no 1)
Impose crippling fines on business, including personal fines for directors, that employ illegal workers.
Provide significant encouragement for the illegal workers to "grass" on their employers through cash and/or pathways to residency.
That would work.
Happy memories of that place, I did some work there around the redevelopment in 2006. There’s a photo of me somewhere with a radio earpiece in one ear, a mobile phone earpiece in the other, holding a computer keyboard under my arm - dressed in a top hat and tails. I was the L3 IT support for the caterers’ till systems!
With all due respect, the idea that we can only criticise a policy if we are able to propose a superior alternative policy is transparently designed to suppress criticism.
On that basis, you would be unable to critique senior execs of listed firms - government economic policy - or more seriously managers of Premier League clubs.
Really poor.
Why can't or shouldn't it get a majority though? In as much as the Council of Europe isn't a part of the EU (its even less effective than the EU), the whole point of Brexit was to take back control so that laws can be democratically determined via Parliament.
Why can't that cover the ECHR too? The rights should be protected, defended, debated and amended via Parliament and the UK courts not foreign courts.
The Council of Europe has utterly failed in its duty that it was set up for. It treated Russia as an upstanding member only a few months ago. It treats Victor Orban's Hungary as an upstanding member today. As far as protecting fundamental civil liberties from those who wish to abuse them, the ECHR is about as much use as a Marzipan dildo.
Would you rather our civil liberties be as upheld as Orban's Hungary (ECHR member) or Trudeau's Canada/Ardern's New Zealand (not ECHR members)?
Other tables are available
I also think that the question of whether someone is put on a plane from this country is really a matter for the courts of this country and, since the courts here had declined to interere, they should have gone.
None of this in any way departs from my views expressed yesterday that this is an immoral, contemptible policy which brings shame on this country by using vulnerable human beings as tokens or political pawns to give some purported credibility to a HS who seems to lack a moral compass or even a sense of decency.
The Micros Fidelio hotel systems were very good, but the restaurant systems were crap - but loads of places still bought them, mostly because loads of places still bought them.
@Nigel_Farage
The ECHR will not release the name of the judge that stopped the Rwanda flight.
What are they scared of? Was the person even a proper judge?
We need to know.
11:24 AM · Jun 15, 2022"
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1537018187568627712
For me, international co-operation on such matters does not just provide a good check on executive power in the UK itself, but is also a good way of spending the UKs soft power capital to help defend the values we believe in and over the long run make trade easier and wars less likely.
They can do railway signalling after all.
If the Fed goes with .75, the BoE going with .25 will quickly devalue the pound against the dollar - which, given that most of the inflation is imported, is a somewhat sub-optimal position.
If the fed goes with the full point, there will be pressure for the BoE to go .75 at least.
Another reason to leave. We are capable of protecting the civil rights of Britons in Britain. We certainly don’t lack for activist lawyers of a liberal bent. We do not need to listen to a “superior” court of foreign judges in a foreign land
The ECHR, for the UK, has outlived its usefulness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MTaPwuDAqg&t=9s
Fine. But that was in the bit you snipped out of the quote - If they offer no alternatives, it is fair game to assume they have no alternatives. Which considerably undermines their outrage in a Government that is doing "something". If it is not the right thing, then it is incumbent on them to say what their workable alternative would be. Otherwise, voters will draw the conclusion that they are happy for thousands of people to make a terrible journey with serious risk of death to profit a small number of people traffickers.
And I'd add that while, in theory, we could entrench such rights domestically, without handing jurisdiction to any external body, there's no pressing reason to do so.
And every reason to greatly distrust the current lot in power to undertake such an exercise.
(Along with their various potential replacements.)
“What’s your policy then?”
“Er…. Er…. Certainly not this Rwanda one”
“Yes, but what would you DO about the boats?”
“Something”
“Ok, but what?”
“Uh. Not telling you”
Etc
And in any event some of us have offered alternatives.
The countries aren't random, the thing is that the ECHR is not some bulwark against abuse, neither is the Council of Europe. It was set up to be, but its been corrupted since. The Council of Europe suspended Russia's voting rights following the invasion of Crimea (human rights abuses should have been evident before that), so Russia threatened to pull funding from the Council, and the Council backed down and restored Russia's voting rights. Is that the institution you want to put your faith in to maintain your liberties?
Nations with good civil liberties, like the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, New Zealand or Canada etc have them because the people there are ever vigilant to fight for their rights for liberties. Because we're democracies where the people value them, and fight for them.
If that ceases to be true. If people put too much faith into institutions that are able to let them down, rather than ensuring their rights themselves, whether that be written constitutions (USA) or the ECHR (Hungary, Russia etc) then they can be abused.
The lab Lib green combi has reached sixty, with Tories on 32 - historically there wouldn’t have been polling like that, yet like HY you are keen to make historical comparisons Oppositions need 10+ leads mid term to have any chance, without the present precedent matching the historic diagnostic. How much of this is fair to say?
I personally think that the problem is not so much with ECHR as the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees. This Convention, created when the horrors of the death camps of Nazi Germany were still incredibly fresh and raw, sought to give "rights" to those fleeing persecution or war. It was understandable in that context but it was a different world in terms of freedom of movement.
To be clear I do not think that this country should even contemplate doing this unilaterally, it is something that should be done in co-ordination with as many other countries as possible, but I do think it needs to be done.
What would replace it? Firstly, states should be free to choose to whom they want to give rights of residence. So we could, and should, continue to give such rights to Hong Kong Chinese, to Ukranians or to anyone else we think we should help. We can give such rights to those who bring skills or even potential (people who have done their degree here, for example) as we think fit to meet the needs of our economy at the time. But the key difference would be that it was our choice, not the choice of the self selecting few who can afford to pay the people smugglers to get here.
Even this would not solve all problems. Those who do make it here from very dangerous countries can probably not be sent back, for example, so they would be given temporary residence, perhaps with more restricted rights, until it was safe to return them. That may never happen of course.
Personally, I would combine such a change with very widespread amnesties for those already here. Our asylum/immigration service is simply not fit for purpose. It leaves people hanging in limbo for many years and fails to implement most of the decisions that it ever gets around to making. This is both cruel and capricious as well as an incredible waste of money. We should let those who are here stay and to work in our regulated economy.
So for all those that loathe it - most of PB, and Prince Charles etc - how much of this loathing is down to the destination being Rwanda?
Say if we could get the agreement to send them to Libya (as the EU is doing) would that be OK? Egypt? What about Greenland or Argentina?
Where is acceptable? France? Which we know is impossible?
Us randoms on the Internet ought to be judged differently.
It would require a UK government willing to set up a permanent asylum processing centre in France, of course.
'Well Divvie, using my newly acquired sentience, in my judgment folk who bleat on about refugees drowning in the Channel to justify sending them to Rwanda don't give the teeniest flying fuck about refugees, drownded or not.'
And if they are rejected in France they will just jump on a boat anyway. They won’t go home to Somalia or Kabul
Basically no one has any solution except some form of Rwanda. There has to be a deterrent factor, sadly